Laura invites listeners to visit The Baking Pastor where they can listen to the podcast, read reflections and Soul Care Sunday posts, explore recipes and gentle resources, and find space to slow down and reconnect with God in everyday life.

From the podcast and Soul Pause Journal to speaking, soul care conversations, and Scripture rhythms with Sassy 🐾, The Baking Pastor is a welcoming space for those longing for honest faith, quiet encouragement, and everyday grace.

Visitors can also download the free Special Edition Soul Pause Journal—a gentle invitation to pause, reflect, and begin again right where they are.

https://bakingpastor.com/

Welcome to 12 Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you, Laura.

It's a great pleasure to connect with you.

What part of the world are you in today?

I am in South Carolina and I'm excited to be here with you.

I'm excited to have you as well.

The cat in your picture, would you explain why you're holding a cat in this picture, please?

Well, her name is Sassy, and she has become part of what I do, actually, as my brand and my podcaster, The Baking Pastor.

And she has her own Bible study that people can sign up for on my website, and it's called Read the Bible in a Year with Sassy.

And then she provides a weekly kind of a recap for it.

But she also is the supervisor, she is the protector, she is everything for the show, producer.

She's always involved, and the only thing that she needs is love and snacks.

Hmm.

How did you both meet?

She actually found us.

She came up to our house and adopted us about four years ago this year in November and was just here.

And I guess we thought she was a stray, but she'd actually been somebody else's.

And we found that out when we took her to have her fixed, they brought back and said, Laura, she's already been fixed.

And it was like, oh, okay, well, she chose us.

So she's here.

She's an inside outside cat.

She keeps the snakes and squirrels away, but she comes in and then she's very loving.

And so we just really enjoy having her and her grandparents adore her.

And it's just a neat combination.

When did you begin incorporating her with the podcast?

In the beginning, because she shows up in several of my episodes, you'll hear her fur push against the microphone.

Were you always good with pets before?

Yes, usually dogs, dogs, especially not not as much cats, but she loves us.

So we love her back.

That's pretty amazing.

Now, when you say she's producing and she's part of it, is it an open conversation that's happening where you're stopping, pausing and asking, what do you think?

Is that how it works?

Sassy's in my life, kind of like God's in my life.

I speak with him all through the day.

And I ask him questions.

I tell him about my day.

And with Sassy, she gets choices like she has probably five or six packages of snacks.

And I asked her and we'll show her different packages, which ones do you want?

She will tell me if she wants a different one.

She meows to come in, she meows to go out.

So you know, I asked her opinion on stuff.

I don't always go with her opinions.

But I try to.

Tell me about the podcast and how the name aligns with what you actually live by baking.

So the podcast name is At the Counter with the Baking Pastor.

And there is an actual counter that my great grandfather made for my great grandmother, Maggie, which is now part of our house.

And he built it for her and she would make her biscuits and her dumplings, her noodles, everything.

And you could when we got the cabinet, it was the top was so worn and so loved.

We knew how much love and food she had baked and made from that counter.

And so for me, baking has always been self-care.

And that's something that a lot of people really need to find something that they like to do when they're stressed.

And so that is something that just came natural.

My grandmother taught me to to bake and cook and can.

And then when I was pastoring at my first church, I baked goodies to take to my older congregation on home visits and they nicknamed me the baking pastor.

So that's how that came up.

But I bake now for pleasure.

I bake for stress.

And my husband will come in and say, oh, are you stressed, bacon?

Are you just baking because you're happy?

So we have to have like a quick answer.

What am I baking for?

Because like at the holidays, you know, there's a lot of baking.

He gets a little concerned when he comes home and sees, you know, five kinds of cookies.

So but it's good for stress.

And then the counter is something that I like to have people envision as a pastoral counselor when they come see me.

I want them to feel like they've just come in.

They're at my counter.

They've got their warm beverage and they can just lay all their junk that they're dealing with on the counter.

