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More than perhaps ever before, modern Christians are facing intense cultural storms and deep political and spiritual division. How do we stay steadfast in the midst of it all? That’s what author and cultural commentator Sara Billups writes and speaks about, all with the goal of helping believers experience Jesus and flourish as the body of Christ. Her first book, “Orphaned Believers,” explores how Christians raised in church in the 1980s and ’90s are trying to find their own way to participate in God’s story, while her upcoming book, “Nervous Systems,” addresses anxieties through the lens of spiritual practices.

Join us now for an engaging conversation about food, fellowship, fear, healing and spiritual growth. You’ll learn about Sara’s Italian heritage, her newfound love of animals and nature, and the liturgies, podcasts and prayer apps that help her most.

QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT

There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?

I’m Italian on my mom’s side. My extended family owned a red sauce Italian place called Frederico’s when I was a kid in Indiana. I grew up in the kitchen with my cousin making pizza bread and meatballs. In the summer, there was a frozen Italian lemonade machine buzzing and a lot of empty Chianti bottles holding candles on red-and-white checkered tablecloths in the dining room.

Community is the most important thing to me, and even though I ended up much more bookish and “literary” and have lived in Seattle for 20 years, that Midwestern spirit of radical hospitality and faithfulness to friends and our church is still very much a part of me. I’m not sure if lasagna-centric is a character trait, but I’m going to make it up and say it is. Because really, I value warmth and simplicity, not making it too hard, and making it up without a recipe.

QUESTION #2: REVEAL

We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activity (or activities) do you love engaging in, which also helps you find essential spiritual renewal?

I recently read those apocalyptic verses in Revelation about God seated with four strange winged animals flanking the throne’s sides and had two thoughts: 1) God is really creative, and 2) God really loves animals. Maybe I’m projecting here, but as a person who was never especially into animals but is now practically a Franciscan with my love for all creatures great and small, I realized the love I have for my dog, Fern, is a reflection of God’s love. Of course it is. When her energy is finally spent after we run her in the morning, I find the dog and sit next to her for a while. I read for a bit, then watch her watch people pass by. I wonder how many kinds of love there are. I understand a few: my spouse, both kids, the love I feel for Mount Rainier when it appears after we drive across a bend on I-5. But the ordinary activity of sitting with my dog and watching the world while she watches it makes me understand one more prism of love from a very imaginative Creator.

QUESTION #3: CONFESS

Every superhero has a weakness. Every human too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you hide it?

If I could set anything down, a smooth stone of affliction I could skip and let sink in the water, it would be ego. Don’t get me wrong. It is not like a lion. My ego is not loud; it is tender and annoying. The way I get a boost when social media “likes” me — or the way I deflate when something I write doesn’t get lift — is my introverted Gen X version of ego to match any puffed-up alpha type.

Want to test your ego? Honestly ask yourself the question: “How do I want to be remembered?” Someone asked about 20 of us this recently in a group conversation at a retreat in Colorado, and I was first out of the gate: “Oh, I don’t want to be remembered. I want to pursue chosen obscurity.” Wiser people in the group replied to what was clearly an overcorrection on my part. I said I didn’t want to be remembered because, duh, I really do.

I listened to peers in that circle talk about legacy, family, doing work that is remembered regardless of the person. No one mentioned Instagram or Substack. Ah, that’s it, I realized. Social media will never get us there. The ego only corrects when we are working in service. It’s a lifelong thing, putting down this stone, but I believe we can release it. I believe we can at least keep trying.

QUESTION #4: FIRE UP

Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?

There are a lot of people who are in a season of spiritual bewilderment for many good reasons. I call these folks orphaned believers: people who are looking around the American church and wondering where Jesus is. I wrote a book titled “Orphaned Believers,” which traces three factors for readers who, like me, grew up in the 1980s and ’90s to try to make sense of how the church has in many pockets become hard to distinguish as a light set on a hill and has in many cases caused egregious harm: end times, culture wars and consumerism. The root of the problem is that so many of us have not been formed in the way of Jesus.

I was raised going to the mall on Saturday and church on Sunday; I was raised in a culture that cared more about the Clintons and hidden satanic messages on albums than service. So the central question I explore in my work is how do we strengthen, renew, come back from that? How do Christians get serious about things like holiness and mercy? For me, and for so many of us, it begins with learning how to be spiritually formed. 

In this next book, “Nervous Systems,” which comes out in fall of 2025, I’m specifically looking at spiritual practices, including embodiment and holy indifference, as an anecdote to personal anxiety, political anxiety and church anxiety.

QUESTION #5: BOOST

Cashiers, CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?

Last year, I participated in the nine-month Ignatian Exercises. I worked with a spiritual director at a place called Soul Care Seattle with a small group that walked through daily prayer, weekly check-ins and occasional group meetings. I did not know what I was getting myself into. The time ended up, clearly and profoundly, being the best thing I have ever done as a Christian who is trying to heal and move closer to Jesus.

