On this episode, I have an incredible conversation with Jenny Booth Potter, a creative producer, storyteller, and co-host of The Next Question, a web series about expanding our imagination for racial justice. She has co-led racial justice trainings across the country for churches and organizations, and is the Chief Content Officer of HerSelf Media,…

I'm excited to introduce you to Natalie Drew, a Christian who is also a transgender woman. Trigger Warning: Suicide is discussed at several points in this episode. Please do skip this episode if that could be a trigger for you. <3 Connect with Natalie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/natgrace79 Click here to help fund Natalie's upcoming gender-affir…

Welcome to Sanctuary Woman, a place that invites women to show up with their whole minds and their whole bodies rather than suppress that which the church may have told us is shameful. Many Christian women have nowhere to turn and are looking for the brave spaces, the safe spaces, where their sexual shame can be spoken, set free, and can finally be…

Sara Billups is a Seattle-based writer and cultural commentator who is completing her Doctor of Ministry in the Sacred Art of Writing at the Peterson Center for the Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary. She works to help wavering Christians remain steadfast through cultural storms and continues to hope for the flourishing of the Ch…

Welcome back to Sanctuary Woman! More resources for women recovering from purity culture can be found at https://sanctuarywoman.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sanctuarywoman/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/sanctuarywoman Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/morganstrehlow Music by Jameson McGregor of UBC Waco.…

Reverend Starlette Thomas joins us to help us see our skin color for what it is and deconstruct what it is not as she pastorally and prophetically disrupts and dismantles the racialized body of Christ so that we can reconstruct and re-member a Church body that reflects Christ and his gospel. Learn more about Starlette's work at The Raceless Gospel …

Our guest today is Erin S. Lane, author of the new book Someone Other Than A Mother: Flipping the Scripts on a Woman's Purpose and Making Meaning beyond Motherhood. Erin is a writer, theologian, and someone other than a mother. That’s the name of her latest book, by the way. Erin has a master’s degree from Duke Divinity School with a focus on gende…

[Original airdate: Feb 8, 2021] On this episode of Sanctuary Woman, I want to invite you to reconnect your mind, with your body, through awareness of your body, listening to what your body is communicating to you. What God is communicating to you, through your body. This episode will lead you through a prayer body scan meditation and close with a r…

Our guest today is Dr. Amy Kenny, who says that much of the church has forgotten that we worship a disabled God whose wounds survived resurrection. Dr. Kenny is a disabled scholar and a Shakespeare Lecturer whose research focuses on medical and bodily themes in literature. Her forthcoming book, My Body is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in…

Amanda Martinez Beck is a fat activist and body peace coach specializing in the intersection of human dignity, body liberation, and religion. She is the author of Lovely: How I Learned to Embrace the Body God Save Me and the forthcoming book More of You: The Fat Girl’s Field Guide to the Modern World. Amanda is also the co-creator and co-host of th…

We're back to continue the conversation about our bodies. Here at Sanctuary Woman, we are intentional about making our spirituality an embodied one, and repairing the holy connection between our mind and our bodies. So we are going to explore what it looks like to pursue being at peace with our bodies. This episode features Isabel Garza, Registered…

This is the first episode of our Bodies series. Here at Sanctuary Woman, we are intentional about making our spirituality an embodied one, and repairing the holy connection between our spiritual and sexual selves. So we are going to explore what it looks like to pursue being at peace with our bodies. And there’s no one better to start us off on thi…

Episode transcript can be found at www.sanctuarywoman.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sanctuarywoman/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/sanctuarywoman Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/morganstrehlow Music by Jameson McGregor of UBC Waco.By Morgan Strehlow

Welcome to the fourth and final week of Advent. We’re almost there! HE is almost here! But… we keep waiting. We keep longing for things to be made right. For a little while longer. Today we are waiting with Kat Armas. Kat is a Cuban-American writer and podcaster from Miami, FL who holds a dual MDiv and MAT. Her first book, Abuelita Faith: What Wome…

Welcome to the third week of Advent. Our guest today is Shannon K. Evans. Shannon is the author of Rewilding Motherhood: Your Path to an Empowered Feminine Spirituality. Writing from the contemplative Catholic tradition, her passion is for an experience of the Divine grows further loving and curious rather than static and complacent. Complete show …

My guest for week two of Advent is Dr. Christy Bauman. Christy is an author, professor and psychotherapist who focuses on the female body, sexuality, and theology. A wife to Andrew, a mother of 4, and a fierce dreamer, passionate about advocating for women, Christy is the author of three books: Theology of the Womb, A Brave Lament, and Coming Home.…

It’s Advent… The Promised One is finally on his way. But he’s not here. Not yet. So we wait… and in this Advent series, we’re going to sit with Mary while we wait... and wait expectantly with her. Lectio Divina: The Visitation from Luke 1:26-45 (MSG) Complete show notes are included our our BRAND NEW WEBSITE: www.sanctuarywoman.com Instagram: https…

