Sanctuary Woman with Morgan Strehlow

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 skilled at educating couples who are waiting until marriage to have sex on what they need to do to prepare for their sexual relationship. I know that quite a few of you who listen fall into one of these categories, and even if you’ve been married for awhile, I think you’re still going to want to learn from Carlie. She schools us the topic of sexual agency and why our sexual agency doesn’t, or shouldn’t, end in marriage, despite what some of us have been told. 

CONTENT WARNING: We do talk about sexual assault in the context of how to talk with your partner about past sexual trauma. 

Connect with Carlie on Instagram @carliepalmerwebb.

Join us for more sexuality conversations in Christian community on Instagram: @sanctuarywoman.

Sign up for the newsletter for more sex education content for Christian women who grew up in purity culture. 

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 join us on the podcast to learn about and normalize different types of sex and pleasure - I specifically asked her to talk with us about how introducing toys and novelty to our sex lives can actually be a normal part of a healthy sexuality and sexual ethic. We even talk about what we can learn about clear communication and giving and receiving consent from the kink and BDSM community.

Connect with Celeste at https://www.drcelesteholbrook.com/

Join us for more sexuality conversations in Christian community on Instagram: @sanctuarywoman.

Sign up for the newsletter for more sex education content for Christian women who grew up in purity culture. 

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 compromise their personal or professional values. I’ve asked Brittany to join us on the podcast today to talk about female pleasure, how purity culture has impacted our pleasure, or lack of, and how we can move from ignorance to educated and empowered in order to experience uninhibited pleasure in our lives.

Connect with Brittany at https://www.theintimacyfirm.com/. 

You can send your sex and sexuality questions to sanctuarywomanpod@gmail.com to be answered in a future Sacred Cliturgy episode or in our e-mail newsletter. 

Join us for more sexuality conversations in Christian community on Instagram: @sanctuarywoman.

Sign up for the newsletter for more sex education content for Christian women who grew up in purity culture. 

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 and couples. Like me, Joy is passionate about creating spaces to free women from shame.

TRIGGER WARNING: Please be made aware that there is one mention of sexual violence early in our conversation as Joy shares a personal story. If you’d like to skip ahead, you can do that by skipping to the 10 minute mark.  

Resources:

• Blog: 3 Things I (Wish I Hadn't) Learned From Pornography
• Blog: Experience Freedom From Shame
• Authentic Intimacy Online Book Studies (next groups open in Sept)
• Book: Grace Based Recovery, Jonathan Daugherty
• Book: No Stones: Women Redeemed from Sexual Addiction, Marnie Ferree

Connect with Joy on Instagram @JoySkarka. 

You can send your sex and sexuality questions to sanctuarywomanpod@gmail.com to be answered in a future Sacred Cliturgy episode or in our e-mail newsletter. 

Join us for more sexuality conversations in Christian community on Instagram: @sanctuarywoman.

Sign up for the newsletter for more sex education content for Christian women who grew up in purity culture. 

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 renewed and healthy biblical sexual ethic rooted in freedom, truth and grace as opposed to the oh-so-common shame and fear narratives so many experienced growing up in evangelical culture.

In this episode, Kat explains her process in reevaluating what we believe about something and why we believe what we believe, otherwise known as deconstruction. The deconstruction and reconstruction framework Kat talks about as she explored the questions around masturbation can be helpful for so many other aspects of the sex and sexuality conversation. This conversation is not a prescriptive one, but one that I hope will enlighten you to a new perspective on self-pleasure, and perhaps even release you from any shame you may have around this topic. 

Connect with Kat at https://therefinedwoman.com/ and find her book, Sexless in the City, anywhere books are sold.

You can send your sex and sexuality questions to sanctuarywomanpod@gmail.com to be answered in a future Sacred Cliturgy episode or in our e-mail newsletter. 

Join us for more sexuality conversations in Christian community on Instagram: @sanctuarywoman.

Sign up for the newsletter for more sex education content for Christian women who grew up in purity culture. 

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 experiences with OBGYNs in my early 20s before getting the help I needed, but also didn't know enough about my body or what to expect to know how to advocate for myself. OBGYN appointments are very intimidating with or without an upbringing in purity culture, but I would guess they are probably way more intimidating for those of us who come out of purity culture. Tiffany and I wrap up our conversation by talking about the young adult Sunday school class Tiffany teaches at her church, and how she integrates conversations about sexuality and sexual ethics in the context of Sunday school. 

I learned so much from my conversation with Tiffany - particularly how I can be my and my body’s own best advocate when I visit the doctor! I hope you enjoy our conversation.

You can send your sex and sexuality questions to sanctuarywomanpod@gmail.com to be answered in a future Sacred Cliturgy episode or in our e-mail newsletter. 

Join us for more sexuality conversations in Christian community on Instagram: @sanctuarywoman.

Sign up for the newsletter for more sex education content for Christian women who grew up in purity culture. 

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 culture.

Today’s educator is my friend and a friend of the podcast, Jenna DeWitt. Jenna joins us to talk with me about asexuality, aromanticism, and singleness and what it has been like for her to navigate life in a world and in a church that assumes that everyone wants to be in a sexual, romantic relationship. Jenna is passionate about creating sanctuary for queer Christians and for letting others who are asexual know that they are aren’t broken and they are not alone. Connect with Jenna on Twitter and at her blog Invisible Cake Society. 

You can send your sex and sexuality questions to sanctuarywomanpod@gmail.com to be answered in a future Sacred Cliturgy episode or in our e-mail newsletter. 

