Pastor Kimberly Bulgin grew up in the fellowship halls and sanctuaries of churches all her life. She’s served as a music teacher, a worship leader, and a local church pastor and her life in ministry has taken her across a variety of cities in the United States, Canada, and beyond. For over 15 years, Pastor Kim has worked to carve out spaces of safety and empowerment for marginalized people, and now serves a rapidly growing community through her ministry, the House of Women. In her new book, The ...
Jun 05, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 9
If you’ve caught even a little bit of national news this year - let me first say I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. The kind of Christianity I often see as I scroll through my social media feeds can be really devastating - and I often find myself wondering how two people can read the same Bible and come to such different conclusions about what it says, especially when it comes to society and politics. We aren’t the first people to wrestle with this. Since the very beginning days of this cou...
May 22, 2025•28 min•Season 2Ep. 8
If there’s one topic that divides Christian culture in the United States today more than just about any other, it’s the topic of justice. Despite Hebrew and Greek words for justice appearing more than 1,000 times throughout the Bible - the American Christian church is often starkly divided when it comes to how we go about seeking and advocating for justice today. While Christian pastors were prominent leaders in the Civil Rights movement and other justice work since the founding of the United St...
Apr 24, 2025•34 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Relationships can be tricky between any two people, regardless of their backgrounds. Any time two people come in contact with each other, they bring together very different sets expectations, norms, and experiences. Some walls between people are the walls we create through our actions and choices - but sometimes the walls were built long before either person was even born. They were built by the generations before us - our forefathers and foremothers - and continue to remain an obstacle between ...
Apr 10, 2025•36 min•Season 2Ep. 6
When you hear the word “Ministry” what do you think of? I know for myself, ministry used to mean telling other people about what I believed. In my early understanding, ministry was informational - it was leading Bible studies and passing out literature and preaching sermons. Ministry meant defending my faith well and having better arguments about topics like creation, lifestyle choices, and salvation than the other people around me. What I didn’t learn until later is that perhaps the most powerf...
Mar 27, 2025•42 min•Season 2Ep. 5
As time moves forward, our society has changed faster and faster each year. The past century of life on earth has seen some of the most monumental shifts in how humans interact with each other and the world around them. Technology has advanced at lightning speed, and there have been incredible shifts in our traditions, our laws, and even how we communicate with one another. While some of these changes can be scary, humanity has also made incredible advancements in life saving medical practices a...
Mar 13, 2025•45 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Growing up in church can be… complicated. For some people, church provides a safe community where they can grow, socialize, and find a personal relationship with God that lasts throughout the rest of their lives. For others, growing up in church can be incredibly traumatic experience that they spend years trying to recover from. There are about as many individual experiences in church as there are people, but over the past decades the church’s struggle to keep young people engaged has grown from...
Feb 27, 2025•36 min•Season 2Ep. 3
If anything has become the new normal these past years, it's chaos. Whether it's the global chaos of political upheaval, natural disasters, and economic shifts or the more personal seasons of chaos we face in our own lives, it can be hard to feel a sense of stability in today's world. Whatever the causes may be, in times of chaos humanity shares one thing: we're drawn to structure. And few things offer structure as consistently as religion. Religious traditions and norms can be a stabilizing for...
Feb 13, 2025•44 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Bridges Over Walls returns for a long awaited second season! Katelyn Weakley, MDiv, MSW, joins the show to cut straight to the heart of so many interpersonal walls. In this episode, we're talking about trauma. It's no secret that trauma dramatically shapes how we view the world - whether it's interpersonal, cultural, or religious. For many Christians, church spaces can be complicated. They can be both a source of healing and a significant source of struggle. In this episode we explore how trauma...
Jan 30, 2025•49 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Season 2 of Bridges Over Walls is coming at the beginning of 2025! In this bonus episode, our production team takes you inside the show - exploring what we learned making our first season, what we hope to achieve in Season 2, and the challenges we've faced along the way. You'll hear from: Kaleb Eisele, producer & host Mitchell Kessler, producer & editor Jonathan Russell, general producer We can't wait to share our next season with you soon!
