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We are Alyssa and Bri, two sisters who believe God wants more for women than we've been taught. Join us as we dive into the intersection of faith and feminism, learning together as we go.
To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my
Speaker 2:name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe
Speaker 1:that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word. And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy.
Speaker 2:It's the end of an era.
Speaker 1:The end of the world as we know it.
Speaker 2:It's the end game.
Speaker 1:That's the only end things that you
Speaker 2:know of. Taylor Swift, mostly. Good. It's the holiday season. It's over.
Speaker 2:And frankly, thank goodness. Thank goodness.
Speaker 1:How many songs can we put in? No. I'm so exhausted. For some reason, this year, this holiday season was just particularly exhausting. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm kind of over
Speaker 2:it, if I'm being honest. Like, happy holidays. It's over. Both Brie and I
Speaker 1:have said this. We love, like, the lead up to Christmas. Mhmm. The decorating, the cookie making, the wrapping the gifts. Like, we have all kinds of little traditions surrounding all of those things.
Speaker 1:But for some reason, this year, it just all of it didn't feel so magical. It just felt more like,
Speaker 2:ugh. I've gotta get this done. It was like a it's like, I've lived a million years, and I've celebrated a million Christmases, and I can't go on anymore.
Speaker 1:I think it has to do with a lot of different things. Like, I was noticing buying gifts was a lot more difficult this year because things are so much more expensive. Mhmm. And you're like, okay. Well, I wanna get this.
Speaker 1:I I'm a gift giver. I like to give the perfect gift. Mhmm. But the perfect gift was expensive, man. Or, you know, even finding the time to do things seemed more difficult than normal because it just seems like everybody's even busier than they used to be.
Speaker 2:Just like life is exhausting. Mhmm. Like, doing work and also doing life and also adding on top of life and work your normal schedule, you also have to be celebratory Mhmm. And magical. And I just freaking wanna go to bed.
Speaker 1:To be honest, our family over the holidays, like our broader extended family, tend to get together constantly. We're just really together most days between Christmas and New Year's. And I have found that I like that period much better. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:That's relaxed. Yeah. There's no pressure. I can show up with my book, and people will yell at me. That's fine.
Speaker 1:But Brie just tolerates it.
Speaker 2:I say, go ahead and yell.
Speaker 1:You show up in sweatpants. No makeup. Mhmm. It's the way to go. Yep.
Speaker 1:But I feel like for actual Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, there's so many organized things that you have to do that I don't know. December 26 might be where it's at from here on out.
Speaker 2:Yeah. December 26, man.
Speaker 1:Just chill. Relaxing. I love it.
Speaker 2:We should start writing songs about December 26.
Speaker 1:Alright. Let's get on that.
Speaker 2:Okay. Not now.
Speaker 1:I was waiting for a long pause, but no.
Speaker 2:Long pause. Long pause. I got nothing.
Speaker 1:If you're enjoying I don't know. If you have kids, your kids not being in school, and just like that more relaxed feel. Some of you might be off work. I'm with you. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I'm not off work, which is a bit of a bummer.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Sorry for you.
Speaker 1:I don't have to drive to school. I don't have to drive to dance class. So life is a little bit better right now.
Speaker 2:Take some time, some dedicated time, and say, this is what we're doing today. We are sloths. And it might be one of the seven deadly sins. Listen, Jesus forgives. And I need you to wear your pajama pants and your entire pajamas for more than one day, full day.
Speaker 2:Like, you've been wearing them for two days
Speaker 1:now. And
Speaker 2:have you showered? Maybe. It depends on how you're feeling. And if you like to read, read your book. If you want to binge through an entire series of a show, you should do that.
Speaker 1:Throw on one of those face masks that you always get as a woman for Christmas.
Speaker 2:Light one of those candles. Yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And that's life for a week.
Speaker 2:And maybe you just survive off, like, weird things that you find in the fridge.
Speaker 1:Cereal and old pizza. Yeah. Be a college student for a week.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Just like that's what your body needs.
Speaker 1:And this is medical advice from Brianna. Brie works as you all know this. She works in a dental office, and people call her a medical professional sometimes. Technically, it's true. But let me tell you, it horrifies me on a deep soul kind of level.
Speaker 1:It should. But anyway, so today is our last episode of the year. Not our last episode in general. Come back next week. We like you.
Speaker 1:Hopefully, like us.
Speaker 2:It's the end of the year. We've been doing this for over a year, but it seems like, wow. We spent a whole year
Speaker 1:doing this. Because we started in 2024, but we started in, like, March 2024. So this is our first full calendar year. We took one week off this year, so we published 51 episodes overall.
Speaker 2:And we felt kinda bad about it. We felt super guilty each week one week off.
Speaker 1:I feel like most podcasts do seasons. Yeah. We don't do seasons. We haven't taken time off.
Speaker 2:No. We've just kept going. We're dedicated to you and your lives. To you and your lives. And I know that you just wanna hear our voice.
Speaker 1:I know. Every week, cute. Honestly, it cracks me up. So normally obviously, the last couple weeks have been funky because of holidays. But normally, our episodes come out on Thursday morning.