And then we can decide what we're going to work with.

And so sometimes the counter has sassy nearby.

She knows she's not allowed on it, but she will definitely pop up in a chair and be by it.

And so that's why she's kind of always around because cats are uniquely always underfoot.

Was there a time when not having the counter caused pain or trauma for you while working with others?

You know, I didn't even have the counter in my possession until maybe two and a half years, three years ago.

So before that, I would say let's hold tension with the count with my clients.

I would think like we had this big, huge platter that they could put their cares or issues on.

So I don't know that it caused any pain not having it because I didn't know it was available.

I mean, it was part of, it was built into the house of my grandparents.

And so when my uncle gave us that counter, it was unique and special to have that legacy of all the women who baked and cooked in my lineage.

So my great grandmother, I'm sure taught my grandmother stuff, which taught my mom and then taught me.

And so, you know, the legacy is a reminder of we have to take care of ourselves so that we can take care of those important to others.

And so that's kind of always been there, even though I didn't have the counter at the time, but that's still been ongoing.

So I don't know that I would say I didn't have, I had pain because I didn't have it, but I can tell you it has been such a blessing to have it since we got it.

Yeah.

It's pretty cool how the mental manifestation of something appeared physically and how over time, given the work that you were doing, it was very much an intentional appearance.

I'm in the South, in the United States.

And so comfort in the South is usually food.

I mean, if you go to any church event in the South, you're going to get tons and tons of food.

So that the fact that people can envision coming in, hanging at the counter where there's always coffee or tea, and they can just, you know, take a load off and know that they're not the only ones with their burdens.

You know, the Bible tells us that we can help each other with our yoke, but oftentimes, depending on what we're dealing with, it's hard to let others in.

So when they can see that I truly mean that by the imagery I use in my posts and on the podcast, they can feel comfortable and really get into the spirit of, okay, I'm here.

Let's do the work now.

Did you share similarities other than baking with your grandmother and great-grandmother that come forward now that you're in that reflective state at the counter?

Well, I didn't get to meet my great-grandmother.

She was passed away many, many years before I was around, but my grandmother made, she made the best sourdough bread, and I was able to get her recipe for the starter and started making her bread, her cinnamon rolls, and a bunch of other things with the sourdough starter.

So I think of her frequently as I'm doing that, but you know, I look at the dough and sourdough, especially anytime you're baking with bread, you don't always see what's going on underneath.

You know, you build the ingredients, and sometimes it looks like nothing.

And I think that's what a lot of us think when our lives are going out of just chaos.

Nothing's going on under the surface, but yeast and whatnot work under the surface, and then they come out with something magnificent.

Same for us.

You know, if we do a little bit of work, we can end up with a fabulous outcome, even though we don't always see what our efforts are producing at the time.

If we had flour, yeast, and water, which would you call physical, mental, and spiritual?

Physical, I would say, would be the flour.

Right.

I think the spiritual is the water, and the mental is the yeast.

But we have, you know, you can have flour, it does nothing.

We can have water, we need that to survive, which is why I say spiritual.

But yeast is like that little extra special that just kicks everything else up.

And that's what the Holy Spirit does.

All right, let's do Message in a Bottle.

Hope it comes back to you.

Five years from today, you're listening to this conversation.

What's a message you'd leave for Laura?

Healing requires honesty, and vulnerability does not mean weakness.

And faith sometimes is stepping out.

But you need to feel safe around the people and stop performing.

And you can love God deeply through it all.

He is right there with you and ready to help you.

Laura, this has been an honor to have this conversation with you.

In closing, is there anything else you'd like to share with our amazing audience?

Oh, if you'd like to know more about me or Sassy, check out bakingpastor.com, where you can sign up for Sassy's Read the Bible in a Year with her.

We'd love to hear from you.

Drop us a message.

Laura Sharp, it's a pleasure.

I treasure it.

Thank you for being on what is inspired by 12 Minute Converse.