The Loneliness Epidemic

With All Due Respect

This episode is brought to you by Anglican Aid. Your gift will strengthen churches and help transform communities. You can donate to With All Due Respect's featured causes here.

While we have been dealing with a pandemic over the last couple of years, we have also been experiencing what some are calling a loneliness epidemic.

Megan Powell du Toit and Michael Jensen discuss how this new struggle has been reported across many countries, particularly in their home country. The Ending Loneliness Together report says that one in four Australians are experiencing problematic levels of loneliness, with one in two Australians feeling lonelier due to the pandemic in 2020.

Why is this so? Does it happen to Christians as much as anyone else, and how can we respond?

Michael and Megan talk first about how loneliness might interact with faith, and then they invite Susan Mettes, behavioural scientist and author of The Loneliness Epidemic, on to the show to discuss how we can begin to deal with this challenge.

Finally, the WADR team take a look at a comedy of loneliness, This Way Up.

LINKS

After the highly successful “In the footsteps of the Reformers” tour through the Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland and the UK. Faith Journeys is launching its latest tour “In the footsteps of Saint Paul”, travelling across Turkey, Greece & Italy from 25th April – 9th May 2023. The tour starts in Istanbul and makes its way through to Greece before ending in Rome. Daily devotions, a pilgrimage handbook and study guide assist with exploring the works, teachings and journeys of St Paul while travelling with like-minded individuals. You also have a Tour Manager throughout who looks after all travel logistics with exclusive local tour guides who all work alongside Michael Jensen to create an immersive touring experience. If you're interested in joining Michael on his instructive tour of early church locations, then you can find out everything you need to know at www.faithjourneys.com.au or by emailing [e-mail].

This is where you can find Susan Mettes' book, The Loneliness Epidemic: Why So Many of Us Feel Alone - and How Leaders Can Respond.

If you'd like to help Michael and Megan continue to deliver With All Due Respect each fortnight, why not make a donation?

With All Due Respect is the podcast for The WADR Project.

Help internally displaced people in Africa!

Disasters and conflicts have led to a record number of over 75 million internally displaced people, or IDPs, around the world. IDPs are people who have been forced to flee their homes but have not crossed international borders.

Almost half of all IDPs - more than the population of Australia and New Zealand combined - are in sub-Saharan Africa.

Most of the displaced have left everything behind: their homes, belongings, and livelihoods. They urgently need food, shelter, clothing, and trauma counselling. So Anglican Aid has launched a Forced to Flee Emergency Appeal to provide essential aid to IDPs in Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, and beyond. This aid will be distributed by local churches, who are sacrificially providing for the needs of the displaced, and pointing them to the God who is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

To find out more about this appeal and make a tax-deductible gift, visit anglicanaid.org.au/wadr.