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Leaving Egypt Podcast

Leaving Egypt Podcast

Written by: Leaving Egypt
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Leaving Egypt is a series of conversations with Jenny Sinclair, Al Roxburgh and guests exploring the vocation of the church in a context of cultural unravelling. Leaving Egypt seeks to make sense of this moment for communities of Christians in North America and the UK. In dialogue with guests, they read the signs of the times and share stories of how local expressions of God’s people are contributing to the reweaving of hope in our common life.

leavingegyptpodcast.substack.comLeaving Egypt Podcast Christianity Ministry & Evangelism Social Sciences Spirituality
Episodes
  • EP #65 A New Generation Finds Home - with Sophie Taylor

    EP #65 A New Generation Finds Home - with Sophie Taylor
    May 14 2026
    We hope that you are enjoying Leaving Egypt. We would invite you to join the Leaving Egypt community on Substack by becoming a paid subscriber: https://leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com/subscribeIn this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair speak with Sophie Taylor about the quiet but growing movement of young adults towards the Catholic Church. Drawn by a hunger for truth and belonging amidst a chaotic culture, many arrive with little formation - some new to faith, others reclaiming what earlier generations let slip. Sophie explores what attracts them: the Church’s sacramental imagination - beauty, liturgy, art, and mystery - and the way parish life can reframe reality and relationship. She also names the challenges of moving from online isolation and post-COVID social anxiety into embodied community, arguing that young adults need more than a friendly welcome: they need intentional formation in relational life. With realism and hope, Sophie describes how deep listening and attentive encounter can renew belonging in the Church and beyond. This is a compelling picture of God’s mission at work - one heart at a time - inviting the whole Church to become a living oasis amid the storms of our age.Sophie Taylor is the Adult Faith Formation Officer at the Diocese of Leeds, where she supports new Catholics, resources catechists, and organises formation events and days of reflection to help adults across the diocese grow in faith. She also works part-time supporting the pastoral life and community at the parish of St. Joseph Brighouse and St. Patrick’s Elland. After gaining her degree in Theology at Leeds Trinity University, when she also served in the diocesan youth team, she taught RE in the North East of England, where she also served in her local parish.For Sophie Taylorhttps://www.dioceseofleeds.org.uk/education/welcome/meet-the-team/https://www.dioceseofleeds.org.uk/new-eve-faith-formation-day-celebrating-womens-call-to-holiness/https://www.dioceseofleeds.org.uk/new-catholics/https://stjosephschurchbrighouse.co.uk/our-faith/our-newsFor Alan J Roxburgh:http://alanroxburgh.com/aboutFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetworkBooks:Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unravelling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)Joining God in the Great UnravellingLeadership, God’s Agency and DisruptionsJoining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our TimeFor Jenny Sinclair:Substack: https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclairWebsite: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclairLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/Twitter: https://twitter.com/T4CGFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUKInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/ Get full access to Leaving Egypt at leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com/subscribe
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    1 hr and 14 mins
  • EP#64 A Priest to the People - with Fr John Armitage

    EP#64 A Priest to the People - with Fr John Armitage
    Apr 30 2026
    We hope that you are enjoying Leaving Egypt. We would invite you to join the Leaving Egypt community on Substack by becoming a paid subscriber: https://leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com/subscribeIn this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair meet Fr John Armitage. These days, there is much talk about the challenges for leadership and what it means to be church in a post-everything society. Anxious questions abound: Is revival coming, or are we sliding into an even more uncertain season? Yet when listening to Fr John, a completely different response emerges. Amid what he describes as the great emptiness of modern life - the worship of idols, the loss of community – here is a wise, seasoned leader who carries a quiet sense of joy, anticipation, and delight in the work God has given him right where he is. What’s the secret? First, he is deeply rooted in place. When asked about himself, he begins with the story of where he grew up. It’s as if he’s saying: if you want to know who I am, you need to know where I was planted. The relational character of working-class culture has shaped his life. Second, he is firmly rooted in the Catholic tradition; the ordered rhythms of the Church have formed him. There is no fancy strategy to what he does, no new thing that makes the parish successful. But there is this deep rooting in the Gospel. These realities give him the grounding to be present with people, to enter their everyday lives in a way that lets them know they’re being met by someone held by a bigger story. This is a man in love with his neighbourhood, his life in God, and therefore with the people around him—core elements, it seems, in being a kingdom people in Egypt.Monsignor John Armitage is the longstanding parish priest at St Margaret’s Church in Canning Town, his lifelong East London home. Fr John is an inspirational retreat leader, speaker and mentor to clergy and has held senior roles in the Diocese of Brentwood, including Vicar General. For five years between 2014 and 2020, he was Rector of the National Basilica of Our Lady of Walsingham, overseeing its modernisation and leading the Rededication of England to the Dowry of Mary during the Covid lockdown. Deeply committed to social justice, he was instrumental in founding the UK’s first community organising alliance, the East London Communities Organisation (TELCO) in 1996, which launched the original Living Wage campaign in 2001. Since 2020, he has also taken on the leadership of the Guild of Our Lady of Ransom, the UK Catholic evangelisation charity which has birthed the WeBelieve Festival of Catholic Life.For Monsignor John Armitage:https://www.dioceseofbrentwood.net/clergy/rt-rev-mgr-john-armitage/https://www.guild-ransom.co.uk/abouthttps://www.cbcew.org.uk/home/our-work/living-wage/videos/east-end-dockers/Mentioned in this episode:England: The Dowry of Our Lady of MaryArticle by Maurice GlasmanFor Alan J Roxburgh:http://alanroxburgh.com/aboutFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetworkBooks:Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unravelling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)Joining God in the Great UnravellingLeadership, God’s Agency and DisruptionsJoining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our TimeFor Jenny Sinclair:Substack: https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclairWebsite: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclairLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/Twitter: https://twitter.com/T4CGFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUKInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/ Get full access to Leaving Egypt at leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com/subscribe
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    1 hr and 18 mins
  • EP#63 - Stewarding a Christian Imagination for a Just World - with Melanie Rieback

