The More Than Just Stories initiative made its podcasting debut last week with the release of the first episodes of “Just Stories” and “The Gratitude Letters.”

Jen Shenk, the campus pastor, is the host of “The Gratitude Letters.” For the podcast, someone will write a letter to someone who means a lot to them, and the MTJS team will bring in both the writer of the letter and the recipient, and the letter will be read out loud, capturing everyone’s feelings. “It’s a beautiful conversation,” Shenk said, “and we just see where it goes from there.”

Rob Brenneman and Regina Shands Stoltzfus are the co-hosts of “Just Stories,” which aims to show how religion and justice intersect. Brenneman said, “When I learned about the grant proposal for telling stories of faith in the public sphere, it brought back to mind an idea for a podcast I had been wwanting to do, but didn’t have the time for.”

At the end of 2025, Goshen College was awarded a $5 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to produce stories on the topic of faith in daily life. GC was one of 48 colleges to receive a grant.

In response to this, Duane Stoltzfus transitioned from his role as the chair of the communication department to become the creative director for MTJS. His plan is to create five separate faith-based outlets under the MTJS umbrella. 

The first of these to be put in effect, Peace Talks, was held in September at Umble Center, and the documentary “The Inheritance” is currently under development. They are now joined by “The Gratitude Letters” and “Just Stories.”

“Climate Commons,” a story-telling conference on faith and climate change, will come later.

Brenneman says that “Just Stories” is almost a dream come true for him. When he taught during the COVID-19 pandemic at his previous school, St. Michael’s College in Vermont, he came up with an idea for a podcast that talks about policy and faith. “That’s where I first had the idea of a podcast. And it was literally during that time that I got the invitation to come to Goshen College,” Brenneman said. “Five years later, the opportunity arose, and I decided this would be the perfect opportunity.”

“I’m co-host, which is important, with Regina,” Brenneman said. “We do this together, think about potential guests together, think about the website, each episode, flow, and all those things — we collaborate.”

“Between his program and mine, there is a lot to talk about and lots of people connected,” Shands Stoltzfus said. 

The first episode details the justice and injustice throughout the world in places from local jails and classrooms to Central American refugee camps, and how faith can help people find their way through.

One thing Brenneman finds challenging is getting people to speak honestly and from the heart, from social media training. “It continues to be a challenge to get people to talk sort of off the record or in an unofficial way, because people, especially leaders, are very careful with what they say,” he said. “So how do I put guests at ease and get them sharing without making them feel like they let their guard down and got burned?”

“The Gratitude Letters” takes a much different angle to the topic of faith.  Shenk said, “Our world is very fearful, it’s very chaotic, it’s overwhelming, and there’s a lot to be in despair about,” she said.

“I feel like this podcast has a very profound and powerful potential to be a counterweight to all of that, to counterbalance some of that so that we have reminders that there’s a lot of powerful good that’s happening in the world,” Shenk said

Not all the letters read in her podcast are of lighter topics. “Our next episode that’s airing is one person who wrote a letter to someone who has passed away,” she said. “That particular episode has a different slant.” 

Shenk says she doesn’t want to keep the tone down. “I do believe that gratitude is contagious,” she said. “This way of being inspired by the podcast will hopefully inspire more people to reach out to those people in their lives that have impacted them in a positive way. My vision for the future is basically for this podcast to inspire other people to infect the world with gratitude.”

Currently, the main hurdle to recieving more letters is the lack of reach that the podcast has. 

“The goal would be to get so many letters that we have to wade through them all to find out which one merits being on the podcast,” Shenk said.

MTJS and its initial initatives can be found on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and more.