Advertise on podcast: Growing Up Church

Growing up in church for some, felt like having religion shoved down their throat. My older sister didn’t grow up in church like my other siblings and I. She came to church and Christianity a little later in her childhood. And with that I could see how she could feel like her experience growing up felt forced. So we talked about it. And try to answer the question, what’s the difference between growing up in a religious environment vs having religion forced on you?

In this episode, I talk about why there hasn’t been any new episodes of the podcast for about a year and also why I created Growing Up Church and my initial vision for the podcast.

“What benefits do you find in belonging to Jesus?” This is a question a friend of mine and listener of the show asked if I could answer on the podcast. But I struggled to answer the question of belonging because I realized I didn’t feel like I belonged. And that realization led me to ask myself “What does it mean to belong to Jesus?”. So to help me answer this question I invited two other friends of mine to help me answer this question.

Deconstructing one’s faith is a process that I have started to become more aware about through various podcasts and social media posts but also something I know very little about. So in this episode I decided to invite my good friend Grace, co-host of the podcast Graced With Questions, to help me define what it means to deconstruct your faith along with why we don’t talk about that in church.

In this episode I reflect on what I learned about myself this year and how I plan on moving into 2022, Lord willing!

I invited my good friend Lydia back to the GUC podcast to talk about her experience abroad in Bible college and how that has changed or even enlightened her personal relationship with God.

On this episode of Growing Up Church my guest Lauren uses Facebook to have conversations about issues within the Christian church. So in this episode we’re going to talk a little about her decision to have these conversations as well as have her share about her own growing up church experiences.

Minnie, Melody and Chrissy were guests on GUC last season for the Black Joy episode. In this episode they join me as we revisit that conversation and talk about how walking out their own faith looks like now.

In this episode I reflect on the events of 2020 and how that has shaped my relationship with church now while also sharing how I’m moving forward in 2021.

In the final episode of season 1 of GUC I thought I would switch-gears and share a positive and uplifting story of a few black women finding some joy in the midst of the chaotic world around them.

The number of non-black people speaking up and speaking out against police brutality and racism in this country is more than we’ve seen in the past few years. So I spoke to two friends of mine, Jocelyn and Laura about their response as an ally and what you can or should do to be an ally right now.

Growing up in a predominantly black church I don’t remember many discussions about racism even though it was definitely happening and we were all talking about it outside of church. In this episode, my play cousin Chris Francois and I talk about the impact the killings of Ahmad Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd have had on us personally as well as grappling with our blackness and our Christian beliefs in this country.