church kid to disillusioned

part 3/4

this email is part of a series. read part one and part two

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The timeline of my full time church kid to spiritually disillusioned looks like it starts immediately after experiencing spiritual abuse, but rarely does a single event cause an entire framework collapse. The cracks were already in the foundation, but for the sake of simplicity —

In 2017, Zach and I suffered spiritual abuse while under the leadership of a new pastor at the church where Zach was on staff. After doing everything we could to find a way to stay, we followed the advice of all of our mentors and district officials to “leave quickly and quietly.” Zach handed in his resignation and we left six weeks later. The following Sunday, and for every Sunday over the next month, we attended Andy Stanley’s church in Atlanta, GA. We moved to NYC shortly after that and attended Hillsong Church. While living in the South Bronx, we met a church planter and helped him launch his new church. When we moved back home to Massachusetts, we quickly became members at a local church for about a year and then left and joined our friends’ church plant in Connecticut. For three years, we stayed connected to local bodies of Christian communities and built community outside of churches that meet in buildings for a few reasons.

One - while we felt like God was calling us out of “traditional” church, we didn’t want to let being hurt be the reason we left everything that we knew. It felt unwise, even though we’d known, years before spiritual abuse entered our atmosphere, that God was bringing us to something else. We were terrified to leave our world behind. It wasn’t just “leaving the church,” it was leaving the only careers we’d ever have, the only work experience, entering a world that doesn’t see “B.A. in Biblical Studies” as a qualifying skill set. Neither one of us knew anything or anyone outside of our denomination. Leaving wasn’t something we could choose easily. It meant completely starting our lives over, with zero dollars, student loan debt, and three toddlers.

And Two - we didn’t want people to think we were leaving the church because we were mad or hurt. (Spoiler alert - they still thought that and still think that.)

It was a beautiful time of having one foot in the traditional church door and one foot out. At the beginning of 2020, we decided to take both feet out. There was something happening in us and around us, locally, that we couldn’t get a finger on. We were meeting other ‘church hurt’ Christians in the most random, kismet kind of ways. In coffee shops, on subways, through friends of friends. There was nothing connecting us other than this shared pain that somehow, in conversations with strangers, just .. came up. The Bride of Christ built up around us. We decided that we’d say “yes” to what we felt God had called us to do a long time ago - leave the traditional church and see what he was doing outside of it.

This was before “deconstruction” was every day vocabulary for Christians. The term “spiritual abuse” was just beginning to be understood. Church scandals were breaking at a rapid rate, a pandemic and a contentious election cycle was changing the DNA of the body of Christ, and although no one knew it then, large percentages of people would never return to their churches when the doors opened up again. Movements were beginning. Deconstructing Christians were gathering in online communities. And Zach and I, with our kids, were RVing around the country coming face to face with something that was mix of deconstruction, disillusionment, and desperation to find something good in the Church again.

We found (again - through random connections and chance meetings) groups of people gathering in homes to talk honestly about their faith and pain. We found groups of friends that left high control churches and were committed to meeting together, sharing a meal, and raising their kids differently. We found people in the mountains, at beaches, in coffee shops (a running theme for us), separated by thousands and thousands of miles, no leader among them or connecting them except … Jesus.

Jesus was doing something.

Bu the people inside of churches and leading them, looked at this group of people and criticized them (us) harshly. Surely nothing good can come from shared pain. They cast judgments on us. They said we were just bitter. That the church didn’t hurt us, people did. They reduced our pain and invalidated our joy because it wasn’t something they could understand. What good can come from talking about trauma? How can God be glorified without worship music? How can you have direction without organizational structure? How will your kids know Jesus without a kids program?

Rarely does anyone asking those questions actually want to know the answers, but if you did, we’d invite you in and encourage you to be patient. The work is slow, unmeasurable, unquantifiable. You have to be good with sitting, listening, and holding a lot of tensions in your hands. You have to be willing to be uncomfortable and hold your certainties with an open hand (which is hard when you’re also holding tensions, but you can do it, promise). You have to be able to share a meal with someone, regardless of what’s going on in their life. You have to have conversations without evangelizing and have disagreements without coercion. Ego, pride, and self righteousness get checked at the door. Everyone in the room has equal value and their words have equal weight. There’s no theological flexing or condescension at the table. We’re all the same at the feet of Christ and so we treat each other that way.

