New podcast offers venue for tough discussion topics
Jacqua Brown, left, a native of Hannibal, and Whitney Scott are hosting a podcast called “Generational Conversations.” The podcast is available via Spotify.
MARY LOU MONTGOMERY
Whitney Scott and Jacqua Brown-Williams, two women of faith, have partnered together to produce a podcast that is tackling questions that churches often don’t want to discuss.
The podcast is called Generational Conversations.
Whitney and Jacqua may seem to some as an unlikely pairing for a podcast. Jacqua is 72, and a native of Hannibal, Mo. Whitney is 31, and a native of Columbus, Ga. They are now both involved in the ministry of the Impact Church DFW, in Dallas. But their podcast is not affiliated with their church.
Topics to be tackled during the podcast:
“LGBTQIA - the traditional church does not want to talk about that,” Jacqua said. And there’s “Church hurt,” where people have, as the name suggests, been hurt at church.
Divorce. “Why are there counselors for married people, and for single people, but not for how the church family reacts when members get divorced? The issue with Christianity isn’t what happened, the issue for us is to know how you are feeling. How are you doing? Are you doing OK? That’s what we don’t teach.
“Where is our divorce minister?” Jacqua asked. “God set up marriage to last forever, but people do get divorced. I know people who left the church so they didn’t have to be around their couple friends” who don’t know how to respond.
Another topic: What is a Christian?
“I’m not sure all of us who go to church know what that is,” Jacqua said. “Is it a title you carry, or the life you live? The title is in your heart. Your identity should be able to be seen. You are living your identity.”
“Our conversations (on the podcast) are bringing elements to the table instead of letting them linger in the room,” Whitney said.
On the podcast, “We talk about how we got together,” Jacqua said.
In a typical church setting, the demographic is segregated by age: Such as 55 and older, and 21 to 40.
In regard to their age difference, “I am Naomi and Whitney is Ruth,” Jacqua said. “I haven’t lived in Whitney’s generation, and she hasn’t lived in mine.”
The podcast “is an opportunity to share myself and who God has been to me,” Whitney said. It allows her to “personally let people inside my head and as a form of ministry, to show how my life in Christ has shaped me.
In addition, “I now have an elder in my life I can gain knowledge from in a public platform. This is a means for me to be able to share myself.”
“We need each other in our journeys,” Jacqua said.
“In Columbus, Ga., most aspire to move to Atlanta,” Whitney said. “For me personally, Atlanta wasn’t on my radar.” While she was lifted into a leadership role at her home church, “When I was in my 20s, nothing was going right - I felt like a hamster on the wheel of life.”
Whitney was previously a participant in the Underground Dance scene, which took her to cities across the country. “When I was coming back (to my hometown) from the big cities, I knew there was more out there for me.”
It was her dancing that led her to the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas, and ultimately she united with the Impact Church DFW.
While Whitney and Jacqua share in the podcast conversation, Whitney is the producer.
“We approach our podcast with an overview or topic in mind and begin with a question that takes us into several different areas that all lead us back to the overall topic of discussion,” Whitney said.
“We we look forward to breaking a lot of glass ceilings,” Jacqua said. “We will be paying attention to what is going on.”
“Generational Conversations,” is hosted on Spotify. They tape episodes and make them available every two weeks. The next topic will be “Church hurt.”
The first taping was purposefully scheduled for Jan. 29, the 15th anniversary of the death of Jacqua’s son, David.
Note: Wikipedia describes Underground music as music with practices perceived as outside, or somehow opposed to, mainstream popular music culture. Underground music is intimately tied to popular music culture as a whole, so there are important tensions within underground music because it appears to both assimilate and resist the forms and processes of popular music culture.
Mary Lou Montgomery worked for the Hannibal Courier-Post for 39 years, retiring in 2014.