Speaker 1:For us, it's at 10AM.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I'm usually working during that time. Sometimes I remember to jump on and listen right away, but usually within the first hour it's out. And I'll get on our, like, tracking software and look to see who listened to it before I did. And there are so many of you that are dedicated, and you're like, the moment that this is out, I'm clicking. And that makes me so happy.
Speaker 2:That does make me happy too. It's like we have a little club.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like a fun little club of people.
Speaker 2:You all can come on here and chat with us. Sure. You've listened to us. You know our vibe. Come on.
Speaker 1:Message us us on Instagram or TikTok if you have something fun to talk about. Frankly, that'd be really fun. Yeah. Because we have learned now how to record via Zoom ish. We've sort of learned.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Kind of. We kind of have. Half have.
Speaker 1:But today, we wanted to reflect on the last year and talk about some of
Speaker 2:our stats and some of our favorite moments. Just some reflection. I think that's healthy while we're here in our pajamas that we've been wearing for many days.
Speaker 1:I just put this shirt on today. Proud of you. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Speaking of Zoom, some of my favorite moments this past year was the interviews that we got to do. Mhmm. So we got to interview Alyssa's old professor, Cynthia Beach, who wrote the book, The Surface of Water, and is now coming out with the second one.
Speaker 1:I think it'll be in 2026. Her second one is coming out.
Speaker 2:Super cool book, super cool concept, highly recommend going to read that and preorder the other one. But that was really fun. And then we also got to interview Heather Fraser, who also wrote a book. I think it's called Mom Got Jesus Wrong, Hallelujah.
Speaker 1:Yes. Which actually, it wasn't available when we recorded. It is now available on Amazon. You can get it lots of different places.
Speaker 2:And it's just a fiction book about mother daughter relationship, and I think it might kinda echo themes in her life. But it was really cool getting to talk to her. Mhmm. And I highly recommend going back and listening to that episode because she's so just so knowledgeable and so cool.
Speaker 1:That one had a really cool name. We called it What in the Hallelujah?
Speaker 2:We have some really good titles. We do.
Speaker 1:I love doing the titles. So I've got some of the fun quotes from that episode. And since we're here, we'll talk about it. This was episode 66. So we are on episode I think this will be episode 89.
Speaker 2:This is episode 1,000,210. That's what it
Speaker 1:feels like sometimes. That was episode 66. So that was over the summer when we interviewed Heather. And some of the good quotes from that episode are, Hallelujah is not a whisper. It's a shout in the middle of chaos.
Speaker 1:I love that. Another one is, We sanitize our hallelujahs until they're just polite applause, which I think is really poignant when you look at, like, churches singing these songs of hallelujah to god, especially around Christmas. And it's just like standing there and not really feeling anything, not really worshiping, but just like going through the motions. Most of these quotes from this episode are from Heather. We are not this brilliant.
Speaker 2:So just keep that in mind. What are you talking about?
Speaker 1:She also said, there's a sacred wildness to saying hallelujah in the hard places. What a beautiful poetic way to
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I don't speak like that. I think this quote was from Brie. If hallelujah had a volume knob, ours would be stuck at full.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's pretty accurate. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's some just fun little moments from that.
Speaker 2:I love going back and thinking about those, though. Thinking about that word Hallelujah in her title of her book. And we grew up very Baptist. We weren't allowed to raise our hands when we were singing at church. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And sometimes those songs are inspirational. Right? You wanna raise your hands. And I remember the first time going to a different church where there was someone next to me, and she was dancing and raising her hands and really getting into it. I was like, sinner.
Speaker 2:Pardon me? What are you doing?
Speaker 1:Actually, I remember when I went to college was the first time that I got exposed to different faith they're really the same faith tradition, but
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Different versions of it. And I went with my friend to her home church, which is a very charismatic church, and they had flags that really, anybody could run and grab them, and people would run up and down the aisles during worship with these flags. And I was standing there, I'm like What's happening? Where have I gone?
Speaker 2:Gotta get out of understand what's happening. And it really yeah.
Speaker 1:We were raised that was the wrong way to worship, because Baptists sit in our chairs, we worship quietly to ourselves. Mhmm. But to be able to see different faith traditions, and to talk to Heather, who is Mormon. Mormon, exactly, And see her faith traditions that are so very different from our own, but still so very valid.
Speaker 2:And realize that there's no wrong way to worship. If you feel not called to lift your hands Mhmm. Don't lift your hands. Right. You're putting on a show.
Speaker 2:If you don't feel like that's right for you and you do it anyways, that's odd. Yep. But if you feel like you need to just sing and raise your hands just in your car, because that's where you're more comfortable to do
Speaker 1:while you're driving. Don't raise your hands while you're driving.
Speaker 2:You can drive with one hand.
Speaker 1:At least don't raise them both.
Speaker 2:In fact, I think it's encouraged just to drive with one hand.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But probably not while praising the lord. Like, oh, lord. Yay. But then you gotta Jesus take the wheel because you're gonna crash
Speaker 2:into something. Jesus took the wheel. That's why you can raise your hands.
