Sarah Bessey
16 min read ⭑
“It is endlessly hilarious to my friends and family that a big part of my vocation has been to wade into difficult topics and conversations like feminism or justice, church matters or biblical interpretation and its application in public and online. Out of all the people for God to call to that work, I would be the least likely.”
Sarah Bessey is the bestselling author of books such as “Jesus Feminist,” “A Rhythm of Prayer,” “Miracles and Other Reasonable Things” and her latest, “Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith.” She also cofounded, with Jim Chaffee and the late Rachel Held Evans, Evolving Faith, a ministry for spiritual wanderers, questioners and doubters. Her popular Substack newsletter, Field Notes, weekly explores topics ranging from who Jesus is to trees and books worth reading.
Join the conversation below to discover how Sarah’s upbringing in the Canadian prairies has shaped her food preferences and work ethic, what habits are inspiring her creativity and spirituality, and where her career is taking her next.
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
The meals we enjoy are about so much more than the food we eat. So how does a “go-to” meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind your web bio?
I am quite a homey sort of person, so much more inclined to cook and eat at home. My husband and I both grew up in families that just didn’t go out to eat much, so that was our base code setting. It was always a major treat to “go out” somewhere — and usually there had to be some all-you-can-eat element to make it worth the spend, you know? I do have very fond memories as a kid of Trifon’s and Houston Pizza in Regina, Saskatchewan, (Regina-style pizza is a whole other topic of discussion!) on my parents’ payday as a treat, but yes, we mostly ate at home.
Now, my husband and I have four kids who are growing up on us (one young adult, two teens and one middle-schooler), and I find we’re the same way: we rarely go out to eat together, and I cook most nights for all of us. We sit around our secondhand kitchen table to eat together almost every night. I’m not a fancy cook by any stretch of the imagination, just a family home cook with a battered recipe box of old favorites from my granny and my mum.
Yet my favorite meals are, honestly, those weekday evenings with my family around the table, talking about homework and their plans, music or books. Sometimes it’s magical with laughter and connection; sometimes it’s mundane and quick, but it’s always important. Maybe a boyfriend or a best friend in the extra spots at the table, maybe my parents, who live nearby.
And so a go-to meal for us is often very rooted in my background as a prairie kid, growing up on simple meals with influences from the communities I grew up in around here. I really love Saskatoon berry pies and jams, for instance, and when it’s berry season around here, my freezer fills up quickly.
When we do go out to eat, it’s usually a family place, quite casual, within walking distance of our home here in Calgary. But yes, usually we eat at home, and it’s not too fancy.
Yuri Antonenko; Unsplash
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activity do you love engaging in that also helps you find essential spiritual renewal?
I have so many “nonspiritual” hobbies and joys in my life, and most of them are of the old-fashioned variety, I know. I go for a daily walk of about four or five kilometers, rain or shine or Calgary-winter (but when it hits -15 degrees, that’s when I give up on fresh air and head for the dusty treadmill in the basement!). I went through a long period of finding walking and mobility overall difficult due to illness and injury, so I never take that for granted. It’s a big part of managing my health now, but honestly, it also brings me joy.
The wonderful poet Luci Shaw once wrote about how she has a “slender antennae” always combing the air for messages. Being outside daily, within the seasons in my neighborhood, watching the sky in the mornings or evenings, paying attention to the wild roses, the turning of the aspens or whatever is going on around me, is one way I keep my own little antennae up for the Spirit, I think.
I also love to bake, putter around my house, go for long drives around here, watch NHL hockey games (of course!), read piles of novels and knit. Knitting is a funny one to folks: it’s so slow! But I do love it. I love the steadiness of it. I love the metaphor of it — how each stitch is connected to what came before and what comes afterward. I love the tactile nature of it: the wool, the colors, the yarn stores, the patterns. I love the time it takes, and I often pray for whoever is the victim of my attempts while I’m working, too.
In all of these things, I’m a happy amateur, prone to simple, steady choices rather than complex skills or anything. Certainly not an expert! You know, few things have changed my life like the experience of the Holy Spirit finding that imaginary line that I’d somehow drawn between “what is sacred” and “what is secular” in my life and just erasing that whole binary with a grin. So my “nonspiritual” activities are almost always an altar and encounter in their own way, you know?
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 all broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you confront its power head-on?
I know that the notion of “besetting sins” has quite fallen out of fashion these days, but I find the language rather helpful for understanding those things that simply will not be self-managed or positive-talked away, despite our best efforts. I think most of us have a thing or two that will always be a source of humility (sometimes even humiliation) or a common pothole in the road that is hard to avoid, and so it is an opportunity to experience grace.
