The Expansionist Podcast
Shelly Shepherd and Heather Drake invite you to listen in on a continuing conversation about expanding spirituality, the Divine Feminine, and the transforming impact of living attuned to Wisdom, Spirit and Love.
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The Expansionist Podcast
Beyond the Campfire with Cara Meredith
What happens when the sacred spaces of our childhood reveal themselves to be breeding grounds for exclusion? Cara Meredith joins us to unpack her three-decade journey through evangelical church camp culture and the awakening that led to her powerful new book.
From her first experience as a 9-year-old camper in 1988 to her final speaking engagement at a family camp in 2018, Cara's relationship with Christian camping environments evolved from wholehearted participation to thoughtful criticism. The turning point came when she witnessed firsthand the harm inflicted on LGBTQ+ individuals, women, and people of color within these supposedly sacred spaces.
"When it comes to the God who is love, when it comes to this God that I am meeting and promoting, who does no harm—if that is who I truly believe that God is, that God is a God of love and that God then calls us to be people of love and people who do no harm, then these two don't align," Cara explains, describing the dissonance that eventually led her away from evangelical camping environments.
We explore how church camps often present a singular male image of God, reinforcing complementarianism, purity culture, and even elements of white Christian nationalism. Yet paradoxically, these same natural settings hold profound potential for authentic spiritual connection. As Heather reflects, "We were so close to the divine, we were so close to the mystery... Earth is our first monastery."
The conversation moves beyond mere criticism to envision a better way forward—one where camps might become truly inclusive spaces that honor the sacred in everyone. Cara's journey reminds us that loving something deeply sometimes means being willing to criticize it, not out of bitterness but from a profound hope for transformation.
Anyone who has experienced church camp—whether fondly or painfully—will find resonance in this honest exploration of how seemingly benign religious institutions can both form and harm us, and how we might reclaim what is beautiful while addressing what has caused damage.
You can find out more about Cara Meredith by visiting her website https://www.carameredith.com
You can purchase her new book Church Camp at https://ggpbooks.com/book/9798889831006 or your favorite local bookstore.
Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with Shelley Shepard and Heather Drake. In each episode, we dive deep into conversations that challenge conventional thinking, amplify diverse voices and foster a community grounded in wisdom, spirit and love.
Speaker 2:Hey, Heather, Welcome Kara. It's great to have you both on the Expansionist Podcast today. I'm super excited to dive into church camp. How about you, Heather?
Speaker 1:I'm excited to talk with our friend Kara. I have experiences with church camp and I wouldn't say that I'm super excited, and so this is going to be a really fun conversation and we don't have to even have bug spray, so this is going to be great Church camp no bug spray yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Wow Well, welcome Kara. It's great to have you. I'm just going to share with our listeners a little bit about who you are. Kara is a writer, speaker and sought-after conversationalist which I love that word. A former high school English teacher and nonprofit outreach director. Her writings have appeared in numerous print and online publications the Color of Life, a spiritual memoir about her journey into issues of justice, race and privilege, which was released in February. She holds a Master of Theology from Fuller Seminary and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family. I am excited. Heather said she wasn't excited, but I'm excited to talk about it.
Speaker 1:Oh no, I'm excited to talk about that, but we were going to talk about church camp and I have experiences with church camp and bugs and all the other kind of things. Yeah, she's allergic to a lot of things.
Speaker 2:So I'm excited to have-. Yeah, she's allergic to a lot of bugs she doesn't like bugs. I am.
Speaker 3:I am that's where she goes with church camp.
Speaker 2:But when I read the pieces in your book about your story here and I find the color of life a fascinating entry point to. Maybe that's another podcast, but we're here today to talk about Church Camp.
Speaker 2:your book that was just released yesterday Takes a posture and a position yes, congratulations on that Takes a posture and position that you spent 30 years, I think you said, in the pre-show in this industry of white American, white evangelicalism, this subculture of camping. Wow, you have a lot to unpack with us today and now you're here to kind of talk about it and also talk against it. And from an expansionist perspective today, the expansionist podcast it allows us to take something that we've always thought as truth and stretch that thing.