Speaker 1:And the title of the episode is
Speaker 2:Oh. But yeah. Hallelujah.
Speaker 1:So here's some stats from the last year. I'll give you these periodically throughout the episode. Like I said, we published 51 episodes. You guys have listened to our episodes well over 1,400 times throughout the year, and we are still growing. But that is a lot
Speaker 2:of times that people have said, hey, we wanna hear you. Or even just thinking about, like, hours spent listening to us yap. Fourteen hundred hours. Wait. Let me quick do some math.
Speaker 2:That's like fifty eight days. That's fifty eight straight days of you listening to us. Yap. That's commitment. That's commitment, and
Speaker 1:I love it. When we started this podcast, we really didn't know what was coming. We didn't know what to expect. We didn't know what we were doing.
Speaker 2:No. We were like, how do you work GarageBand? Mhmm. And we were, like, talking very quietly into the same mic. So if you go back and listen to our first episode, we're talking into the same microphone, and you can't hear either of us.
Speaker 2:You have to turn up the volume all the way.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And there's so many ums and awkward pauses. And now we just don't care. No. We just say stuff.
Speaker 2:We're just talking. We have our own microphones.
Speaker 1:Thank goodness. But think about that. Like, what we said at the beginning was if we can just impact one person, that's it, just one, then it will have been worth it. It will have been worth the amount of time that we've taken on it and the amount of time that you guys have spent listening to it, interacting with us. And for fifty some odd days, you guys have been listening.
Speaker 2:And I think it's also just, like, personally very helpful because I'm not the kind of person who has a lot of motivation, just in general. I know there's some people out there who just they just keep going. They're like Energizer bunnies, and they just figure things out and they do things. Like Martha Muncannon, who we talked about last time, like, all of the things that she was able to achieve in her lifetime. My greatest achievement is, like, being able to be a very successful napper.
Speaker 2:But this podcast, I think, forces Alyssa and I to do research and learn about why we believe what we believe. And in that way, that's like a devotional for us, where we're learning about the history of the Bible and the history of women and learning about current events that affect women and how God relates to it all because we are a Christian podcaster. Surprise. But I think that's really cool that for an entire year, we've educated ourselves on everything that we've yapped about.
Speaker 1:When we started, I remember talking to my therapist, and she was like, okay. Because I was very nervous about it. She was like, how long are you willing to put into this before you say, like, alright, if we're not making money at this, then I'm gonna give up. Whatever. And I think I said, like, six months because I was very optimistic.
Speaker 2:But also, that's a stat. Like, most podcasts don't last longer than what? Like, 50 episodes? Oh, yeah. 50 episodes is, like, long.
Speaker 2:Like, a
Speaker 1:long podcast. But I've had a lot of people since then ask me, like, oh, are you making money at the podcast yet? And I'll be honest with you guys, we don't. We don't. We do this because we like to do it, because we like to talk to you.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. But that speaks to me of what we value in society. Mhmm. Have you made money at it yet? No.
Speaker 1:I haven't. But that's okay. Mhmm. Because our goal has never been, alright. Let's be billionaires based on this podcast.
Speaker 1:Yes. I don't think that's gonna happen for
Speaker 2:us. No.
Speaker 1:But simply to to impact all of you, to give you a space where you feel safe, where you feel at home, where you feel like you're talking to your sisters. And hopefully, you get that with us once a week. And that's really my whole goal from the beginning to the end.
Speaker 2:A group of sisterhoods and a couple of guys. And we all sit around. We hold pinkies, and we talk. Oh, pinkies. For an hour a week.
Speaker 2:Yep. It's a
Speaker 1:very close relationship.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Actually closer than most friendships nowadays. That's true. A lot of friendships, you spend six months and you text each other after six months and you say, we need to get together. You still living?
Speaker 2:I miss you. Here's a TikTok I found. And then you wait another six months. Adult friendships are hard. They're hard.
Speaker 1:So our top performing episodes this year, based on how many listens they got, our top one by far. By far. Okay? It would it, like, outperformed everything else by five times. Is episode 39.
Speaker 1:It was called Let's Talk and Probably Offend Someone.
Speaker 2:Now you may remember this episode. We read a book by Dene Dobson. Let's Talk Girlfriends, Guys, Growing Up.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We ripped it to shreds.
Speaker 2:This was a book that was written I didn't read it as a youth, but it was written during our youth. Mhmm. And this was very popular for girls in our circle that were growing up in, like, a conservative Christian, mostly Baptist background. Mhmm. This is what was being preached at us.
Speaker 2:And so we spent two entire episodes ripping it to shreds. Sorry, Danae. Not I'm not sorry. We were hate hate hating it.
Speaker 1:Danae did a bad job. It was bad. I would recommend going back and listening to it just because it is pretty funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We had a good time destroying it. And if you've ever listened to any of our other episodes where we talk about Girlfriends, Skies, and Garbage or Call It Something Else, that's what we're referring to.