I have more than a few weaknesses, I know, but the “kryptonite” one is probably avoidance. I once heard it described as being someone who will drive for the whole journey on a flat tire rather than pull over and change the darn thing. I can pretend that things are fine to an almost mythical level.
This idea of just avoiding hard things or difficult things or pretending that “it’s fine, I’m fine, everything is fine” is actually more harmful than I could have ever imagined, not only for my health, self and family but also for my neighbors and community, let alone our call to be peacemakers in the world.
I am definitely in a better place today than I was in my teens and 20s, but it is always a fight against my nature to just engage and to stay engaged in conflict, even when things are hard or complicated. It’s become my most reliable barometer of my own spiritual and relational health: am I avoiding or am I engaging? And usually, that’s the invitation from God I need to pull over and just get to work on changing the metaphorical tire in my soul to really, properly, show up.
I think this is why it is endlessly hilarious to my friends and family that a big part of my vocation has been to wade into difficult topics and conversations like feminism or justice, church matters or biblical interpretation and its application in public and online. Out of all the people for God to call to that work, I would be the least likely.
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?
Over the past 20 years of public work or ministry, I’ve worn a lot of different hats: preacher, teacher, conference creator, speaker, business owner, online columnist, blogger, social media stuff, writer, author and so on. Prior to that, I worked for 12 years in financial services marketing and then nonprofit development.
But these days, I’m simply a writer. I just write books, I have a newsletter, and I’m incredibly happy with this slower pace and healthier rhythm. For a few years there, I was traveling 20 weekends of the year to preach, publishing daily online and showing up with hot takes for every main-character-discussion on social media, but the truth is that I am not cut out for that life.
When my health forced a reset, it reminded me of what I really love: following Jesus, loving my family, and writing as a vocation as well as connecting with other readers through that medium. Over a period of five years or so, I slowly stepped away or untangled from the aspects or spaces of my work that felt like a mismatch and leaned into what brings joy and flourishing, not only for me, but for my family. The truth is that I’m not a great speaker or preacher or organizational leader, not really, let alone a traveler. I love being at home and having margin. I really value being the primary parent to our four children, particularly as my husband has an intense job, and we do have some higher needs in the mix, so it’s essential to be very present to a healthy rhythm and routine as a family and community. It’s a soul-pace, I suppose.
So right now, I am still shepherding my latest book, “Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith” through the world since it just came out last year. Behind the scenes, I’m also finishing up two other book projects — one as an editor/shepherd and one as a writer. I’m excited for those to be in the world in 2026 and 2027, respectively, God willing. And I have a newsletter called Field Notes. I’ve tended that space for more than 10 years since I transitioned out of blogging, which was my origin story, and it’s grown into a really beautiful and surprising community. I can’t think of anywhere else online where people show up for atrociously long reads on everything from the stories of Jesus to trees, theology deep-dives and devotionals to book chats with dozens of asides and footnotes, so it’s a special against-the-grain space.
I find my work incredibly life-giving now, with a good balance that is sustainable. It just took 20 years to get there!
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?
So I came up in a home and context that placed a very high value on work. (Can you tell I’m a prairie kid yet?) My late grandfather worked in a warehouse most of his life after WWII, and he used to drum into us that “all work is honorable.” Nobody cheered more for a 10-cent-an-hour raise than my family. I did not come from an environment with ministry and academia, let alone wealth, on the mind, so there wasn’t — there couldn’t be — this demarcation of what jobs mattered to God and which ones didn’t. Work was honorable. Period. So if I was working at Smart Set at Southcentre Mall on a Saturday or preaching on a Sunday morning, God was present and lively. My folks worked very hard all their lives and constantly spoke of God’s influence or guidance in their lanes, no matter if they were selling light bulbs at the grocery store or building a budget for a frozen food company.
I never in a million years expected to be in full-time vocational ministry, so I was conditioned to always be finding God’s presence in all work. It wasn’t a separate space to us, I guess. Everything from raising kids to doing laundry to writing a Bible study was open for grace, you know? I didn’t have a clue how much of a gift that was until I was older — a familiar refrain to most of us, I expect.
