A Faith Exploration


​We, Ben and Kate, began this exploration of World Religions in 2023.  I had been pondering the idea for a few years: what if I visited a different place of worship every week and shared about my experience?  Originally this was going to be done as a blog.  The idea of leaving my family of four every Sunday though, followed by hours of writing felt daunting. I was already busy enough with my other endeavors as a Divorce Coach, artist, gallery owner and landlord!  

Listen to all Branches of Faith episodes on the player below!

You can also visit our blog to read a bit more about each place as well as supporting information for each visit. 

If you're searching for a certain place of worship, search here!

A Vision Board to Reality


​When we sat down to do our Vision Board annual planning, I mentioned to Ben that this idea was still ping-ponging around in my brain. He said, "just try it for a month, it doesn't have to be a full annual commitment."  That felt doable and a chance to try it out to see how it worked with our busy schedules.  A few days later, he brought it up again, this time with the idea to do it together and create a podcast.  

This was very intriguing although I knew nothing about podcasting. I told him that if he managed it, I would love to have a partner on the project!  

We have always invited our children, Finn and Genevieve to join us but never forced them. It's hard enough for adults to go into an unknown, unfamiliar situation, let alone kids!  We've been thrilled to have them accompany us a few times and look forward to them sharing these experiences more with us!

Guidelines for Branches of Faith

It was important that we set some guidelines for our faith exploration. Part of this was to have some semblance of control over situations that we would have very little control in!  But a big part was so that our podcast listeners would understand what we were doing as well. 
  1. Participate as fully as possible.  There are some parts of worship that we are not able to participate due to their guidelines, like communion at some churches.  We absolutely respect this and abide by their preferences. Our goal to participate fully is to encourage us to get the most out of each experience and we do the best we can.
  2. View each visit as someone who may be interested in attending. This looks like going on the website for the place of worship, if they have one.  Looking for parking and entrance information.  Finding out if they share how to dress or what to expect.  We take time to learn what their beliefs are and how they practice their faith.
  3. Get out of our comfort zone. I (Kate) was raised Catholic with plenty of experience in Protestant churches as well. Ben spent time in a Catholic church growing up and our kids attend a Lutheran school.  It would be easy to visit churches in that demographic.  But what happens when we step outside of our zone of familiarity?
  4. Be respectful. This wasn't too hard of a parameter to set but we wanted to be clear. We acknowledge we are going into THEIR community and THEIR place of worship. We are guests and intend to do our best to be good ones. We may not always get it right but our intentions are strong.
  5. The biggest parameter that we set is that we are not there to judge or try to prove anything.  We'll write more about this later but we had a few questions up front about what our intentions were.  A few people seemed like they were preparing to debate us when they learned about this project. We aren't here to prove anything.  We're showing up to learn and connect. 
  6. We generally don't tell the places of worship we are coming. We want it to be as organic of an experience as possible.  On occasion, if we have been totally  unfamiliar, like with our Baha'i or Hindu Temple visit, then we have made contact ahead of time. 

We Hope You'll Join Us On This Faith Journey!


​Our goal is to visit 12 places of worship each year. Originally, yes, it WAS a weekly goal. We've learned though that with the research we put into each visit and the amount of time that it takes to produce the podcast, once a month is a much more reasonable goal.  We may go more often but right now that feels attainable.  We'd love for you to follow along! If you have feedback or would like us to visit your place of worship, please send us a message!