Speaker 2:So here we are, we're going to stretch with you today and hear your heart, and I'm highly curious I have like the first question I want to ask is how did this shift occur in you, where you spent 30 years and then I'm sure it wasn't all of a sudden, but things started to shift or change in you. What shifted? Did you stop believing in camp? Shift or change in you what shifted? Did you stop believing in camp or did you start believing in some kind of other camp? Can you share with us about that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, great question. Also, it sounds like I probably should have my Amazon bio updated. The Color of Life came out in 2019.
Speaker 2:So I will be sure. Oh, there's that. Okay, so, there's that, so I'll be sure to talk to my's that.
Speaker 4:Okay, so there's that. So I'll be sure to talk to my publicist and or whomever to get that updated. But church camp, which is what we're talking about today, as we were chatting about before the show, I went to my first camp, if you count being a camper in 1988 when I was nine years old, being a camper in 1988 when I was nine years old, and you could say that I didn't leave until 2018, which was the last time I ever spoke at a camp. The last youth camp I ever spoke at was in 2014. And then the last family camp, again in this particular environment, under the umbrella of white evangelicalism, was in 2018. So, 30 years of my life.
Speaker 4:As far as the breaking point or what changed or what happened, the reality is that I loved camp for a long, long time and I do continue to love camp. I think it is a magical, sacred place and I recognize the tension of harm that often happens theologically but also to people, and it was that harm that started to turn me away In particular. It was one of those that I began to see the harm that was happening to LGBTQ identifying folks in particular, and even if I couldn't articulate what I was seeing or how it was um causing friction within me. There was something that wasn't right, Um, and and I began to ask more questions and sometimes, um, it really began to feel like there were more questions than answers, which, which, I, side note, value so much, um, but for me, it was starting to see the harm caused to the queer community, to people of color and to women in particular. That began to change my mind.
Speaker 2:Well, I want to hear I want to hear that story a little bit. The queer story is the marginalized story, like what, what surfaced for you in, or what were you seeing in um, in that tribe, um, what was going on?
Speaker 4:yeah, um, well, for readers, um, for those who pick up this book, they will see the very first page. It says to michael weldon and sarah powell, two camp friends who changed the story for me and, um, without getting deep into either of their stories Sarah's story is actually told in the book and I have permission to tell her story but those were two camp friends that I worked with for a number of years who loved Jesus more than anyone. I knew those two people as individuals, but also collectively. They changed lives and they were both kicked out. They were kicked out of the environments that they had called home, that they had found an identity in, that they had been a part of, which is to say of white evangelical church camp environments when they came out or when they were outed white evangelical church camp environments when they came out or when they were outed.
Speaker 4:And for me, that was the dissonance, was watching both of them and wondering, as complicit as I was sometimes also going. This doesn't seem right. When it comes to the God who is love, when it comes to this God that I am meeting and promoting, who does no harm If that is who I truly believe that God is, that God is a God of love and that God then calls us to be people of love and people who do no harm, then these two don't align, they don't go together anymore.
Speaker 1:I love that you brought that up to us, because that is for us, for Shelly and myself, but I hope for the world becoming this, understanding that God is love. Everything else needs to bow its knee to that truth. You know Jesus being love and the word being subject to who Jesus actually is. But in the book of Romans it says that love does no harm to its neighbor and therefore love is the fulfillment of the law, and so our responsibility as people who are saying that we're followers of Jesus must be also to make sure that love is being done to our neighbors. Like my freedom or my wholeness is not mine alone, it is a collective, it is I am supposed to be my brother's keeper, and so if my brothers or sisters are being harmed, it is then my responsibility to say we need to stop this or we need to open a door and have a dialogue so this can stop. But to be able to say here is the bottom line for all of us If it's harming a neighbor, then we absolutely must talk about it. We must stop it.