I have a special bonus episode for you today with my friend Kayla Craig, creator of Liturgies for Parents and author of To Light Their Way: A Collection of Prayers & Liturgies for Parents that features over 100 liturgies and breath prayers. Written with warmth and welcome, To Light Their Way gives voice to your prayer when words won’t come and is o…

Join us for more conversations about sex and sexuality in Christian community on Instagram: @sanctuarywoman Sign up for the newsletter for more sex education content this summer! Questions in this episode: - Should the church even be teaching about sex? - Is it wrong to m*sturbate as a single woman? - How would you respond to your husband who refus…

Dr. Camden Morgante is a licensed clinical psychologist and adjunct college professor. She writes and speaks about Christianity, psychology, and gender equality and is currently writing a book on the myths of purity culture. In this episode, Dr. Camden and I talk about some of the unintended consequences of purity culture and how we can recover and…

Carlie is a developmental psychologist, a gender and sexuality researcher, and has been educating dating, engaged and newly married couples on Instagram as The Christian Sex Educator. I asked Carlie to join us on the podcast to talk to listeners who are single and dating, who are engaged and those who are newly married - she is specifically so skil…

Dr. Celeste Holbrook is a sexologist and speaker who helps her clients evolve into the women they were created to be, in and outside of the bedroom. She speaks on a variety of topics from sex drive and sexual shame, painful intercourse, purity culture and more. Her mission is to provide safe spaces for people to talk about sex. I asked Celeste to j…

Our children deserve great answers to difficult questions. That's why I am excited to introduce you to two educators who love to help parents become the go to sex education experts for their children so that we can be empowered to have comprehensive, comfortable and casual conversations with our children about bodies, sex, sexuality and consent. Dr…

Brittany Broaddus-Smith is the founder of The Intimacy Firm, an intimacy coaching and sexuality education organization for coaching, training and educating groups and individuals. Working in the intersections of sexuality and faith, Brittany aims to empower individuals to discover, embrace, and navigate the world of sexuality in a way that doesn’t …

Despite us being made to believe that porn is mostly a man’s issue, many women struggle with porn addiction, which is why I have asked my friend Joy Skarka to chat with us about pornography. Joy serves as the Director of Discipleship for Authentic Intimacy, where Joy participates in their mission of providing sexual discipleship to Christian women …

The Summer of Sex Ed series continues with Kat Harris. Kat is the host of The Refined Collective Podcast, Co-Founder of the online publication The Refined Woman, and author of the newly released book titled Sexless in the City. She coaches and equips women all over the world in dating, relationships, singleness, sexuality, faith and how to build a …

Tiffany Rose is a physician assistant who specializes in gynecology in Waco, Texas, where she also teaches human sexuality classes to college students at Baylor University. I asked Tiffany to talk with us specifically about how women can become the best advocates for our own healthcare with our gynecologists. Personally, I had several bad experienc…

Welcome to the Sanctuary, I’m Morgan Strehlow, host of the Sanctuary Woman podcast, and you’re listening to the Summer of Sex Ed series, featuring sex educators, sexuality professionals and a few friends of the podcast to come talk with us about womens sexuality for those of us who never received a proper sex education while growing up in purity cu…

On Wednesday, June 9 we will kick off a Summer of Sex Ed, featuring sex educators, sexuality professionals and a few friends of the podcast to come talk with us about specific topics relating to women's sexuality for those of us who never received a proper sex education while growing up in purity culture. You can send your sex and sexuality questio…

I'm learning some things about ministry these days. Not because I want to be a minister. I want to be a writer. But I recognize that God can use my writing and my story to minister to others - and, to my surprise, God has. Since we’re 20 episodes into Sanctuary Woman, I thought I’d spend a moment reflecting on the concept of ministry. What is it? I…

In this episode, Morgan makes space to consider how God mothers us, and how God's people spiritually mother one another.By Morgan Strehlow

On this episode of Sanctuary Woman, we’re talking about Biblical womanhood, and how this caricature many of us have been handed as the script from which we should live our lives may not actually be a Biblical one, but rather a cultural one. I’m so excited about the guest we have on the show today: my colleague at Baylor University, Dr. Beth Allison…

Very good. Naked. Not ashamed. We do not know much about Eve, but we do know this much of the first woman created by God and in the image of God. I have never been able to identify with this very good woman, Eve in Eden, naked and not ashamed. Until recently, I never believed that I was supposed to. I never believed that it was possible. --- Sacred…

In light of the events of this past week - the murder of two unarmed black and brown boys by law enforcement officers, twenty year old Daunte Wright, and thirteen year old Adam Toledo - and in light of the events of the past year and the forthcoming verdict of the office who murdered George Floyd, I want to lead us into a guided prayer and examen f…

