
If you’re anything like me, it’s been a minute since you’ve managed to step foot into a church.
Even longer since you’ve sat in a pew and felt fully at home.
In a place where people gather to come together, there is a disconnect that can’t be bridged when the words that are preached seem to agitate your insides and make you question why you came.
For a long time, I showed up every Sunday, spending increasingly more time on my phone pretending that I was taking notes, all the while wrestling with myself and if I really, truly even believed any of it anymore.
When you’re raised in the church, it becomes indoctrinated in you. It penetrates every area of the way you think and feel because it’s what you were brought up to live by.
But there comes a point in any healthy faith journey, I believe, that requires you to step back and ask yourself what is real.
Questioning the faith of your parents and taking the time to establish your own is a terrifying, uncomfortable, lonely journey.
But I found that questioning is not allowed. It’s looked down upon as weak within the church. It raises eyebrows and causes friends to pull away and people to gossip.
Which causes even more questioning when the church and her people act so unlike the god they claim to follow. When intolerance causes the pushing away of those who dare to challenge the faith instead of the drawing in.
The Chief Rabbi’s Haggadah says,
“To be without questions is not a sign of faith,
but a lack of depth.”
It is healthy to question. It is healthy to explore.
It is healthy to ask who God truly is and want to learn from Gods direct revelation as opposed to from a pulpit.
Religion has been twisted and tarnished by men who have coopted faith in service of themselves. Historical context shows us the ways that texts have been manipulated and legalistic doctrines were created in the pursuit of power, control, and political gain.
I think that in exploring your faith fully, it is natural to seek out other faiths.
Part of the deconstruction and reconstruction of a personal faith is the idea that potentially you had it all wrong and someone else has it right.
So what do you do when you find yourself caught between two worlds?
When the place that feels like home is the place caught smack dab in the middle of what is meant to be polar.
When you’re too spiritual for church
but too church for the spiritual.
Can faith truly exist in a grey area?
Or do you have to choose sides?
How do you let go of the wounds of the past?
Of spiritual abuse and religious trauma?
How do to you forgive the church and separate God and Jesus from those who use the power of those names for harm instead of good?
Is manifestation Biblical?
Meditation? Ritual? Astrology?
Does Science support the existence of God
or undermine it?
These questions can often bring up even more questions.
And who do you talk to that can help you sift through it all without judging you or trying to convert you?
Riches in Faith is a safe and supportive place to learn and discuss the difficult questions of faith.
A container created to explore who God is, what your faith looks like, and your sacred identity as a child of God.
This 10 day program will not give you all of the answers, but it will encourage you and hold space for you to find your own.
Together, we will...
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forgive and heal the wounds that have been caused by religion and religious people
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observe our current level of faith and beliefs
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invite God in to lead us to our truth
This will be a unique journey for each person within the group, but just because we are each on our own path does not mean that we must walk alone.
If you struggle with your faith...
If you feel like an outsider in your beliefs...
If you feel unsure of what you truly believe...
I welcome you in to Riches in Faith: a reclamation of your faith and your sacred identity in God.