Speaker 1:For me, I look at this I have many, many Jewish friends and I love them and have loved them my whole life. But if I am not, a person who doesn't just say, say there needs to be freedom and wholeness for the Jewish people, but also freedom and wholeness for my Muslim brothers and sisters and their friends as well. So being able to say it's not just for one, but it's for all, this is a really important conversation to have and to look at and go. What am I doing to bring wholeness into the conversation?
Speaker 2:Carol, what were you witnessing with women? That was another tribe that you just named that caused the dissidence for you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and again, this question is interesting for me to answer because I recognize in and through the book that camp was a place and again, this particular facet of Christian camping, um camp was a place that exalted me and exalted me as a woman, because I was who they were looking for. Um, I fit the bill, I fit the mold. However you want to say it Now, I I was mostly then speaking Um, so part of it I was a camper, but then I was a volunteer, I was a summer staff and then a summer staff person and then, when I graduated from college, I became a high school English teacher. So I had my summers off and I still needed to pay rent. I didn't know how to have a 12 month paycheck, so I needed to somehow pay rent during the summer and ended up starting to speak during the summer. So I was a camp speaker at camps that would allow women to speak that were still evangelical. So in that way I did benefit from these environments in being able to be the person who proclaimed the gospel, who stood up on stage, who preached or spoke to hundreds upon thousands of students over really a 15-year period.
Speaker 4:But, that being said, these were also environments in a myriad of different ways. Oftentimes there was a singular image of God that was presented, image of God that was presented, and that was a singular image that was both a male and a father figure. And I think, as we've spoken briefly about, to then limit God to either being male or female, and or to limit God solely to being a father, is doing a disservice not only to women but also to young men. But but I think about all of those kids, those elementary, middle and high school students that I spoke of, to whom I only used or referenced male pronouns and only introduced the figure of God as a father to them and in that way, um, I, I was, I was also saying this is who God most likes, this is who God most prefers, and so I was also inadvertently toward myself and to others, favoring one half of the population over the other.
Speaker 4:I think when that then happens which does happen in a lot of white evangelical environments that are limited solely to male images of God, then that's also where you begin to see elements of complementarianism that play into men and women having distinct roles. That then plays into purity culture, which absolutely comes out full force in environments like this, many times to the detriment of young girls and women, and that we could even go so far as to saying also then plays into values of white Christian nationalism. So this is something that I unpack quite a bit in one of the chapters, but it's fascinating to see how the dominoes start falling, all from simply introducing a singular image of who God might be. That was a lot.
Speaker 2:That was a lot to hold and to soak with you right there. And yet Heather and I both grew up in evangelical churches, so we know exactly what you are referring to here, with the division between male and female which I think is part of the journey. Now, for myself, is to really express the feminine spirit of God in ways that maybe we missed along the way, got pictures or pieces of her, but now we have this opportunity to talk more about the feminine. But yes, those evangelical roots are so deep and so threaded in our fabric that when I saw the title of your book and this invitation about church camp, wow, my mind went like in a thousand directions. Some very exciting times at church camp and others.
Speaker 2:I can remember when I was 12 years old. That was just this crazy evangelical move and I knew it was crazy and yet I complied with it. And and so talk to us a little bit about the. This subculture of camping is used to become a structure for this normative white culture evangelicalism. How does this keep happening? Is it still happening? Obviously, I'm not involved in church camping or church camp I don't know if Heather is but is this still?
Speaker 1:happening. Heather is not. Sorry, did you have something, heather? No, I just said Heather is not. Shelly said are you still involved in church camp? I said Heather is not. I want to just jump in here, kara, because you have, I'm sure, something to say to that and I'm very interested in it.
