Asking for Me podcasts

The history of our podcast:

Asking for me is a podcast that started as a conversation between two friends, Robin Jester Wootton and Elizabeth Mindemann starting in 2021.

We “met” online commiserating as pastor’s wives who felt like the church itself often loses its way when conflict arises. We often felt frustrated by the lack of deep, honest, and thorough engagement in how tensions happen and what underlying sinfulness gets swept under the rugs in exchange for shallow peace and performative, vague repentance that only serves the status quo. Instead, we expected more from Christians, asking more questions, getting more clarity, and being willing to dig deeper and get dirtier but, ultimately, to get cleaner before a holy and just and faithful God who requires humility and mercy from those who claim to follow Him.

The idea for the podcast was first borne out of the love of the church and trying to better understand the difficult issues that the church must face. Both Robin and Elizabeth are in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and married to pastors of PCA churches. The first season was focused on being in the PCA and the purposes of the General Assembly, an annual meeting of elders and ministries within the denomination. Season 1 of the podcast looked at issues specific to the PCA as well as current events affecting the discourse of the denomination.

After hearing so many stories come out of church trauma and the heartbreaks of many of our co-laborers in church ministry, we began to see a pattern outside the PCA as well. So Season 2 was launched with a call to hear stories specifically from Church Plants.

There is much to be said about church planting as a movement over the past decade plus, with renewed emphasis on building networks and planting churches throughout the country and the world. A kind of “Starbucks on every corner” mentality is prevalent, especially in larger sized churches who were inspired to get more involved in planting.

But many stories of heartbreaking tensions and mishandling by leadership have emerged in the past few years. Most notably places like Sovereign Grace Ministries and Willow Creek, and, possibly the most notorious of all, Mars Hill. But what goes wrong with church planting itself – is it unique issues to the planting movement or is there more to the story?

Season 2 of Asking for Me tries to dig deeper into these stories and find the exact places where things go wrong, as much as we can and as much as hindsight allows us to have any clarity. Join us as we explore these issues within church plants.

Our latest episode can be found here or wherever you listen to podcasts. Look up “Asking for Me.”

The King Lear Effect – Asking for me: a podcast of questions

Taking a page from the Shakespearean stage, this episode is the comparison of what happened to Lear and his daughter Cordelia in the face of intensifying scrutiny and test of loyalty. I consider what reading comprehension is and what situational comprehension is, like reading the room as if it's a book. How do we know what is really going on? How can we tell who is truly loyal and loving to us and who is plotting behind our backs? "I wish we'd all been ready" or something Shakespeare might say.Transcript if you prefer to read on the blog AskingForMe.org

1. The King Lear Effect 26:47
2. the label maker: who gets to claim "Christian?" what is the work? 32:18
3. When Abuse isn’t heresy 09:25
4. Christian Nationalism and Complementarian Theology: part one 11:25
5. When Pro-Lifers mean Pro-Death 18:10

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