People with the luxury of time and resources might travel to a quiet place and carve out a full month to experience the spiritual exercises; I participated in what’s called the 19th Annotation, an abridged version. As a kid, we were suspicious of Catholicism and questioned whether our Catholic family was really Christian because they were not evangelical. And honestly, the traces of that were still in me until about 10 years ago, when I began welcoming monastic practices into my prayer life, including Lectio Divina and the daily Examen. Those occasional additions were primers for the Exercises. The fruit of the dedicated season of nine months of self-discernment and prayer showed up in my writing. Journaling was a huge part of the process, which flowed into this second book. So many of the things from my childhood and life now lead back to anxiety for me, and sensing God near when we are anxious instead of praying that — poof! — my anxiety would dissipate has been a major shift that has fed into my life and my work.

QUESTION #6: inspire

Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you right now?

After the Exercises, I had a brief panic. When you come out of a season like that, one that feels set apart in dedicated prayer, it’s difficult to know how to reenter. For me, I’ve settled back into daily morning prayer with the Pray as You Go app. I wake up early if I can manage it, go downstairs while it’s dark, light a candle and stream the daily prayer. Sometimes, I’ll pray through the Daily Office, and sometimes I’ll choose a specific verse and meditate on it. But what has been an anchor, and grounding, has been Pray as You Go. Other times, when the day is harried and less picturesque, I’ll play it on my commute to downtown Seattle or while I’m walking the dog.

For readers who have yet to try Pray as You Go, there is a song, then a verse from Scripture and a series of open-ended questions in response to the day’s reading. I’m actually curious about who creates the questions, who chooses the music and how the whole thing is produced because it’s very anonymous and a bit mysterious. Very Jesuit.

QUESTION #7: FOCUS

Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed the game and changed your heart? What radically altered your life? What changed your reality?

I’ve appreciated John Mark Comer’s “Practicing the Way” podcast, specifically the season on fasting. The conversations are grounded, deeply encouraging and somehow not littered with trite superlatives. There is a certain spaciousness woven in. For example, I’ve found support and encouragement to incorporate fasting into my week as a result, and I have a better understanding of historical context and current examples.

The Bible Project podcast and videos are on heavy rotation at our house. Often, we’ll play a podcast while doing the dishes (the recent “Sermon on the Mount” series was incredible), and on Sunday nights, we try to watch a couple of videos with our kids.

Douglas McKelvey’s “Every Moment Holy” has been meaningful to me in various complex seasons. There are several volumes of liturgies for the experiences of a human life — bringing comfort and context when we don’t have the words to define something that happens to us, someone we love or in the wider world. Especially Volume 2 on death, hope and grief. For example, there are liturgies for topics like “For Caregivers in Need of Rest,” “For the Weighing of Last-Stage Medical Option” and “For the Final Hours.”

We all have things we cling to to survive (or even thrive) in tough times — times like these! Name one resource you’re savoring and/or finding indispensable in this current season, and tell us what it’s doing for you.

One resource I’m savoring right now? The natural world. Seriously. I’m in a season, postelection, where minimizing input — articles, hot takes and breaking news — is restorative. I might listen to “Practicing the Way” on a walk or pray with Pray as You Go. But opening the window and sitting next to it in my room in the quiet, even in winter, has brought refreshment. I also loop a quarter-mile trail near my house. Around and around, I’ll walk it daily, even in this season with short days, and find quiet and evidence of God’s nearness to us at all times. I know this is more natural or easy for some of us than others, and a gentle reminder to even stand on a spot of grass for 10 minutes is something in the weighty world that is a quick reminder of God as the source of all of creation.

QUESTION #8: dream

God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?

I started a podcast with my friend Morgan Page called “That’s the Spirit,” and I’ve never had more fun. In a lot of ways, it was terrible timing to launch what we call “a podcast about nothing for those carrying everything.” I write about weighty things — anxiety and culture wars — and like so many of us in the sandwich generation, I’m navigating care for my aging parents and kids. American politics, geopolitical conflicts, the state of the church. There is so much to take seriously. I wondered, Would it be OK to laugh?

It’s more than OK. I learned, probably later in life than I should have, that being ridiculous and laughing with a friend is a way to find a little relief for the journey.

We love that Sara took time out of her busy schedule to dedicate to spiritual reflection, prayer and seeking God’s presence. But she’s right — not everyone has the luxury of being able to press pause on life for days or weeks at a time. Truth be told, some of us can’t afford to take time off work, or we care for children or elderly parents full time, or we simply don’t have a support system to keep things running while we’re away.

So what can we do? If taking a spiritual vacation is out of the question, maybe we could start by setting aside a few hours for uninterrupted time with Jesus. To make sure this actually happens, let’s try planning it ahead of time, marking it in our calendars with a huge red circle that subconsciously tells us (and everyone else), “Yes, this is actually happening.”

A final thought: no matter what’s going on in your life, Jesus is with you — and you can find true rest in his presence.

Sara Billups is a Seattle-based writer and cultural commentator whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Christianity Today, Ekstasis and others. With a Doctor of Ministry in the Sacred Art of Writing, Sara writes Bitter Scroll, a monthly Substack letter. Her first book, Orphaned Believers, follows the journey of a generation raised in the 1980s and ’90s of Evangelicalism reckoning with the tradition that raised them and searching for a new way to participate in the story of God. She is working on her second book, Nervous Systems, forthcoming from Baker Books in fall of 2025.

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