Speaker 1:But to me, as we start talking about church camp again and Shelly and I coming from evangelical, fundamental type of Christianity, I mourn the fact that we were so close to something else. You know, I think about the fact that you take a bunch of people and you take them out into the forest I mean, I went to Silver Birch Camp up north and it is glorious into these Silver Birch forests and you get them away from their work, you get them away from the things that maybe distract them. And the camps that I have been to have been beautiful, of course, as God designed, but just towering beautiful trees, of course, as God designed, but you know, just towering beautiful trees, usually a sparkling lake, usually, you know, a cooler time of the year, or even in the forest it's cooler. And so I now I look at that and go. What an incredible experience it would have been to say nothing, like to bring people out and say, here, sit with a tree for a while, and of course then that would have been absolutely not allowed.
Speaker 1:But to me I look at that and go oh, we were so close, we were so close to the divine, we were so close to the mystery, we were so close to going get outside of yourself and talk with somebody who doesn't look like you, who doesn't pray like you, who doesn't listen like you, and learn something from that.
Speaker 1:Pray like you, who doesn't listen like you and learn something from that. And so I am hopeful that on all the places that we were skirting by, that the spirit is still very able to like, reveal or unveil things, and there could be truths for that. But I listened to us talk about the beginning of what this is, and I would tell people that I would love for us to go back outside and to receive earth as our first monastery. You know, to be able to say what is it like? If you're struggling right now to figure out these things, if that feels, you know, like you have bad experiences with church camp, I mean, maybe yours are only good and I hope that for you, but if you have bad experiences, to still go back out to a camp and to sit back and go. What would you have said to me, god, if you were allowed to speak?
Speaker 4:Yeah, Well, I feel like, between what both of you just said, it might take me at least five hours to respond. Okay, I'll try. I'll try so in under five minutes.
Speaker 1:what kind of response can you or actually, what can you just point us in the direction of? We can read your book. That's really exciting, but what can we think about that we haven't thought about before?
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, I absolutely have responsive thoughts. I just think I'm just sitting here also loving the fact that we really could chat for the next day, because there's, I feel like we're on the same page. There's so much to talk about. So so first I'll work backwards, but first of all, heather, what you said as camps are, I love camp. I mean and as I mentioned before we began recording I love camp and because I love camp, I criticize camp.
Speaker 4:Camps were originally intended and I would say are still intended, even if things have gotten a little awry in some environments not all environments, but camps were originally intended as a place of getting out in nature, of creator, kissing creation, of humans being able to meet with God. In that way, take me to a camp and all I have to do is just sit there under a tree, maybe with my bug spray, and stare at creation, stare at the world around me, because I know and I can trust that in that moment God will find me. Now, in that there are also there are so many conversations that can happen here about how we don't actually need to do a whole lot in order for humans to meet God, which is to say, for God to meet humans, and I think there also have become overly programmatic elements in camps, not only with the aesthetics and in sometimes feeling like we have to make them too beautiful, but also in the programmatics that come to kids and humans when that is not needed. You don't need that much to step into nature, but again, I think there is a point of crossing the line and this is perhaps where we get into, I would say, a religion and a spirituality that is oftentimes marked by exclusion, and that is, I think again in this particular instance or facet of white evangelicalism, what is often found or what often happens. So that's where you do.
Speaker 4:Then I think it starts oftentimes with an exclusion toward those who might be more progressive in their theology. If we were to look at the way in which evangelicals might define themselves, be that politically within, religiously, within their belief systems, or culturally within religiously within their belief systems or culturally, um, there is a, there is a prescribed norm of what you believe and of what you say and of how you vote, and if you do anything that's outside of that, then you're not necessarily welcomed in. Um, it might be an exclusion toward those who don't believe that the bible is um, the literal word of god, which is part of oftentimes, um, the bevyton quadrilateral, how evangelicals define themselves or would explain themselves. But that exclusionism, or those exclusionary practices, can then also go and extend toward people groups. So that's when it extends toward women.
