I was a recently a guest on the Living Out podcast, part of a ministry tackling sexuality in the church, to talk about how to foster healthy intergenerational friendships, what friendship looks like at different stages of life, and how we can go about strengthening existing friendships.
Many Christians love their LGBT+ friends and want to engage well with issues of sexuality and identity, but aren’t sure how to do it. Join the Living Out team and guests as they tackle some of the most frequently asked questions and seek to navigate the choppy cultural waters with compassion and clarity. If you’re interested in a Christian perspective on sexuality, singleness, gender and identity and want to hear real stories from same-sex attracted Christians, this is the podcast for you. Hosted and produced by the Living Out team.
For our very special 100th podcast episode, we’re joined by John Wyatt – author of Transforming Friendship – to talk about how we can foster healthy intergenerational friendships, what friendship looks like at different stages of life, and how we can go about strengthening existing friendships.
There’s also the chance to enter our 100th podcast episode giveaway, and if you’re desperate to hear about Thomas the Tank Engine, The Musical, then we bring you good news of great joy: it made it into our first ever podcast episode, when we heard from our very own Andrew Bunt about his story of faith and sexuality. You can find the link for that and lots of other useful resources below.
Resources mentioned and related
- Enter our 100th podcast episode giveaway (closes 10th April 2025)
- Youth Leaders’ Crash Course
- Misstep 9 – 'Suffering is to be avoided' (The Plausibility Problem #9)
- Imperfect Reflections Kirsten Birkett
- Meet the Authors #1 – Andrew Bunt
- Friendship and Intimacy (Friendship #3)
- Transforming Friendship John Wyatt
- Transforming Friendship: A Review Ed Shaw
- Same-sex attraction and friendship in church, with Ed Shaw
Ed Shaw from Living Out was also previously a guest on my podcast, discussing his own life as a celibate single gay Christian in the church:
In each episode of Matters of Life and Death, brought to you by Premier Unbelievable?, John Wyatt and his son Tim discuss issues in healthcare, ethics, technology, science, faith and more. John is a doctor, professor of ethics, and writer and speaker on many of these topics, while Tim is a religion and social affairs journalist. We talk about how Christians can better engage with a particular question of life, death or something else in between.
This week we speak with church pastor and author Ed Shaw about John’s book on friendship, and in particular how it intersects with those who are same-sex attracted like him. How has the church unintentionally colluded with the sexual revolution in prioritising and idealising marriage, relegating friendship in the process? Why is it so important for celibate, single leaders like Ed to cultivate and sustain an array of deep friendships in church? And how can we ensure this is being done sensibly and accountably, avoiding the potential for abuse and harm that we’ve seen in so many recent evangelical scandals?
Ed is also ministry director of Living Out – https://www.livingout.org/
• Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173
• If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John’s website: http://www.johnwyatt.com
• For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com