When Church Left God At The Door

God isn’t a brand strategy.  God is mystery.  The Great Unknown.  The love that levels your ego and leaves you standing there, humbled and undone.

For three weeks straight, I sat in a church service that left me angrier every time.

So many words.  So many verses.  So much noise.  It felt like being baptized in static — a cascade of performance, precision, and polish masquerading as truth.  The message?  Love, light, and certainty — wrapped in a bow.  But where was the wrestling?  The wondering?  The honest dialogue that starts with, “That’s a great question… I don’t know.”

Instead, it felt like a string of ego performances — pastors puffing up like prize roosters, basking in applause, and parroting “can I get an Amen?" “Amen’ says the dutiful congregation, calling it “service.” And the sermon series?  All about winning souls... literally, the title for the series was “fishing for souls.” How to use your story like bait, reel people in with your testimony, and drag them into a pew like salvation was a marketing funnel for an MLM.

It felt hollow... a masquerade ball... or a cult.  Like the actual Spirit of God — the awe, the unknowing, the presence that meets you in silence — was hovering outside, waiting for an invitation to join that never came, despite his name being thrown all over the room.

When Real Talk Is Off-Limits

A lot of Christians will say:

“Church isn’t the place for that kind of vulnerability.  That’s what small groups are for.”

And to that I say: I wholeheartedly disagree.

How is it that my middle schoolers are hearing conversations at school about abuse, blow jobs, and drug use — but somehow Sunday morning service is not the “right place” to talk honestly about what’s actually happening in people’s lives?

Jesus is not some squeamish spiritual mascot.  He’s a rebel.  An outcast.  A total Badass.  You think anything we say is going to make Him bat an eye?  Absolutely not.

He welcomes the discord.  The curiosity.  The honesty.  The rawness.  So why should we be anything else on stage, in front of our church family?

Because it might offend the humans?

HA! 

I can literally hear God laughing right now as I write this.

“That’s hilarious,” He says.

“Be real.  Be honest.  It’s what my children need.

Help them feel seen.

Help them know they are not alone in their struggles.

Show them vulnerability, so they too can be vulnerable —it is in that rawness that they’ll begin to see Me.

I am the Great Healer.

But how can I do My work when you gloss over symptoms and hide the wounds?

You’re covering abscesses with Band-Aids. 

Rip them off so I can debride the wound.”

God cries out for this — but our human parts get so tangled in appearances and propriety.

God doesn’t give a shit about that.  That’s all human ego.

God does the greatest work when it’s the most messy.

The darker it is, the brighter God’s light.

So why don’t we trust God to handle these conversations?

If it can’t be discussed in church, it risks becoming entangled in shame and secrecy.  That’s how abuse stays hidden — when certain words or topics are “off-limits.” That’s how the sexual abuse by my pastor continued.  

I’ve been there.  I’ve done that.  I will never do it again.

I need my kids to know they can talk about anything — because they see adults being brave enough to model hard conversations in LARGE groups, not just behind closed doors or suffocated behind scripted verses that lose their practical, real-life meaning.

Openness fosters a culture of safety within the church.

Of honesty.

Of authenticity.

Of accountability and integrity.

That’s how we stop cycles of abuse.  That’s how we protect our children.

I don’t f*** around with my faith.

I’m not a billboard.

I don’t whore out my story — because not everyone is entitled to it.

God doesn’t need me to be some chinzy salesman dragging people to the pew.

And I sure as hell don’t believe that my path to God is the only path.  That I’ve got it all figured out.  That every relationship with the Divine needs to follow the same script to count as “real” faith?

What a steaming pile of arrogant, short-sighted donkey shit.

That reeks of ego and desperation.

I’m not interested in generalizations, platitudes, or Instagram-filtered presentations because that is NOT vulnerability.  That’s a facade.

We’ve got to get over ourselves — over what’s “appropriate” or “allowed” to talk about in church.

Because you can be sure that all our kids are already discussing all of it at school around the lunch table.

If they’re hearing about sex, drugs, suicide, and every flavor of shame at age 12, it is spiritual malpractice to pretend that Jesus can’t handle those topics on a Sunday morning.  