Speaker 4:We can see some of the bills that are in the House right now that are not benefiting those of us who are women. It can also very much extend toward anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and within that it can further extend, whether overtly or not, toward people of color, toward benefiting those who look more like the three of us than like my husband and sons, than like the minority majority culture now in the US. So I think that's where we can look at white evangelicalism, and white evangelicalism is oftentimes about who holds the power and who is benefiting from that power, and in that way, it's not all that different in our camps. Really, I'm looking at one facet of white evangelicalism, but I think readers can also look at this book and say, oh, this is one example of it, but the reality is that this happens in a number of different areas and places, sure, and that affects all of us.
Speaker 1:We want to pause and take a moment and let you know how glad we are that you've joined us. If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a friend, and if you found the conversation intriguing and want to know more about what we're learning or how you can join our online community, visit our website at expansionistheologycom. There's a little tiny episode of the Simpsons and maybe you know about it, but one neighbor is leaving and he said come with us to church camp so you can learn how to judge. And I was thinking how terrible, but how absolutely apropos. Like that's where we learn to be judgmental, that's how we know who's in and who's out, who we should fellowship with or who we should learn from. And so this invitation is to be able to look at things and go.
Speaker 1:Okay, I see that as problematic, but how is there any kind of redeemable good or what can we learn from that experience? And for Shelly and I in particular, we're looking at this and going how can the spirit enlarge our way of seeing or enlarge our way of understanding? And to be able to look at these times and going. What is it? I think the intention maybe was good, maybe it wasn't but the idea of taking time out of your calendar year and being able to go. I want to be immersed in something, I think, that's still really beautiful and holy, and to find people that you could do something like that with the invitation, I think, into stepping out of regular into something else, particularly in nature. There's an ancient American Indian proverb that says the trees are our first elders To be able to listen to them, speak to us of God and of good, and not only of God outside, but who we are in relation to who God made us to be.
Speaker 1:And I think that there's an invitation there that asks us to ask really hard questions and go yeah, is there anything good in this?
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I will say that one of the things I did try to do, I didn't want to be prescriptive, and it's not, in my opinion, a terribly prescriptive book. It's instead more spiritual memoir with a bit of theology and a bit of journalism. But one could look at every chapter, minus the prologue and epilogue, and see it divided out into three different ways, and that is what I initially or originally said from the stage when I was a camp speaker. A little bit of that, what was wrong or what was implied with what I said. And that's where we're then looking at elements of purity culture, like we talked about, or we're perhaps looking at exclusion that happens toward the queer community, or we're looking at bad theology.
Speaker 4:But then the third part is that there is it's, I imagine, new ways forward, and I do hope that readers will be able to grasp that part where, instead of Jesus being the exclusionary tool that is used to kick people to the curb, we say, okay, if Christ is the center, which is what we believe we were just talking about this before the show then what does it mean to expand our boundaries or not even have boundaries, but just to say everyone is already in, you already belong, you belong. This is who you are, and it's not, then, about the professed belief or whatever else, or about the walls that we draw around, but it's just about the fact that you are in. So I do hope that readers can also latch on to that hope for a new way forward, and perhaps that will change some of the camps along the way. That is hopeful.
Speaker 2:And I think that would be my hope for sure is that somehow this space of getting youth to experience a posture of Christ, that you know, maybe they need to be outside, they need to be in a different location, that that that is the hopeful, the hopeful side of of of that kind of immersion, um, I I wonder if you will, uh, terry, with us just for a few minutes. You mentioned, um, the words that you're, that you love camp and and and that you the book is about also criticizing it and from a spiritual perspective, the ways that we were taught. And then we grow up and we don't necessarily believe that anymore. And then we grow up and we don't necessarily believe that anymore.