Welcome to Eastertide, the liturgical season where we celebrate the resurrected Christ and the new life we have in a risen Jesus. In yesterday’s Easter service, where I attended church in person for the first time in a year, our pastor described the Resurrection story as both a cosmic story, as well as a deeply personal one. Resurrection. Each of u…

It’s time for Sacred Cliturgy, a monthly bonus episode of Sanctuary Woman where we discover what would happen if we talked honestly about sex with one another. You see sexuality is inherently VERY GOOD. But, let’s face it... it’s complicated. It’s especially complicated when we don’t talk about it. So I asked the question: What if Christian women s…

The Resurrection Women series kicks off with Tiffany Bluhm, where she and Morgan talk about when silence is not spiritual and the importance of us as believers and as a church to be able to welcome the honest and uncomfortable stories of women and our shared experiences with another - and actually be believed. Buy Tiffany's new book Prey Tell anywh…

Download the free Examen guidebook. Join the Sanctuary Woman Community on Facebook. Connect with Morgan: @sanctuarywoman on Instagram Sanctuary Woman on Facebook @mostrehlow on Instagram @morganstrehlow on Twitter morganstrehlow.comBy Morgan Strehlow

In this episode, Morgan examines the concepts of rest and renewal in her own life as a contemplative activist, and in our collective lives as we establish new rhythms heading into post-pandemic life. Poem: A Standing Ground by Wendell Berry Lectio Divina from Psalm 23. Prayer: O Redeemer, May your light break forth like the dawn May your renewal co…

“The earth is a forgiveness school,” Anne Lamott says. When I began studying forgiveness, it didn’t take long at all for God to show me that I first needed to finally forgive the church. This realization hit me like a thousand bricks when it occurred to me that I had been harboring unforgiveness toward the big C church and the little c church - the…

It’s time for Sacred Cliturgy, a monthly bonus episode of Sanctuary Woman where we discover what would happen if we talked honestly about sex with one another. You see sexuality is inherently VERY GOOD. But, let’s face it - it’s complicated. It’s especially complicated when we don’t talk about it. So I asked the question: What if Christian women st…

I took the pressure off of myself to keep on keeping on, to stick with business as usual this week. (It was no usual week here in Texas, after all.) Which means the podcast episodes I had on deck for tomorrow will not be released as planned. Instead, I took a pause. Texans: I hope that you will honor your body this week by prayerfully taking a mome…

In this episode, Morgan wrestles with and unpacks Galations 5 where we find the fruits of the spirit. There is a lot of sin in this world, and you and I did inherit that sinful nature. That is true. There is a lot of good left in this world too, and I believe that you and I can also embody that good - that we DO embody that good if we embody the Sp…

Intimacy in any form takes intentionality. Self-intimacy and relational intimacy require commitment and emotional responsibility, as does intimacy with God. And just as our bodies can be a part of creating intimacy with our babies or with our partners, our bodies are the perfect place to experience a profound intimacy, too, with our very creator. L…

On this episode of Sanctuary Woman, I want to invite you to reconnect your mind, with your body, through awareness of your body, listening to what your body is communicating to you. What God is communicating to you, through your body. This episode will lead you through a prayer body scan meditation, and close with a reading of Psalm 139. To downloa…

I’m not sure when it occurred to me that pleasure could be holy. But I know now it can. And perhaps pleasure can be just another doorway to experiencing God? Lectio Divina: Psalm 149:1-5 Prayer: O Generous God, Creator of my five sensesGiver of desires Thank you for the giftOf this good body This good body that you’ve given me for pleasureThis good…

I’m going to share with you about my own epiphanies and curiosities that led to this podcast, Sanctuary Woman. And as you listen to my story, ask God for holy perspective as you reflect back on how the holy spirit has is guiding you toward your next right thing. Think about what you’ve been learning about God, about yourself, about the world. Think…

“The gifts I see in you are…” I want to offer this prompt to you to use in a few different ways. The first one is this: Look in the mirror. At yourself. Make eye contact with you. Look at her with affection, with adoration, with awe. Tell her what gifts you see in you. Voice as many as you can think of in that moment. When you’re finished speaking …

This audio Examen is an invitation to prayerfully reflect and notice God’s grace and movement in the many aspects of our lives, particularly as it relates to how we embody God’s goodness. This guided prayer is based on an ancient spiritual practice from St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) known as the prayer of Examen. While the Examen is commonly u…

In episode one, listeners are welcomed by Morgan Strehlow, who shares a short story from her own limping faith journey and the hopes she has for the Sanctuary Woman podcast - for listeners to either experience a sense of greater belonging and kindredness in the Christian church, OR for listeners to become people who can more compassionately extend …