Start Here: A Guide to Phoenix Your Faith
An Interactive Journey of Healing from Spiritual Trauma
As I look around the web at what people are saying about church and faith, I see a very common thread: discouragement, hopelessness, lack of direction. People seem to feel that God has abandoned them.
My own experience suggests that it is we who have turned away from God. Often this is due to spiritual trauma. This trauma is tends to be caused by other people, not by God.
Who Are the Spiritually Traumatized?
Here are some examples:
LGBTQ+ individuals no longer welcomed into their childhood faith communities because of who they love.
Those raised in conservative faith communities who, for whatever reason, deconstructed their belief system. And who now need help in reconstructing a new one.
Individuals who have lost faith through the actions of previously respected faith leaders.
Members of the post-modernism community who claim the identity of Spiritual-but-Not-Religious, for whom traditional religion holds no appeal.
How & Why I Can Help
Now that you know who I want to help, you’ll want to know how I can help. And why I’m qualified to do so.
I’m an ordained minister in a progressive, open-minded, welcoming Christian denomination. But I’ve never been to seminary. I’ve learned what I know about God mostly from God, and from books God asked me to read.
I’m not out to proselytize. I don’t care if you ever set foot in a church. I’d just like to offer you some options. And to let you know this one thing:
God wants to have a personal relationship with you.
I’ve spent over four decades in pursuit of spiritual growth. And, I’m a writer. So my expertise is in how to mindfully grow spiritually, and how writing—journaling, really—can help in that process.
Join Me in an Experiment
I would like to make 2025 the year I manage to help just ONE reader gain, regain, rebuild, or grow their faith, especially after suffering spiritual trauma. That doesn’t sound terribly ambitious, but it’s something I’ve never succeeded at before. (Or maybe I should say—it’s not obvious to me that I’ve succeeded.) So I figure it’s a reasonable place to start.
If I can help just one person this year, I’ll feel like maybe I know what I’m talking about after all.
Here’s what I propose.
Each week, I’ll offer a theme article. Something within the umbrella of “Phoenix Your Faith,” designed to help you gain, regain, rebuild, or grow your faith. Sort-of progressive Christian, but sort of ecumenical, too. As inclusive as I can make it. I’ll start with really basic stuff and build in complexity over the course of the year.
At the bottom of the article, I’ll include daily or near-daily prompts for journaling or just pondering.
In addition, I’ll post those prompts as daily notes. Each of them will focus on one idea from the article and suggest a few questions you might want to consider.
At this point, you’ll have options:
Write your response in a comment to the note (for anyone to see).
Write your response in a chat thread (for subscriber’s eyes only).
Write your response in a DM to me (for my eyes only).
Write your response in your own private journal (for your eyes only).
Write your response in any of the above ways PLUS write a comment about your opinion of the prompt itself. Thought provoking? Stupid? Unintelligible? I can handle it.
Just post this comment: Done. So I at least know someone heard me.
Don’t write anything. But maybe think about the questions I pose.
Your Primary Tool
The primary tool you’ll need as you make this journey is some type of journal. The exact type doesn’t matter. Here are some choices:
A plain spiral notebook
Any sort of bound journal
A journal app
MS Word or Google Docs
An electronic writing tablet (e.g., a ReMarkable)
You can start with one form and switch to another. You can record your entries with something like Google’s voice-to-text feature. Doesn’t matter. All that matters is the ability to record your thoughts.
I’ll go into more detail later. Just find something to get you started. Even if it’s an old tablet of yellow lined paper that’s been sitting around your house forever.
In Case You Need to Catch Up
Here are the theme articles I’ve published so far. More to follow.