Speaker 1:I would not recommend picking up the book. If you wanna read it just to be exposed to what some people did grow up with as a research based thing Mhmm. But don't read it as anything that's gonna, like, help you in your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I actually think it's would be interesting to hear a man's perspective Mhmm. On it, because maybe they don't know what girls were being taught Right. Back in the days, especially regarding their relationships with men. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:That would be interesting. Yeah. So if you do that, let
Speaker 1:us know. Our next top performing episode was episode 78 called Not All Men, with a question mark, where we talked about the phrase, not all men. Mhmm. And how that's kind of the common response to anytime you post anything or talk about men's violence toward Whitman in Yeah. Or just patriarchy in general, you'll see comments on all the social medias, but you'll also get them in real life where someone's like, well, not all men are like that.
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna review the whole episode for you. But we went through a whole episode just talking about how that is the wrong
Speaker 2:focus. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:The focus should be, well, this happened to you. So this is a problem.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Something that I've heard recently was instead of talking about the statistics of, like, how many women are gonna be assaulted this year, or how many women are going to have blah blah blah happen to them, flip it and say, how many men are going to assault a woman this year? How many men are going to murder someone this year? Flip the statistics because it always is about the women and the shame is being put on the woman in those situations, rather than calling it what it is and saying a man did this to a woman. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Anyways, one of the things I liked about that episode was another thing that I heard on the Internet. The first thing you learn during gun safety is treat every weapon as if it's loaded. And for women, unfortunately, men have become a weapon towards women. And you have to treat every man like they are going to hurt you. Because statistically, they could.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Well, it's the same the bear versus man argument, and you guys have heard that to death for sure. Would a woman rather be in the forest alone with a bear or with a man? And tons of women are saying, I'd rather be with the bear. Because I know the bear's probably gonna kill me, but at least that's all they're gonna do. And, yeah, that's what we have to walk into every situation like.
Speaker 2:Or they could say, well, a bear hasn't hurt me, but a man has.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Very true. So that was what we talked about in that episode. Now, our third place is a three way tie. It was episodes 76, 79, and 44.
Speaker 1:The first one is Christian Idol, part one specifically. And then we also did Monster She Wrote is episode 79. That was one of our top performing episodes as well. And that was where we talked about Mary Shelley and her book Frankenstein and just sort of, like, her life and how interesting she was.
Speaker 2:A spooky ooky dooky Halloween episode.
Speaker 1:Yes. Obviously, this is a Christian feminist podcast,
Speaker 2:but
Speaker 1:we just like to talk about women in history sometimes.
Speaker 2:Well, also, there's a gazillion women in the bible, if you didn't know. We have a giant book
Speaker 1:A gazillion.
Speaker 2:Every single woman noted in the bible. But there's so many women in history who have influenced our religion, have influenced women, who have influenced our history. But they're important to speak their names too. So let's talk about them.
Speaker 1:And then our third the third tiebreaker is episode 44.
Speaker 2:So episode 44 is called We Love You Ridiculous Humans, but it's all about talking about love and self love in different forms love can take. Loving your neighbor, loving yourself, etcetera. Etcetera.
Speaker 1:I do my best to remember them. But occasionally, I don't. It's kinda like for work. You know, you finish a project and it you erase it from your mind. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or at school, you take a test on something and then it you just wipe the slate.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's not in our long term
Speaker 1:It's gone. Gone, gone. Some of them stick. Some of them do not.
Speaker 2:My favorite thing is, like, after we put out an episode and someone talks to us about it, like, oh, when you said this, this, and this, and I'm like, I do not recall.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:Like, I remember the research that we did for it. Mhmm. But I don't remember all the silly things I say.
Speaker 1:We say a lot of silly things. So Yeah. It could really be anything.
Speaker 2:I know. And fifty eight days worth of it. True. True. Okay.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite things that happened this year was so our favorite person, Beth Allison Barr, who is the author of Biblical Womanhood and Becoming a Pastor's Wife, I found out that she was coming to my alma mater. So dramatic. On like a press tour for her new book, came out this year, was Becoming a Pastor's Wife. And I didn't even ask Alyssa if she could or would or wanted to go. I just like booked a hotel.
Speaker 2:Then I was like, guess what? We're going to see our best friend. And we made a weekend of it. We got there early. We stalked her.
Speaker 2:We definitely stalked her. I told everybody at work, I'm going to stalk this woman. She's gonna think I'm insane. But that was like one of my favorite books this year. I highly recommend.
Speaker 2:I listened to the audio and had the physical copy out, I was highlighting the crap out of it and making notes of it. But it's so interesting. She makes her writing very accessible, but also she's done so much research.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Yeah. It's accessible, but it's not simple.
Speaker 2:Yeah. She read like a 162 books. Mhmm. All either from different pastors' wives or about pastors' wives and breaks down the history of like, how did this become a role in the church? Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Why is it important? And and much, much more.
Speaker 1:We have many a copy of this book at this point. Yes. I think we just gave our last one away, our last one that's not ours.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite moments from that moment was when we went up to get our books signed. And my sister does not know how to handle herself. She just doesn't. And so we get up there, and she just starts blubbering.