So to answer, I experience that holy, invigorating energy of the divine in every aspect I’m willing to notice or enter into awareness of her presence. I have felt God’s energy and goodness and even anointing (another old word I still absolutely adore) in long conversations with my teenagers about life and love, in a long writing session alone at my desk, in scrubbing the refrigerator on a Saturday morning, in paperwork for IPPs at schools, in knitting, in cooking meals with the women at my church for the families of NICU babies, in careful study, in poetry and in prayer. When it comes to my creativity or my vocation, I often find the most “inspiration” or encounter with God after or in the midst of very ordinary work. Putting my hands to something almost always wakes up my soul again.
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 in this season?
Prayer, as a practice and a rhythm and a constancy, is always very near to me. I’m not sure why this has been a steady gift for most of my life, in one form or another, but I just rest in that grace now. Prayer is the conversation of my days … or perhaps the word “presence” is more accurate.
I’m also very committed to the local church as a practice in ideals, sure, but also in particular. I love our little church here in Calgary and feel very protective of her. After many experiences of church hurt, one would think I’d be done — sometimes I’m as surprised as others that I’m not! — but I just love the Church so much. And not just in a general way. Like, two of my kids are devoted to their youth group, never missing a youth service. I’m on the edges myself, and I love that our pastors let me just “be.” It’s been such a beautiful place of misfits, participation, healing and belonging, in a very human and ordinary sort of way. I love our Sunday mornings, worshipping and praying together. The teaching is wonderful and yet is never curated just “for me” in the way that choosing a podcast or training an algorithm reduces us to think of spiritual formation. I think there is something deeply good about the friction of community as part of our lives, however that looks.
The other spiritual practice has been walking. As I said in an earlier question, walking is a daily practice for me. There is something about moving my body through my own world that deeply connects me with God. It’s a mixed bag of how that looks though! There have been days when I have my AirPods in, worship music blaring. There are days when a pop culture comedy podcast is my company. Sometimes it’s silence. I’ve cried for five kilometers around the neighborhood, interceding in prayer for someone. Sometimes I call my mum or my sister or a friend for a chat. It’s just an hour of every day when I try to listen to what my soul needs and simply say yes to it while my feet keep moving. It’s never convenient or easy to make room for that, and not everyone would call my walk “edifying” perhaps, but there isn’t a time when I do it when I don’t feel better at ease, on a soul level, during and afterward.
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 reality and your heart?
If I had to point to the top resources that have formed me without the obvious answer of the Bible, that is still a nearly impossible question to answer! I’m a pseudo-hermit bookworm who tends to throw a book at every single question or wondering, so we could be here all day. But if I had to narrow it down, I’d probably begin with the “Anne” books by L.M. Montgomery. I encountered those novels for girls when I was 8, and I think her way of seeing the world set my feet on a path that I still walk today. That series — and all of her novels, honestly — gave me such a beautiful framework for girlhood, womanhood, mothering, community, faithfulness, belonging, courage, self-sacrifice, calling and everyday, ordinary beauty.
Then I’d point toward Brennan Manning’s work, particularly at a pivotal time in my life in my 20s when I was detoxing from a very performance-based, striving sort of hustle in my discipleship. Learning that I was loved as I am, and that this is the truest thing about me, healed a lot of how I related to God, and then to others as well. His works opened the door to so much goodness for me, particularly “The Ragamuffin Gospel” and “The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus.”
My friendship with the late Rachel Held Evans is also an epic turning point in my life. We were bloggers together in the beginning, became dear friends and partners in crime and started Evolving Faith together. She was even better off the page or screen than she was on it, and that is saying something. Thoughtful, brilliant, self-deprecating, quick to admit when she was wrong, authentic and compassionate. I miss her every single day as my friend, but I also miss her as a spiritual leader, writer, companion and teacher in these days. Her work holds up so beautifully, and I think she remains the voice of a generation. If people haven’t encountered her work yet, I’d start with “Searching for Sunday” or “Inspired.” She loved the Church and the Bible so very much. Those books helped many of us, spiritually longing or homeless, find both hope and companionship.
I could point to a dozen other leaders and thinkers who were part of my own spiritual formation at very pivotal moments — Barbara Brown Taylor, Madeleine L’Engle, Dallas Willard, C.S. Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Twiss, bell hooks, Julian of Norwich, Brother Lawrence, dozens of feminist writers. Gah, so many other contemporary names spring to mind, too, like Jeff Chu and Kaitlin Curtice and Cole Arthur Riley! What a time to be alive with so much incredible work being created right now.
