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For The Love With Jen Hatmaker Podcast

[ENCORE] Beyond the Hug: How Sara Cunningham Built a Movement of Radical Welcome

For The Love With Jen Hatmaker Podcast

Jen Hatmaker

Relationships, Society & Culture

4.6 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2026

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary


Description:It's Pride Month, and we couldn't think of a better time to bring back one of our most beloved episodes. Sara Cunningham — founder of Free Mom Hugs — first joined Jen back in 2018, when she was a Christian mom from Oklahoma City who had just started showing up at Pride parades with a handmade sign and a button. A lot has happened since then.

What began as one mom extending her arms to strangers has grown into a global movement. Free Mom Hugs now trains advocates, lobbies legislatures, and shows up year after year for LGBTQIA+ people whose own families walked away. Sara hasn't just built an organization — she's built a lifeline.

In this conversation, Sara and Jen revisit the journey that started it all: how Sara moved from the church to the Pride parade without losing her faith, what it meant for her son Parker to come out into a family still finding its footing, and how the stories of people who had lost everything — their families, their churches, their sense of belonging — fell into her arms and changed the course of her life.

They also talk about what it takes to turn personal pain into structural change, and why showing up — physically, politically, and relationally — for the LGBTQIA+ community matters more than ever right now.

This one is worth every minute. Enjoy this encore conversation with our beloved friend, Sara Cunningham!

Thought-provoking Quotes:

  • “No one has searched for God more than the Gay Christian.” – Sara Cunningham

  • “The first drag show that I ever went to, when I crossed the threshold, I really thought lightning might strike. But, I realized these are beautiful people raising money for homeless LGBTQ youth. And I was so moved by that. I had it totally wrong. I believed a lie that kept me from some of the most beautiful experiences I’ve had in my life.”  – Sara Cunningham

  • “I remember there was a time, at the beginning of that journey, I call from the church to the pride parade. It was like reality was setting in. The bubble that I was in, the evangelical conservative mainstream bubble that I was in where everyone looked like me and talked like me, had just shattered. And I wanted to take a banner and put it outside of my house on the front door, like, welcome to the real world. And suddenly it's like my eyes are truly open.” - Sara Cunningham

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey everybody, it is Pride Month, and we are right in the middle of our freedom and

0:11.3

flourishing series, which means today's episode is the one I wanted to bring back. Because if

0:19.1

there's anyone who lives the difference between getting free and

0:23.1

actually flourishing, it's today's guest. So her name is Sarah Cunningham. Of course, some of you

0:29.2

remember her from way back in 2018 when she first came on this show. At the time, she was a Christian mom

0:36.2

from Oklahoma City who had just started showing up at pride

0:41.0

parades in her city wearing a handmade button that said free mom hugs. Remember this? Her youngest son

0:47.7

Parker had recently come out and Sarah, in her own words, had walked from the church to the pride parade

0:53.7

without losing her faith.

0:55.8

That handmade button has now, of course, become a global organization.

1:01.4

Free Mom Hugs has hugged literally hundreds of thousands of people.

1:07.1

It trains advocates, lobbies legislatures, partners with civic and faith leaders, and shows up

1:13.7

week after week, year after year for the kids and adults whose families have walked away.

1:21.7

This whole series, we've been asking what it really takes to move from survival into flourishing. And here's the

1:29.3

thing about Sarah's work. She's not just helping people get free of the systems that told

1:35.5

them they were broken. She is helping them flourish on the other side with pride, with joy,

1:42.1

with glitter on every surface. That is the work. Sarah is also someone I called

1:47.6

when I built the LGBTQIA me course. She shows up in that course because there's not another human

1:54.6

in this country who has walked this road with more humility or joy. If you have a kid who has come out, or if you love someone who has,

2:05.4

or you're in the middle of your own theological reckoning around any of this,

2:10.6

the link to that particular course is in the show notes, and I can just tell you, it will serve you well.

2:19.6

So friends, this is one of the most important conversations we're going to have all year. Welcome back this incredible

...

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