    EP#63 - Stewarding a Christian Imagination for a Just World - with Melanie Rieback
    Apr 16 2026
    We hope that you are enjoying Leaving Egypt. We would invite you to join the Leaving Egypt community on Substack by becoming a paid subscriber: https://leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com/subscribeIn this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair meet Melanie Rieback. Melanie’s faith journey is as unexpected as her professional journey. Her extraordinary story, from computer hacker to systems thinker, from a secular Jewish upbringing to the Catholic tradition, is filled with creativity and paradox. She incubates steward-ownership business models and loves the ancient liturgies of the Church. She is a leader in cutting-edge redemptive business and finance who reads Thomas Aquinas. She works with European governments as her life is shaped by Edith Stein. She retells parables to ground new economic ideas in ancient biblical wisdom. She builds bridges between the political left and the Christian right. Melanie is involved in an amazing journey of encountering the reality of God. The story of her conversion was told in another podcast (linked below). In this episode of Leaving Egypt, she reveals how her journey continues to unfold, including baptism into the Catholic Church. What stands out most about Melanie’s vocation is that, even in a highly technical field, her primary question is: “Lord Jesus, where do you want me?” Her surrender, through moments of crisis and awakening, is to a powerful calling: to gather and empower people to create a more just world, for the sake of the other, in God’s name.Dr. Melanie Rieback is a computer scientist and social entrepreneur, CEO and founder of a cybersecurity company - Radically Open Security - that gives all its profit to charity. She is also founder of a “Post Growth” startup incubator, Nonprofit Ventures. Inspired by Catholic Social Teaching, she is involved in the Francesco Collaborative where she mentors young entrepreneurs and practitioners the non-extractive business space. Formerly, Melanie was Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Free University of Amsterdam, Senior Engineering Manager on XenClient at Citrix and head researcher in the CSIRT at ING Bank, where she spearheaded their Analysis Lab and the ING Core Threat Intelligence Project. Melanie has received many awards for her work as a woman in tech innovation. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio, raised in Florida and lives in Amsterdam. For Melanie Rieback:www.linkedin.com/in/mriebackwww.radicallyopensecurity.comwww.francescocollaborative.orgwww.francescoeconomy.orgRerum Novarum – Pope Leo XIIILaborem Exercens – John Paul IIA podcast interview with Melanie Rieback referred to in this episode An article by Melanie Rieback on steward ownership as a third way (in Dutch): https://wi.christenunie.nl/groen-2025/03-creatief-met-armoede (pdf download)Presentation on Steward Ownership by Melanie Rieback to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences as part of a workshop on Digital Rerum Novarum: Artificial Intelligence for Peace, Social Justice, and Integral Human Development in October 2025A series of lectures by Melanie Rieback on Post Growth Entrepreneurship at the University of AmsterdamFor Alan J Roxburgh:http://alanroxburgh.com/aboutFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetworkBooks:Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unravelling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)Joining God in the Great UnravellingLeadership, God’s Agency and DisruptionsJoining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our TimeFor Jenny Sinclair:Substack: https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclairWebsite: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclairLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/Twitter: https://twitter.com/T4CGFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUKInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/ Get full access to Leaving Egypt at leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com/subscribe
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    1 hr and 18 mins
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