Speaker 2:And poor Beth, poor Beth didn't know
Speaker 1:what to do. Brie says, oh my gosh, you followed us on TikTok, it was
Speaker 2:the best moment of my
Speaker 1:whole entire life. And this one probably doesn't even run her own TikTok. Okay? I don't think she's on TikTok, really. And she just looked at you like you had lost your dang mind.
Speaker 2:Well, it's true.
Speaker 1:Not in the head.
Speaker 2:And then we left. And we were able to write on a sticky note in our book how we wanted her to sign our books. And I exclusively refer to her as, you know, our best friend Beth. And so we had her sign it as from your best friend. Beth.
Speaker 2:If you're listening to this.
Speaker 1:Someday, perhaps she'll listen, and she'll be horrified, and then she will never come on our podcast.
Speaker 2:That's possible.
Speaker 1:That was a great moment. It was a fun, like, I don't know, extra thing
Speaker 2:that we get to do. Mhmm. And then we went around my old college library, and we hid a bunch of our stickers and our business card. Yeah. We did.
Speaker 2:I forgot about that. Within the shelves.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think we hid some at the bookstore too. Probably. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We were a little wild.
Speaker 1:Honestly, we're not wild all that wild separate from each other. But when we're together, something happens.
Speaker 2:And that's a sisterly bond for you. And I would also like to say that anybody who enters my circle, I also will bring out the crazy in you.
Speaker 1:That's true. She does. Even our grandmother. Yeah. I had started researching Christian feminism, and I read Jesus Feminist by Sarah Bessie was my first one that I read.
Speaker 1:And Brie kept telling me to start a blog because I had so many thoughts. I had many a thought.
Speaker 2:She would yap at me a lot.
Speaker 1:And I thought about writing a blog, but part of what I do for a living is write. And I just that's too much in the same realm. And so I asked Brie if she would do a podcast with me. And I think back to when I was thinking that through, I thought about just doing it by myself. I thought about having Brie help me sometimes just because of our differing schedules.
Speaker 1:But I'm thinking about it. I'm like, if I had done this by myself or if you had done this by yourself, it would have been like you know how after Friends, they tried to do like a spin off when it was just Joey and no one watched it ever?
Speaker 2:I didn't watch it.
Speaker 1:They did. I don't even think you can find it anywhere because it was so bad. Because one without the rest was bad. And I think that's what it would be. If it was just one of us.
Speaker 1:Neither of
Speaker 2:us could do it. We need each other. We're codependent.
Speaker 1:We really are. It's a big problem. We may need therapy.
Speaker 2:It's fine. Not may.
Speaker 1:We do. Definitely need therapy.
Speaker 2:Oh, something interesting that came out this year was Shiny Happy People. Yes. Season two. So the first season was centered on Bill Gothard's church,
Speaker 1:the Duggars, specifically, like, the
Speaker 2:Duggar family and all of that. Did a deep dive into that. But this new season that came out this year was all about something called Teen Mania. Mhmm. Which was like a youth event that I just encourage you to go watch that season.
Speaker 2:It's very interesting to see how people can exploit the
Speaker 1:youths Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And use God's name Mhmm. For money and fame and power. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, that season was particularly important to us because our cousin was part of that organization at one point in her life. And she did quite a few blog posts on it. If you wanna look her up, can find her on Substack. It's called The Wild and the Wondrous. She does a lot of, like, nature based content, but she did a series about her time and her experience with that organization.
Speaker 1:And so reading her life experience while also watching the series and then doing external research and recording for it was really interesting.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Helped me get to know her better, helped me understand some people from our generation better.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You know, it was really interesting.
Speaker 2:It was interesting too because it didn't happen so long ago. Right. And it was something that when we were growing up, we were invited to one of these, like, they were called Acquire the Fire. Mhmm. It was like a giant I don't wanna say it was like a concert.
Speaker 2:It was like a stadium event. Stadium event. They had like a little bit of preaching, a lot of music, some like skit type content. But yeah, we were invited to go to one of these And now seeing it on TV is, maybe this wasn't for the best. Right.
Speaker 2:I watch a
Speaker 1:lot of like cult type content.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And it's so far removed from my reality. Mhmm. If I'm watching stuff about the Church of Scientology or stuff about Bill Gothard even, which is a little bit closer to home but still far enough away that it wasn't part of my circle. Whereas this was so close to home. Like, it never quite directly affected us, but it was it did, in a way, the teachings from that organization Yes.
Speaker 1:Seep into what we were being taught at church. Just like Danae Dobson.
Speaker 2:Another event that happened this year, James Dobson died. We did a whole episode We did. On him and his teachings. He started Focus on the Family, which was part of our childhood. Yep.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say that all of the teachings were in our childhood, but it definitely kind of surrounded our family and the families around us. So that would be a very interesting episode to go back and look at. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:That one was called Dobson Failed Families. And that was a very controversial episode, I think, within Christian circles. It
Speaker 2:was very interesting to see social media after he had passed away. Mhmm. Because so many people came forward, they were just telling their stories of like, hey, my family very directly followed his teachings, and this is why I've left church. Mhmm. This is why I've left religion.
