On the Way Podcast
Uniting Heart and Soul in Woollahra (UHS) and St. Matthew's Uniting Church Baulkham Hills are exploring how they might collaborate more together, given that there existed a number of ongoing connections.
Uniting Heart and Soul in Woollahra (UHS) and St. Matthew's Uniting Church Baulkham Hills are exploring how they might collaborate more together, given that there existed a number of ongoing connections.
They are calling the project, 'Uniting Together.' Vanessa Williams-Henke from Uniting Heart and Soul and Jon Humphries from St. Matthew's began with some meetings and pulpit swaps and with Jon appearing on the UHS Filthy Hope Podcast. St. Matt's has then hosted a live recording of the Filthy Hope Podcast. As a kind of a spin-off from this, Vanessa and Jon, both former school chaplains have started a new initiative called, On the Way Podcast with Ness and Jon. On the Way is a resource to encourage people of all ages on the way towards richer and deeper conversations and learning about faith and discipleship. In encouraging people on the way to more intentional conversation they hope to help people develop higher quality connections with each other.
Each episode is around 10 minutes. Ness and Jon have a conversation to help answer a big question about life, faith and religion and everything in between. These 'big questions' are the kind that many people wonder about, and they have been asked about many times as school chaplains and in their current ministries, especially when teaching Special Religious Education (SRE) which is often referred to as 'Scripture classes.' The hope is that it is something people can listen to and bounce off for their own conversations on the way to school, to work or Church or activities, whether you are in the car, the train, a ferry or walking or whatever. It might also be helpful for conversations in youth groups, all-age parts of church services, home groups, Bible study groups or to help families have conversations which help form members in faith and discipleship at home.
Each Episode begins with them checking in with each other about their wellbeing. This is a great habit for all of us to do, and to take it beyond just a quick "How are you?" They then ask a small question which leads to bigger conversations. These are aimed at growing higher quality connections in our relationships. In their first season they are working through the 10 big positive emotions as developed by Barbara Fredrickson as the starting point for getting ach other talking.
The main part of each episode then deals with the big question which is the focus of the episode. Jon and Ness know that they aren't going to answer any question fully. They can't provide a complete or comprehensive answer to questions such as 'Who is God?' Who am I?' 'Who is the Church?' etc. in the six or so minutes they talk about it. Yet, they do hope that their conversation is on the way to providing a good start to answering the question, and the hope is that they spur people on to keep taking about it or get people asking others about it.
The aim is for 10 episodes for each season, and they have just about finished recording Season 1. Ness and Jon are having fun in doing this and are learning themselves about each other that the topics they discuss as they chat and share their insights about faith and theology and get to know each other better through doing it. They hope that it might be a blessing to others in some way.
Rev. Jon Humphries, Ministry Leader at St Matthews Uniting Church, Baulkham Hills