Speaker 2:We're often the fingers, often pointed and saying, well, shelly, some of these other exercises that you write about in the book, you know, how does that criticism lead you, or lead others to finding a better way to make, to take what's what the story has been handed to us and make uh, beautiful the story like, how do we? How do we do that? How do we do that as, as women, as leaders, as camp counselors, as vacation Bible school is getting ready to start all over the country, right, like how Vacation Bible School is getting ready to start all over the country. Right, like, how does this stepping back with a critical eye and saying there's more here and there's something beautiful here, and how do we do that? I know that's kind of in the end of the book, but talk to us about that.
Speaker 4:I mean, I think one of the first things I think about when you ask that question is that the reality is that a lot of people don't want to criticize certain parts of the church or certain parts of spirituality, even sometimes because of the sacred cow and maybe I need to work through this analogy more but I think about the number of. I think about the reaction that came from different people. Even when I signed the book or, you know, signed a deal for the book and or announced it, there were those, in particular, those who are still very much deep in this, in that world, whose response toward me was sadness. They were sad that I was going to do that. I think there was also an assumption of bitterness. There was assumption, an assumption of anger, um, which, for me, um, readers might decide that that's how I feel, but I also feel like I've had enough time away.
Speaker 4:Um, this is not a reactionary spiritual memoir. This is, um, this is a memoir that is is very much, uh, I much. I mean it's been 10 years since I spoke to youth and apparently I can't do math I guess that would be 11 years, and then, whatever, 2025 minus 2018 is seven years since I spoke at a family camp. The reality is that it's been a long time since I've been in that environment, and so I've had a lot of time to think and mull over, and from that has come new ways of thinking. There's been a spiritual evolution on my part, and that is where this criticism happens, but I also I sit here and go, if we can.
Speaker 4:If the invitation for each one of us is to sometimes just do one thing, to do our one thing, then this is my one thing, and this one thing is the speaking up that I am also doing on behalf of those who were harmed, on behalf of those who continue to experience harm, because this is not just something that happened at the height of Christian camping in the 90s, when Christian camping was at its absolute height, but this is something that still happens today.
Speaker 4:Again to the people, groups that we've named a number of times, there are harmful theologies that are continuing to be promoted, that are exclusionary in nature, that are making kids feel horrible about themselves, that are shaming people. This is not just kids, though. I mean. This is grownups, and so, whether that relates to VVS during the summer months, whether that relates to the camps we send our kids, to whether that relates to the pulpits and the excuse me, the pews that many of us find ourselves in that are still believing these messages. What does it mean to criticize with a gentleness which is to say to call out and to do my one thing?
Speaker 2:I think you talk about in the book. I think it was your story, maybe you were quoting someone else that they were getting ready to go to camp. I think it was your kids, right, and you were having this conversation with. They wanted to go to camp, but you weren't sure what they were going to experience at the camp, and so you sat down and you had this conversation about here's what you're going to hear. Sat down and had you had this conversation about here's what you're going to hear, here's you know, and then I think maybe when they came home, you had another conversation.
Speaker 4:Was that your kids or was that someone else's kids in the book? No, so my kids have not actually been to church camp yet, or at least not to these particular types of church camps. I have written a bit about this publicly, certainly in the book. One of the questions that I asked, which was also part of what birthed this book, was, in this tension of paradox, realizing how deeply impactful and formative camps had been to me, but also realizing that I didn't know if I could send my own kids there. That was a question that I really wrestled with, and that was part of what led to this book as far as it goes.
Speaker 4:With some of my other writing that I've done, I've oftentimes asked or been asked that question, and for me, whatever the parent or caregiver decides I support. I have had a number of friends, though, who have sent their kids to environments like this, but they have. They have buoyed it in conversation. They've buoyed it in conversations with their children about their own family values, about what they believe theologically, about who they are, and, and in that way, they've talked about it before before their. That way, they've talked about it before before their children leave. They've talked about it afterwards. And then, those values, those values of love and inclusivity, have oftentimes been more positive than that which the camp may have given them.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask what's your favorite camp song.