And frankly, a sermon full of shiny metaphors and vague words like “sin” doesn’t mean a damn thing if we never get specific.

We sell God short.

We sell Jesus short.

We sell the Gospel short.

The large group needs to be more honest and raw. Not less.

Let small groups delve deeper into verses and engage in Bible study.  But the pulpit?  That is the frontline of the fight for people’s spiritual healing and wellbeing — and souls don’t heal through platitudes.

We need sermons that model genuine faith.

Real stories.

Real repentance.

Real grace.

And you don’t get any of that without wrestling — with doubt, shame, guilt, and mistakes.

Faith evolves as you move through those things.

It’s not handed to you on a golden platter with God as the dressed-up waiter.

That’s bullshit.

God doesn’t work like that.

You want patience?  God gives you trials.

You want healing?  God walks with you through pain.

You want more grace?  God guides you through suffering.

You want strength?  God delivers resistance.

You ask for peace?  He hands you chaos and sits beside you while you sort through it.

You ask for wisdom?  He provides opportunities for mistakes — then shows you how to listen and learn.

You ask to feel His presence?  He strips away every distraction until He’s all that’s left.

That’s how He loves us.

Not by sparing us from the fire — but by standing in it with us.

That’s the kind of God I serve.

That’s the kind of faith I chase.

Not tidy.

Not polished.

Just real.  

You don’t have to use graphic language, but if middle schoolers are casually talking about rimming, I think Jesus can handle a sermon that addresses sexual shame, addiction, trauma, anxiety, and rage.  With compassion.  With clarity.  With truth.

Because when you’re not brave enough to talk about it in the open,

You’ve already agreed to keep shame alive in the dark.

We Don’t Need Perfection.  We Need People. 

Where are the leaders who can say:

“I’m struggling with shame.  I’ve been selfish.  I'm addicted to approval.  I had to fight just to show up today, and here’s how God is walking me through it.”

Where are the stories of depression, lust, anxiety, trauma, resentment, rage, spite, guilt — the raw stuff that makes us human?

Not because we need leaders to bleed for us, and not because we are entitled to their personal lives, but because we need to know we’re not alone.

Because Jesus isn’t scared of those stories.  And neither should we be.

I want a church that holds reverence and reality.  That isn’t allergic to therapy or four-letter words.

I want a pastor who can say:

• “I’ve been wrestling with selfishness in my marriage — here’s the scripture that’s challenging me, and the counseling resource Jesus led me to.”
• “I feel unworthy to be up here, but I trust the call on my life more than the shame in my head.”

If you can’t bring your whole, messy, contradictory self to the altar — then what are we even doing?

The God Who Meets Me in the Fire

The God I walk with doesn’t wait for me to be polished.  He pushes me.  Molds me like clay.  And you know what that’s like?

It’s fists and fire and stretching into discomfort and new form.  It’s not gentle.

It’s not a stroll through a meadow of blind faith and obedience.  It’s boot camp for the soul.

And even there — especially there — Jesus whispers,

“Yes, Danielle.  This sucks.  It’s hard.  It hurts.  AND I’ve got you.  I can hold your rage, your weeping, your shame, your loneliness. You are strong because I made you strong.  You will NEVER be abandoned by me.”

That’s the kind of faith I have.

And I continue to chase it — day after messy, holy, beautiful day.

A Place for the Wrestling

This is why we created the Unbound Retreats.

Not to replace your church, but to offer a spiritual sanctuary where it’s okay to say: “I’m in the thick of it.”

Where we don’t rush to tidy answers, but instead sit in the beauty of the questions.

Our upcoming Inner Knowing series explores what it means to hear your own soul again — to remember that the Divine meets us not in performance, but in presence.

Come wrestle with us.

Come rest with us.

Come unbind what’s been stifled.

You don’t need to be fixed.

You just need space to unfold.

🌀Learn more and join the next gathering → HERE 

(Note: These retreats are not religious services. We don’t review religious texts or follow any specific doctrine. Instead, we explore personal practices that help you connect with your own inner knowing — and build a relationship with something greater than yourself, however you define it.)