Speaker 2:This is why not necessarily, like, celebrating this person's death, but maybe they feel like a sense of freedom. Right. Because they felt abused by this man.
Speaker 1:I think the comments you would see on posts like that too, it was fifty fifty. It was either like, oh, yeah, me too. Or it was, how dare you say something bad about this man? Even if he didn't do everything right, he did a lot of things right.
Speaker 2:He did die on my birthday.
Speaker 1:He did die on your birthday. But I think it's so important to believe other people's stories.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I guess maybe there are some people out there that were not overly damaged by his teachings. Having researched him, very damaging teachings. But that might be your truth, that you read something of his and it actually helped you. But your truth doesn't negate someone else's truth. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And so you have to look at it like that. Okay. It helped me, but it damaged a lot of people. So now I need to look at this in a new light. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And say, okay. I can still take my good from it from the past, but I need to acknowledge that it was a lot of bad. Don't eat the poop brownie is what I'm saying. And if you don't get that, go back and listen to that episode because we talked about that analogy. Let's talk about some of our TikTok stats real quick.
Speaker 1:So over the last year, we've had a 111,000 TikTok views, over 200 comments. Our most viewed post was one that says, faith, feminism, infinite wisdom. Just kidding. We're terrifying, but in the best way. And our second most popular post and probably our most controversial post said, always remember, modesty isn't a fruit of the spirit.
Speaker 1:And people got real mad
Speaker 2:about Oh, that that one. So mad. Go back and look at all the comments there and our responses to that. I we have done a whole episode on modesty. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And how the word modesty really just means self control.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:In the original Greek, it just means self control. And that's exactly what it is, controlling yourself. And not worrying about controlling someone else. Mhmm. And so often, modesty is worrying about how someone else would perceive you.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And that's none of your business.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You just have to worry about you. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Well, in the actual verse that references modesty that most people talk about is speaking about not wearing your best clothes to church.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Don't be overt about like, oh, I'm so wealthy. Look at me.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Because if you look back in the historical context, it says don't wear purple. Don't braid your hair. And to us, if you didn't know, that sounds bizarre. Why can't I French braid my hair if I want to?
Speaker 2:But in that particular time, braiding your hair and wearing purple meant that your status was a lot higher. Right. So they didn't want you to show that off in church. That's not what they wanted you to worry about. They wanted you to worry about God,
Speaker 1:and that's it. And if you were wearing your best things, if you were the fanciest person there, someone who came in and was poor may not feel comfortable in that space. And the point was to make everyone feel like this was their safe space.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And I believe in that episode, we talk about, like, your Sunday best. Mhmm. And how when we grew up, there was such a thing about wearing your Sunday best to church. And you always, for women, at least in the churches that we grew up in, you had to wear a dress.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And how bizarre that is. Because really all that matters is that you show up. And I think churches now do a better job at like, just show up how you wanna show up. But there are definitely still churches out there that if you walked in your leggings and your sweatshirt, they would maybe turn you around.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think quite a few churches still. We've removed ourselves from that space, but it's definitely many a church.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I loved our responses on that post, though. I get a little bit stressed out when responding to social media comments. It just gives me some anxiety.
Speaker 2:I enjoy it.
Speaker 1:So I usually let Brie do that. So Brie went a little wild. But I also responded to some of them, and I was like, I remember being super sassy with one person because they were like, here's this verse, blah blah blah. And I was like, oh, good try, but no. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, so close, but no success.
Speaker 1:You tried. Here's a badge. Nope. You failed. We were listened to this year in 41 different countries around the world.
Speaker 1:That's so cool. That's, like, one of the numbers that we love to talk about. Not because it's look how many countries like, there's a lot more countries out there. Don't get me
Speaker 2:wrong. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But around the world, people are listening to us. People have heard our voices.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I don't know if all of you understand us because we talk
Speaker 2:fast. We're like Gilmore Girls.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But it's just it's super cool. It's really cool to see. And our tracking software has, like, a little map, and it highlights the different countries we've been listened to in. And it's just cool to see.
Speaker 1:Our top three countries listened this year are The US. We are US based, so it's not that surprising. And Spain and Canada are our top listened countries.
Speaker 2:What up, Spain? Hello. We see you listening to us before we do.
Speaker 1:And it's just cool to think that you guys, in 41 countries around the world, have taken time and listened to some of the stupid things we've said. Some of the really, really, really intelligent things we've said. Some of the world changing things that we have said.
Speaker 2:Inspirational, groundbreaking, gorgeous women. Yes. That is what we call ourselves every day of
Speaker 1:our lives. And frankly, I encourage you to call yourself that too. Yeah. That's one of the things that I have tried really hard with my daughter to, like, impart upon her since she was little. I am constantly telling her she is beautiful.
Speaker 1:She's smart. She's kind. She's an amazing person. And I've done it so much that now if you tell her those things, she goes, I know. And that might sound cocky to some of you.