Speaker 4:My favorite camp song. Um, I mean, do you want me to sing it?
Speaker 1:Absolutely A hundred percent.
Speaker 4:Well, I don't know if this is my favorite cause it also has a little bit of bad theology, but it's certainly one of the most memorable.
Speaker 3:Also.
Speaker 4:I would like to say this is the first podcast that I'm singing. This song on. This is awesome and it's going to this goes circa back to 1988. So we're going back there, but it's a real crowd pleaser. It's called oh, you Can't Get to Heaven. So again, we need some new theology written about it. But it goes like this and you might have to sing it after me oh, you can't get to heaven.
Speaker 4:Oh you can't get to heaven. Yeah, okay, so we'll start it. So I sing, you repeat oh you can't get to heaven.
Speaker 3:Oh, you can't get to heaven In a Kleenex box. In a Kleenex box? Oh, you can't get to heaven. Oh, you can't. Oh, you can't get to heaven In a Kleenex box. Oh, you can't get to heaven in a Kleenex box Because God don't like them little snots. All my sins are washed away. I've been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.
Speaker 4:Now again, the theology is horrible, so you might want to delete this from the episode.
Speaker 1:No, it's fun this is a part of church camp.
Speaker 3:This is a part of church camp.
Speaker 1:Silly songs yeah.
Speaker 4:And that song, including God's feelings towards all them little snots, has stayed in my head for over 30 years now, over 40 years really yeah, I think I need a better camp song.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, a big part of camp, though, is the singing, and there is something so powerful about the songs that we sing when we're together, when we have experiences, what we do. And I will date myself and say I went to church camp in the 70s, so yeah, so I have a lot of church camp and through a lot of decades in fact, from attending church camp to leading church camp as youth pastors and things like that. So I do love a church camp song. There is something about Turn your Eyes upon Jesus around a campfire.
Speaker 1:That's really beautiful, and so, while there's much that has to be thoroughly examined and questioned, there is some real beauty that happens, and again, I'm hopeful because we were so close to things it doesn't again, let us take some responsibility and say if you were harmed in a church camp, it shouldn't have happened, and we're really sorry that.
Speaker 1:I don't know personally how to make an amends to you, but you should hear the church, or at least women in the church, saying that should have never happened. You should have never been shamed or felt excluded, and so may the God of all grace and may the Holy Spirit be comfort to you. May you find a good therapist or people that you can talk to about that. But there are wonderful times that people have and experienced at camp and there are horrible times, and it can be both, and I think that that's part of us living a complicated life and having a spirituality that is strong enough to be both in both places for us to be able to say that was wrong. It's terrible, we need to repent and never do that again. And then there's other times we'll say but being together and exploring a further spirituality, that's really beautiful. And how do we do that without harming people?
Speaker 2:And I love that you're stretching all of us in this book to see beyond, even, maybe, what we missed, what we were close to, but now we can see it maybe more clearly. What we were close to, but now we can see it maybe more clearly. And kudos to you for following your heart in this message. It's not easy to follow our hearts and it's not easy to write it down and have other people read it once you've followed your heart. So kudos regarding that and we wish you the best in this book and that it touches and reaches some YWAM people and that it touches and reaches some young life and some wildlife and some of these places where maybe harm has been done.
Speaker 2:I know some people in those camps, in those places, that have shared their stories and so hopefully this book will get into the hands of the people that need to heal and that your message will be elevated too. Grace to you.
Speaker 1:Do you have a favorite bookstore that you want to recommend people buy from, or just their favorite bookstores?
Speaker 4:I would say both and I'm happy to send you a link to put in show notes, but I always recommend a great good place for books in Oakland, california. They threw me a launch party last night, which was super fun, so I will sign any book orders that come in and they will mail those out. Otherwise, yes, please support your own local independent bookstore.
Speaker 1:It was our joy to have you listen to our conversation today. If you would like further information or for more content, visit us at expansionistheologycom.