RIP Teddy Lasso, and Happy Pride Month to the rainbow of misfits that read these words! đ Iâm so grateful for how youâve lived your lives and in doing so, encouraged the rest of us to be that much braver and more authentic, too.
Welcome to Juneâs FREE After Faith Newsletter!! Iâm so glad youâre here.
This month Iâll be honing in on the #1 subject I get asked about:
Community (or, more specifically, the lack thereof).
But first, a few FYIs:
Update #1: if youâve been feeling lonely and overwhelmed in your spiritual evolution, come hang with me this summer! Beyond Belief is a six-week spiritual coaching group program launching June 14. Youâll learn how to make peace with your religious past, figure out what you actually believe, and tap into your desires for the future. And, youâll do it all in the company of like-minded spiritual misfits who wonât try to evangelize you or tell you what to believe (yes, such people actually exist)!
Update #2: Speaking of websites, mine got an upgrade! It features fancy new pictures of me AND some new offerings Iâve created to support you at a variety of price points and commitments. Iâll share more soon, but check it out now for the inside scoop.
Alright. Letâs talk about our people problem: the problem being that we all want/need people but canât always find them.
Seeing how the queer community supports one another has changed my outlook on community in general. Groups like Free Mom Hugs and others who show up for each other restores my hope in humanityâhard to do these days when thereâs so much visible LGBTQIA+ hate in the forefront of our feeds. In a recent episode of Queer Eye, the Fab Five spoke about chosen family and how powerful it is. Though I want to be really careful not to appropriate the queer experience for evangelical deconstruction, I did relate to what they were talking about in terms of the need to find new people when âyour peopleâ arenât your people anymore.
Over the years of having conversations on the internet, the #1 question and pain point I hear from people deconstructing their faith is something like this:
I donât miss being evangelical, but I miss being part of a church community. How do I find community when I no longer fit in at church?
Whether weâve left church altogether or just a particular church, most of us miss the sense of belonging that a church gave us. We miss having a place where we could show up and be known; where it seemed like we mattered (even if some of us found out we only mattered when we served and gave money). We miss walking into a room and thinking that we were brothers and sisters with all the people there.
But if Iâm honest, as much as I miss having âcommunityâ, Iâm not sure that I personally ever really experienced that awesome of a community at church.
Yeah, I could walk into a room and say hi to a bunch of people and smile and wave and call them by name, but Iâm also remembering all the times that I stood on the patio with my coffee looking around and not seeing a safe face in sight.
I remember all the small groups where I was unsuccessful in making friends, and all the awkward double dates with my husband where no one laughed at our jokes.
I remember the warm and cozy small church potlucks of my childhood, and then I remember seeing people huddle and whisper about my parents when they didnât realize I was looking.
I remember all the times I took someone a meal when they had a baby, and then I remember all the blanks on the Meal Train sign-up when I had mine.
Maybe itâs just me? Did you have an actually awesome safe community? Maybe this is just part of the âsacrificeâ that those of us in vocational ministry had to make. Maybe I never got to experience a the best of community because the reality of my familyâs livelihood required boundaries around church relationships.
But I suspect that if youâve been drawn to my words, then you knew the pain of not belonging long before you ever started reevaluating your faith.
Iâve had to own up to my own part of this. I was so angry at the churches that didnât pursue community with us when my church job ended, that it took me a while to admit to myself that I hadnât actually really wanted their community in the first place.
I liked the idea of communityâI longed for connectionâbut I could never find âmy people.â Everyone was either in established social clubs not open to new members, or they just werenât people I clicked with.
For the longest time I thought this was my fault, (because God was challenging me to love sacrificially and all that) until my therapist gifted me one of my biggest aha moments ever.
After hearing me cry about my challenge in finding friends and how I had never fit in, she simply said, âWell, of course you didnât. Youâre a free spirit. You donât like rules, or regulations, or structure around ideas or expression. You want to push boundaries and explore⌠and people like that arenât typically drawn to religion.â
When she said that, it was like shedding an old snakeskin, and the real me burst into the world. I had been so programmed to feel like I had to be close with anyone who was a Christian simply because they were my âbrother or sister in Christ,â but she helped me realize that maybe I had just been looking in the wrong place all along.
So, now when people ask me how we find community outside of church, this is always the first thing I say:
You donât have to share beliefs to share community.
There is SO MUCH more to humanity than what we believe, and there are so many more ways for us to connect with each other than the ways laid out in the church. I remind people that not-Christians have also been in community this whole time, and encourage them to watch and learn how they find community through interests, hobbies, neighborhoods, coworkers, kids, and more.
Iâm not saying itâs easy to lose a church community. But as your friend, I do just have to say⌠if theyâre willing to give you up, maybe they werenât such a good community after all? I think you can do better.
While I do believe you donât have to share beliefs to find community, I also 100% feel the desire to find people who see and understand my soul.
For those of us who have this very evangelical before and this very post-evangelical after, it just would be so nice to find people who get both, and that can be very difficult to do.
There are a few online options out there to do just that⌠maybe youâve found them already. But there arenât quite enough, and so this summer Iâm offering another option for people who could use some kindred spirits in the journey of reimagining life after faith. I canât promise youâll make your new bffs there (didnât you hate it when church promised that??) but I can promise you a place to be seen and heard as you externally process your spiritual shift. If youâre interested, at least check it out by clicking the button, and let me know if you have any questions.
Affirmation
As you navigate a world full of people who you'll jive and clash with as you go may you always, first and foremost, find deep and nourishing community within yourself so that you can show up as your truest self wherever you go.
Iâll be back next week for paid subscribers to talk more about what âcommunityâ can look like after leaving your former faith. In the meantime, I hope you can think outside the box and be open to community with people you may have been trained to overlook.
See you then,
Joy
p.s. Are you a TedHead? what did you think of the finale?? I hope you enjoyed todayâs gifs!
Yep I've felt the ache of not belonging way before I encountered churchianity - the word people often used to describe me was "weird". It's taken a long time for me to actually see that as an awesome thing but church definitely didn't make that easier, and I had to only show the acceptable bits of me and not the woo-woo, boho free spirited, tree hugging side of me.
I think your offering is beautiful - finding soul friends has been a lifelong ache đ
Beautifully expressed!