Nov 20, 2024•35 min
Dr. Seth Pierce, host of the Beast & Bible podcast, joins us for our final episode of Season 1 to discuss what fear can do in the hands of Christians. If you grew up Christian, you’ve likely seen certain specific fears sweep the country. Whether you lived through the panic around dungeons & dragons or rock & roll, or through more recent targets like Harry Potter or the COVID vaccine, Christianity has had a way of creating fads out of fear. Fear has been one of the most powerful motiv...
Dec 01, 2023•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 10
Mayor Michael Milch of Gladstone, Oregon, joins Bridges Over Walls for an episode exploring the relationship between churches and the local community. Are our evangelistic efforts, our service projects, and our relationships to our neighbors really making the impact we think they are? How does the local community think about your church? We explore all that and more in this episode of Bridges Over Walls!
Nov 17, 2023•34 min•Season 1Ep. 9
If you hang out in Christian spaces long enough, you’ll probably hear someone bring up the idea of “reaching the community.” But what do we mean when we say that? And what’s in our mind when we imagine our community? Long before we ever set foot in a neighborhood or mission field or city, the history of Christianity and the perceptions that come with it have already arrived before us. And when Christians have left behind a legacy of pain and trauma, it’s not surprising that we aren’t always welc...
Nov 03, 2023•28 min•Season 1Ep. 8
In the second of our two part series on grief, church, and relationships, grief recovery coach Hannah Wachter returns to share lessons she has learned in how to support suffering people. From the physical toll grief takes on the human body to insights we can glean from popular culture, this episode focuses on how to become the kind of people that bring hope and life to grievers - and how to make Christian spaces safe for them. Hannah Wachter is a Grief Recovery Coach serving in the greater Portl...
Oct 20, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 7
In 2023, the US Surgeon General released a report on what they called “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.” According to the report, the problem of loneliness isn’t just about feeling down. It’s one of the greatest threats to the health of our bodies and our society. Loneliness is linked to higher risks of heart problems, strokes, dementia, depression and anxiety, and premature death. Whether we’re looking at church spaces, workplaces, or our local community, one of the greatest causes of ...
Oct 06, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 6
In our first four episodes we talked about relational challenges across generational lines, religious and intellectual arrogance, and the division that comes from taking our religious practices further and further from the Way of Jesus. In this episode we're joined by one of TikTok's most beloved creators of faith - Kevin Wilson. Together, we explore one of today's most contentious subjects - deconstruction. Is deconstruction as scary as it's made out to be? Is doubt a threat to faith or a vital...
Sep 21, 2023•46 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Humans have been passing down stories to each other for as long as we possibly could. Before we try a new restaurant, we see what others have experienced there. We look at reviews of products, schools, and businesses before we venture further with them. In fact, much of what we know about the world doesn't come from personal experience at all - but the stories we've been told about it. Today's culture can make it difficult to communicate well across generational lines. Something we seem to be lo...
Sep 08, 2023•46 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Christianity in the United States is aging. Just 30 years ago in the 90s, about 90% of Americans identified as Christian. But in the past few decades that number has declined significantly - and the difference is especially obvious in Americans under 50 years old. The concerns around this issue have been a focus of many Christian groups for years now - with seminars and training initiatives that focused on finding ways to get Millennials back in church. But Millennials are no longer the youngest...
Aug 24, 2023•44 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Humility is the mother of curiosity. Curiosity is what allows us to build bridges and connect with people across ages, genders, cultures, and beyond. Alex Bryan joins us to share what he has learned leading groups of people in university, local church, and faith-based healthcare settings.
Aug 10, 2023•28 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Christianity can be a brand as much as it can be a faith. If you grew up Christian, you're probably already aware of the fact that there are Christian versions of just about everything from streaming services like Pure Flix to entire genres of Christian self-help books. Life coaches, radio stations, and Christian businesses. But is Christianity in the United States today really the way of Jesus? When we read the stories of Jesus in the Bible, we see someone who exemplified a very different set o...
Jul 28, 2023•39 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Christianity is one of the most consistently controversial topics in the United States today. If there's one thing Christians have gotten incredibly good at, it's building walls. Whether it's social barriers we've created across races, genders, and cultures or broader barriers between our churches and their surrounding communities, these relations walls seem to have gone up in every direction. If you've ever thought about how much better the world would be if we spent time building bridges of co...
Jul 07, 2023•25 min