Speaker 1:But I want you all to know that too. I want you to know that you are beautiful and kind and smart and amazing and that people want to be around you and that we wanna be around you. And hold that as your truth because God thinks that too. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:You should be able to look in the mirror and say, dang, good looking. I love you. And I think that has been something that's come out of our research and deconstructing our faith. Because so often women are taught to be very humble and meek and demure. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:But to be able to say, I'm awesome. Mhmm. I'm really good looking. I have a great personality, and I'm wonderful. And also encourage other women and say that about other women.
Speaker 2:I think that's the biggest thing. It's like, it's okay to say that about yourself, but it's even better to say that about other people too and build each other up with outrageous amounts of confidence is world changing Mhmm.
Speaker 1:For people. We heard in church one time, it's not like God created you and then made a purpose for you and whatever. There was a need in the world. And so to fill that need in the world, God created you specifically. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:To fill that gap. You were put here to do a very specific thing because God saw a a need, and he said, I need this exact person to fill that need. You can't do that if you don't fully believe in yourself, if you don't believe in all the things that God made you to be. And as Baptist Christians, not that we are anymore, but, like, growing up in that space, I think we were so often taught, yeah, meek, mild, humble, you can never say a good thing about yourself. But God says so many good things about you throughout the Bible that he created you for a purpose, that he loves you, that you are amazing, that you have so much potential.
Speaker 1:And if God is saying those things about you and you're not saying those things about yourself, then you're lying to yourself and lying to sin. So there you go. So there you go. That's my logic.
Speaker 2:Going back to learning about biblical and unbiblical women. One of my favorite episodes I have a lot of favorite episodes, but this one, I love the title so much. It's called, Who Told Y'all She Was a Hooker? And I don't have that episode number. But that was when we did a deep dive into who is Mary Magdalene and why is she so important.
Speaker 2:She was incredibly important. I highly encourage you to go back and listen to that episode. But she was called the apostle to the apostles. And, like, Jesus is one of His best friends. The first person that Jesus turned to when He rose from the grave and was like, Hey, go tell everybody that I'm alive.
Speaker 2:Mary, my bestie. And how important it was that the first person he turned to was a woman Mhmm. After he did a miracle, saved the planet. Mhmm. I really like that title, though.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Who told y'all she was a hooter? Because that's not true. That's an important That is an important part. That's important.
Speaker 1:Well, that's we talked about that in that episode, that there are so many rumors about who she was because people took a bunch of different stories from the bible and combined them and said these were all Mary Magdalene.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. There's, like, 42 different Marys
Speaker 1:There's so many Marys.
Speaker 2:In the bible. With all
Speaker 1:the translations, don't you think we could they certainly weren't actually named, like Yeah. Mary as an English word. Couldn't we have changed some of their names?
Speaker 2:Mary a. Just b.
Speaker 1:Mary c. It was chaos. I didn't realize that we started the year out like this.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. I remembered.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But we called it Our Stories Remixed. And we did this because our very first episode back in March 2024 was called Our Stories. And as Brie said, we recorded on one microphone. Frankly, you couldn't hear us.
Speaker 2:And we were quiet, and we were scared. It was our first time talking into a microphone, and we were huddled around my computer. And it was not good. It was uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:And we didn't, like we were like, do we look at each other? Do we do we talk to each other? Do we talk to the people? What do
Speaker 2:we do? And it's like, if you've ever tried to record a TikTok or something, like record yourself, and you're not comfortable with that, it just it came across as, like, wildly uncomfortable. And also sharing deep secrets. Mhmm. Not secrets, but, like, our Personal things.
Speaker 2:Our stories. We needed to do it again.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that's how we started this year off, 2025. We retold our stories, and I think we we were able to add some to it as well because at that point, we had kind of been through the ringer with the church that we were in when we started the podcast Mhmm. And some of the experiences that we had until that point. And I got Brie to expand on her story because, frankly, when we did the first one, she talked for four minutes and said,
Speaker 2:I'm done. I didn't have a lot to say.
Speaker 1:So if you're gonna listen to our stories, yes, you can listen to the first one if you want just to laugh at us. I would recommend episode 38 because it's just a little bit more clear. Some of the quotes from that one. And I don't know which of us said this because our we have transcripts, but we don't actually have who said what on the transcripts.
Speaker 2:And our voices are so similar. Mhmm. Even I will acknowledge that. Like, sometimes I'll be going back and editing the podcast, and I'll be like, I have no idea which one of us that We
Speaker 1:use an AI software to help us edit, and it can't tell who's who. So I don't know who's who. Some of the quotes from this episode were, I am not the sidekick in my own story. Another one is, everyone else's script doesn't get to run my life. And the third one is, storytelling is holy when it's honest.
Speaker 1:I love that one. We often get told to edit our stories.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Part of we've both done a program called Rooted. It's a very common, like, small group program in churches. And they want you to do your testimony. They want you to figure out your testimony, like your come to Jesus story, and be ready to share it at a moment's notice. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But those stories are very rarely honest. They're meant to tug at your heartstrings, but they're very rarely hard and real and honest. And here's the struggles that I've had with the church, and here's the struggles that I've had with Christians and Christian nationalists and whatever.