But I’ll wrap up with a very slim volume that came to me when I was a young mum with three tinies in four years and then another last little one bringing up the rear eventually. It’s a series of lectures that Kathleen Norris gave once, published as “The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and Women’s Work.” This pocket-size book gave me language for what I was experiencing in that season of my life as breastfeeding and raising babies was all braiding together with my vocation and my devotion to God and my work. She named something I sorely needed about the holiness of work, the goodness of vocation and the life of mystery waiting in our actual lived days. I loved that book. I still love that book.
We all have things we cling to to survive or even thrive in our fast-paced, techno-driven world. How have you been successful in harnessing technology to aid in your spiritual growth?
For someone who got her vocational start on the internet as an early adopter of blogging and social media, I’m surprisingly non-online these days. I have reverted to a lot more analog in my life. I mean, I watch the local 6 o’clock news and our national news programming. I still get a newspaper, for heaven’s sake. I listen to the local CBC radio for my news. I don’t scroll entertainment sites that farm outrage anymore. I call people on the phone to talk. I hardly ever text anyone. So for me, I have way more boundaries now than I had even 20 years ago. As I’m raising our kids, I want to model thoughtful engagement without addiction and dependence, prioritizing connection over clicks, you know? So in terms of how it aids spiritual growth, I might be the misfit here: I think getting offline a bit more, reducing the noise, being careful about whose voice is our ear, slowing down, reading books rather than watching videos and so on has actually been very helpful for my soul. Everyone is different here, obviously, and I’m a Gen-Xer who loves to read, so maybe take that with a grain of salt!
But in the interest of showing I’m not a total curmudgeon, when it comes to using technology rather than eschewing it, I find a lot of goodness in the Spotify app for audiobooks or music. It’s a real gift to have access to so much thoughtful, creative work. For instance, I hear people dog Christian music all the time — and I get that, as sometimes it can be derivative or repetitive — but man, have you gotten on Spotify and heard what is hiding underneath the radio play? The beautiful souls who are creating music that would never have access to an official record label or sponsorship deal? It’s so inspiring and resetting and bracing. I’m particularly thinking of the LGBTQ+ songwriters of faith like Jennifer Knapp or Semler or Spencer LaJoye’s “Plowshare Prayer.” Good gracious, what a gift to the Church!
QUESTION #8: dream
God’s 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?
In one of my earlier books, I wrote about how I always know that God is getting ready to do something new in me when I feel particularly quiet and inward. And wow, I’m feeling that way right now. As I mentioned, it’s been a slowing-down season, maybe even a clarifying one. I’m not even quite sure where it will lead, to be honest!
But now that I’m on the other side of a very intentional slowing down over the past few years, I feel that sort of energy stirring. I’m writing in a very different way than I have before. I’m feeling more creative, more free, more empowered but also more gentle (with myself, with others, all of it) and more at ease. I think some of this might be my stage of life, perhaps. But meanwhile, I’m writing from the center of my life at my newsletter every single week, and writing long-form for books still, and we’re all grappling with how to rise to the questions of our time, how to speak light and hope in the midst of a lot of darkness around us, how to step up and into peacemaking.
One thing that began to develop in my work is directly because of the voices and friendships with Evolving Faith alongside Rachel Held Evans and Jeff Chu for those years of our shared work: the idea of being “for” something, rather than just “against” things. It’s always necessary to name what we’re against — and heaven knows, we have a lot of material right now — and that can be holy work, for sure. But Jeff, in particular, always challenges me to remember and name what I want to be for in this world. To be for human flourishing. To be for connection. To be for beautiful sentences and true ideas and good food. To build and to create, to not cede the ground to fatalism and resignation or apathy or settle for less than being fully human. Basically, I have no idea what to expect for the future, but I know I want to move into this next season with my hands unclenched and my heart open. I’ll be writing my way through it all, no doubt.
We all have a long list of things we’re against, don’t we? People and ideas and theologies and politics that we disagree with. But what are we for? What do we love and want to see more of in this world?
Sarah’s list above is a beautiful one to emulate, but I encourage you to write your own. This week, why not write down a list of at least 10 things you’d love to see more of in this world — things you’re praying Jesus would do in your heart and others’.
Sarah Bessey’s latest book, Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith, was a domestic and international bestseller. She is also the editor and author of The New York Times bestseller A Rhythm of Prayer as well as Miracles and Other Reasonable Things, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith and Jesus Feminist. One of the cofounders of Evolving Faith, Sarah also writes a popular weekly newsletter called Field Notes. Married to Brian for 24 years, they are raising their four kids in Calgary, Alberta, Canada (Treaty 7 Territory).
