The Rev. Laura Di Panfilo
In the fall of 2023, the Rev. Laura Di Panfilo (Associate Rector at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Mt. Lebanon, PA) and the Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail (Vicar at Jubilee Episcopal Church in Austin, TX) launched their podcast And Also With You, which is “A podcast on reclaiming an ancient Christian faith for modern Christian life.” Since then, it has had around 29,000 downloads (and counting!) and an even more significant impact on the spiritual need present all around us. The Rev. Laura Di Panfilo comments on this ministry by saying “I think a reason why our podcast is doing well is that it’s speaking to people, and people are very hungry for a church that loves and accepts them, allows them to ask big questions, and isn’t threatened by difference of belief and opinion and gives them space to wonder.”
The Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail
The Rev. Laura Di Panfilo was ordained to the priesthood in December 2019 and Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail was ordained to the priesthood in June 2020, a time of pandemic and upheaval which necessitated a change from the way both of them had imagined their ministries would begin. During the pandemic, Rev. Di Panfilo started noticing that a seminary friend, who is a Presbyterian minister, was posting content on TikTok about what it’s like to be a female minister and what it’s like to be in her church. She was struck by the idea and started creating content as well, which in turn inspired the Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail to explore this form.
Over time, people would reach out to both of them asking questions about the church, theology, what it’s like to be a young female priest etc. which eventually led to Laura’s desire to launch a podcast with Lizzie, a platform that could honor the questions they were being asked in a way that could become a resource for others, something TikTok as a platform cannot do as well. “Over time people would reach out and ask questions. They would comment ‘oh, you’re the first female priest I’ve ever seen, I have all of these questions.’ But I did not have the time or ability to address them all individually. A podcast seemed like a wonderful way to address these questions. After over a year of planning, talking to podcast hosts and editors, and support raising, the podcast launched.
“And Also With You” is largely guided by the questions both priests have received on social media and also by the church calendar. For example, the podcast has just finished up a series on Lent and has turned to themes of “hope” and “resurrection” in Easter. In their first Easter-season episode entitled “What is hope?” Laura and Lizzie have a rich conversation with the hosts of The Leader’s Way podcast, “an audio pilgrimage from Berkeley Divinity School at Yale.” You can find this episode here and The Leader’s Way podcast episode here.
A tangible example of the influence of the podcast, beyond the significant goal of having conversations about questions people have about God, is a story Laura shared about a communication from one of their listeners. After their “What is baptism?” episode was released, they received an email from a listener saying “by the way, this is what happened after I listened to your baptism episode” and attached was a picture of her baptism. While Laura and Lizzie have their own parishes they need to be present for, particularly as the ministry-scape is different than it was in the pandemic, their offerings via “And Also With You” have offered people perspectives on modern church life in ways that have yielded cause for celebration, including a listener’s baptism.
Laura offers: “Our goal was to explore the questions that people were asking of us. We have listeners who come from different Christian backgrounds, no religious background, and also many listeners who are firmly planted in the Episcopal Church. We hope to be a resource for people to help encourage them in the knowledge and love of God.”
You can find “And Also With You” here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/and-also-with-you/id1706914579
Support for the podcast (funding for operational costs) can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/AndAlsoWithYouPodcast
The Leader’s Way episode featuring Laura and Lizzie can be found here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/19-digital-ministry-with-lizzie-mcmanus-dail-and-laura/id1690844555?i=1000651032689
–Alisa Huston