Speaker 2:I also think a testimony can be so much more than here's when I became a Christian. Mhmm. Here's when I said the sinner's prayer. Because coming from a person that I grew up in the church, I got saved three, four, maybe five times, just to make sure that it stuck. All when I was very young.
Speaker 2:But I think a testimony, too, is looking at someone and saying like, here's what I believe. Here's why I believe it. But I can acknowledge that it's not all perfect. I had a friend come up to me the other day who is looking at the world around her and looking at the people who claim to be Christians and seeing nothing but hate in this world. And she's not a Christian.
Speaker 2:And she came up to me and she's like, how can you believe what you believe and also not agree with these people who are also saying they're a Christian? Like, how do you continue?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I think that's a testimony. Uh-huh. Is saying, like, we don't all think this way.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:This is not normal. Here's what I believe. God is love. Mhmm. And God sent his son to die for us.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And I believe that after Jesus died, now we have to be the hands and feet of Jesus. And that just means loving each other. And that doesn't mean sending people back to different countries that they never came from. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And that doesn't mean starving people and separating families. Like, it's the opposite. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:There are so many more episodes that we could go into. I literally have a list of, like, 10 episodes with good quotes and stuff. Some of my favorite ones. I put on Our Stories Remixed, Wait For It, where we talked about the church's obsession with weight.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Who told y'all she was a hooker? Which, by the way, is episode 52.
Speaker 2:You go. Go back and listen to it.
Speaker 1:Now you know. Where You Lead, I will also lead.
Speaker 2:And if you don't understand that, that is the theme song to Gilmore Girls. Everybody knows that. Where you lead, I will follow. Yep. But I we switched it around.
Speaker 1:That one we talked about women leading in the church, women leading in the bible. We did one called I like to do titles with song names because I think they're funny. This one's called I Will Provide. Instead of I Will Survive. Yep.
Speaker 1:What in the Hallelujah? Not all men. Shiny, happy cult survivors, which we've talked about a lot of these. Feed the people. Dear Men, You're Not Listening.
Speaker 1:And those were kind of some of my favorites. There are so many standout moments from this year Mhmm. That we could go into, but I trust that if you wanna listen to those episodes, that you will. We're very proud of this. And I hope you guys know that it's because of you.
Speaker 1:Because if no one was listening, we probably wouldn't be doing this.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's true.
Speaker 1:It would probably discourage us enough to stop if after a year and a half, we we had no one.
Speaker 2:Just just us. Me, her, and our mom. We
Speaker 1:get to do this. We are privileged enough to be able to have the time to be living in the same space to be able to do this. And it's amazing. It's something that I'm very proud of. At the end of my life, no matter how this goes from here, this will be one of my favorite achievements.
Speaker 1:Maybe I'll get our logo tattooed on me somewhere. On your butt cheek? Yeah. On my butt cheek.
Speaker 2:That'll be fun. We can get matching butt cheek tattoos. Cool.
Speaker 1:And I just I liked reflecting on this. I liked doing the research for it and going back and just finding out some of the things that were important to us over the year.
Speaker 2:I think it it's really nice to be able to take this time, stop, and look back at a whole year's worth of content and just spend some time reminiscing. Like, there were a lot of really powerful and good episodes that I look back on, and you're right, I'm super proud of. Like, I really liked the episode on feeding the people. I think it is very important. And I think it's important to call out the people who are calling themselves Christians Yep.
Speaker 2:And not feeding the people. Yep.
Speaker 1:On that note, I think as the new year begins, I would like to talk about to do a little miniseries on some of the pastors and the political figures calling themselves Christians that are not behaving as Christians, that are not working towards equality. Yikes. One of the pastors I wanna focus on is Mark Driscoll, who is very problematic. We've referenced him before, but we've never actually done an episode on him before. There is also a pastor.
Speaker 1:She's a woman who is the spiritual adviser to the president right now. James Dobson was the spiritual adviser to several presidents, including mister Trump. So her name is Paula White, and a quote from her recently is, to say no to president Trump would be to say no to God. Oh
Speaker 2:my gosh. Yes. If that isn't blasphemy, I don't know what is. So
Speaker 1:we'll be talking about a few of those figures, maybe two or three episodes, just talking about some of these really problematic things, like Brie said, when you claim to be a Christian, and yet these are the people in theory who are representing your faith to the world. How do you stand up against that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Someone's gotta get smote.
Speaker 1:Lightning bolts eventually. Yep. Alright. So tune in for that next year. I hope you guys have an amazing new year.
Speaker 1:I think this comes out on New Year's Day, so I hope that you are having a wonderful new year. I wish the very best for you in 2020
Speaker 2:I hope 2026 is world's better than 2025. Man. Or I hope Jesus finally comes.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That'll work too. Hallelujah. Alright. Thank you guys for a wonderful 2025.
Speaker 1:We love you so much.
Speaker 2:Happy New Year. Bye. Bye.