If you’re willing to sit at the table, by the time the last plate is cleared, you won’t be the same. Connection is sacred. The Christian faith is intrinsically relational and often the reason we get disillusioned by it is because that connection either never happened, or it was broken. But at the table, connection is restored, even if cautiously, and makes room for healing and repair.

Even though I’ve been wounded deeply and repeatedly by the church, I can’t quit it. I still believe that healing happens through people. I’ve experienced it and I’ve watched it happen for countless others. When the Bride is who she’s called to be, she heals, restores, and repairs even the most broken hearts

That’s what The Liminal Way is for.

The word liminal comes from a Latin word (as all good words tend to do) that means threshold. It’s the space between one thing ending and another beginning. Not quite where you were, not yet where you’ll be. It’s a space that can be really disorienting because it means your world doesn’t look like it used to. Maybe your faith framework shattered. Maybe you lost your community. It’s a wilderness. And it can be terrifying, isolating, and confusing.

So - The Liminal Way is a path for the middle. Everyone is welcome here, even if this is a room you never wanted to be in. It’s a space for the disoriented, the spiritually homeless, the not-quite-sure-but-still-hoping, the ones who are rebuilding faith with bare hands. It’s for those who are accepting parts of their identity that they’ve had to deny or mask until now. I can’t promise you simple answers or certainty, but I can assure you that you’ll have presence, permission, and zero pressure to arrive at any conclusions. My hope is that this will be a place to commiserate, sure, but to also question, rebuild, cry, and laugh.

To put in practical, less poetic terms :

It’s is a multi-layered spiritual formation space. It’s both a free Substack newsletter (this one!), a paid substack letter (if you upgrade your subscription) and a private online community. It’s designed to gently support you in your spiritual journey.

In the community, you’ll find:

• Self-guided Bible studies written from a trauma-informed, reflective lens

• Workshops on topics like spiritual formation, identity, and healing (some paid, some free)

• Group conversations on all of the hard, beautiful, confusing things in life.

• Weekly reflection prompts and spiritual practices

• A place to be seen without being fixed.

This space is off social media. It’s quiet. Private. Thoughtful. And you can engage at your own pace — be fully engaged or be a lurker.

Who is this for?

- If you’ve ever whispered “I don’t know what I believe anymore,”
- If you’ve experienced religious trauma, spiritual burnout, or the loss of certainty.
- If you’re navigating questions about God, church, theology, or identity.
- If who you believed God to be isn’t who’s he’s been.
- If trauma, grief, loss, or crisis has made your faith frameworks shake.
- If your belonging has ever been threatened because of who you are

And if you’re a little tender, a little tired, a little unsure of where you fit in faith anymore (of if you’ve ever fit at all), come in. Sit down. Take a breath.

and if you’re wondering why all of this matters …

So many people walk away from toxic or harmful faith spaces only to find themselves spiritually lonely or getting wrapped up in groups that repeat the same destructive behavior that was present in the places they left. We need a healthy space somewhere in the middle.

We need spaces that don’t demand certainty, but offer presence. Spaces that don’t erase our pain, but honor it. Spaces that don’t force transformation, but make room for it. Spaces that don’t repeat toxic, narcissistic behaviors that harm communities and individuals. Spaces filled with people who have deconstructed their relationship with power and seek the good of everyone else. Spaces that you aren’t meant to occupy forever, but give you a chance to heal and regroup before you move on.

This isn’t about providing a roadmap to leave your faith and it isn’t a guarantee that you will find a way to stay in it. It’s just an invitation to be exactly wherever you are and feel like you belong, no matter what.

So what’s next?

In the next post, I’ll walk you through the timeline: when the community opens, how to join, and what’s coming in the months ahead. But if you already know this is for you, you can add your name to the wait list now.

Or stay right here. There’s no rush or pressure. I’ll still be here on substack and instagram doing all the things that I’ve always done.

See you tomorrow,
Kristen

p.s. as of the scheduling this post, the operation costs for the liminal way app are 13% funded. if we can get to 50% by the end of the day, I can start opening the community as soon as next week! If you want to throw some dimes in the bucket - click here.