Join us for more sexuality conversations in Christian community on Instagram: @sanctuarywoman.

Sign up for the newsletter for more sex education content for Christian women who grew up in purity culture. 

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 questions to sanctuarywomanpod@gmail.com. 

Join us for more sexuality conversations in Christian community on Instagram: @sanctuarywoman

Sign up for the newsletter for more sex education content this summer! 

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? Is that what I’m doing? And if so, what business do I have doing it?

Lectio Divina: Acts 1:6-11 (The Ascension of Jesus)

Book: The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen

Connect with Morgan to continue the conversation:

IG: @sanctuarywoman
https://www.instagram.com/sanctuarywoman/ 

FB: https://www.facebook.com/morganstrehlow 

Join the Sanctuary Woman Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/448530363015293 

Learn more about Morgan at https://www.morganstrehlow.com/. 

Music by Jameson McGregor.

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

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 Barr, who recently released a game changer of a book called The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth. 

You buy The Making of Biblical Womanhood anywhere books are sold. You can also connect with Dr. Barr at www.bethallisonbarr.com.

Connect with Morgan:

@sanctuarywoman on Instagram

Sanctuary Woman on Facebook

Join the Sanctuary Woman Community on Facebook.

Subscribe to Morgan's newsletter here.

Music by Jameson McGregor.

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 Cliturgy, a monthly bonus episode of Sanctuary Woman where we discover what would happen if we talked honestly about sex with one another.

I asked the question: What if Christian women started talking about sex... like for real? What if we talked about and understood our own bodies, our own sexuality in a more healthy and holistic way... not in spite of our Christian faith, but in light of it? What if that led to better sex, better sexuality, better sex education, better single lives and better marriages?

We need to talk.

Connect with Morgan to continue the conversation:

IG: @sanctuarywoman
https://www.instagram.com/sanctuarywoman/ 

FB: https://www.facebook.com/morganstrehlow 

Join the Sanctuary Woman Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/448530363015293 

Learn more about Morgan at https://www.morganstrehlow.com/. 

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 for racial justice, for concilation, and for peace, and for the role we are to play in the making of peace.

Connect with Morgan to continue the conversation:

IG: @sanctuarywoman
https://www.instagram.com/sanctuarywoman/ 

FB: https://www.facebook.com/morganstrehlow 

Join the Sanctuary Woman Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/448530363015293 

Learn more about Morgan at https://www.morganstrehlow.com/. 

Music by Jameson McGregor.

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 us have a resurrection story of sorts, and perhaps some of us have many resurrection stories that collectively make up a much larger narrative of our resurrection life. This pandemic year, for example, has led us into a sort of resurrection story. Or, perhaps in greater need of one. 

What is your resurrection story?

In this episode, I share with you some of my own resurrection story.

Connect with Morgan to continue the conversation:

IG: @sanctuarywoman
https://www.instagram.com/sanctuarywoman/ 

FB: https://www.facebook.com/morganstrehlow 

Join the Sanctuary Woman Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/448530363015293 

Learn more about Morgan at https://www.morganstrehlow.com/. 

Music by Jameson McGregor.

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 started talking about sex... like for real? What if we talked about and understood our own bodies, our own sexuality in a more healthy and holistic way... not in spite of our Christian faith, but in light of it? What if that led to better sex, better sexuality, better sex education, better single lives and better marriages?

We need to talk.

Guest: Sheila Wray Gregoire, author of The Great Sex Rescue. 

Connect with Sheila on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sheilagregoire/ . 

Connect with Morgan to continue the conversation:

IG: @sanctuarywoman
https://www.instagram.com/sanctuarywoman/ 

FB: https://www.facebook.com/morganstrehlow 

Join the Sanctuary Woman Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/448530363015293 

Learn more about Morgan at https://www.morganstrehlow.com/. 

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 anywhere books are sold, and connect with Tiffany at https://www.tiffanybluhm.com/. 

Connect with Morgan:

@sanctuarywoman on Instagram

Sanctuary Woman on Facebook

Join the Sanctuary Woman Community on Facebook.

Subscribe to Morgan's newsletter here.

Music by Jameson McGregor.

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.com

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 come quickly
Or may it come the slow way
That’s for you to decide 
May your presence be with us while we wait
May you give rest to our restless hearts.
Be with us in our becoming 
Renew our minds 
Renew our bodies
Renew our spirit 
So that as we establish our new rhythms
Your light may shine 
That they may see your Very Good work 
That we may see your Very Good work 
In us.
Amen.

To download the accompanying Examen guidebook PDF to journal through the Examen, click here. 

Connect with Morgan:

@sanctuarywoman on Instagram
Sanctuary Woman on Facebook
@mostrehlow on Instagram
@morganstrehlow on Twitter
morganstrehlow.com

Join the Sanctuary Woman Community on Facebook.

Music by Jameson McGregor.

“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 church of my childhood - for years and years and years and my own unforgiveness had turned me into someone I no longer recognized. I had become a slave to my unforgiveness. 

That became clear when, as I was studying forgiveness, I read these verses Hebrews 12:14-15 “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”

I was a bitter root.

Lectio Divina from Psalm 140.

To download the accompanying Examen guidebook PDF to journal through the Examen, click here. 

Connect with Morgan:

@sanctuarywoman on Instagram
Sanctuary Woman on Facebook
@mostrehlow on Instagram
@morganstrehlow on Twitter
morganstrehlow.com

Join the Sanctuary Woman Community on Facebook.

Music by Jameson McGregor.