Yesterday a friend asked me what nakedpastor is about. What I am passionate about is helping people transition. When people start to question their beliefs and begin to move away from assumed commitments, there is basically no support. When you question your beliefs and begin moving away from your theology and even start to drift away from church or even Christianity altogether, basically you’re fucked. You’re on your own. There’s no support. Like I tweeted a couple of weeks ago:
Navigating beyond the borders of the church is scary because support doesn’t come from the church but from that which it doesn’t endorse.
I met an acquaintance in a coffee shop the other day. He asked if I was still pastoring a church. Nope. I asked if he was still going to church. Nope. He said, “I’m going through a time of confusion in my life. I really don’t know what to do. I’m feeling really lost!” Yep. Because that’s how the church wants you to feel. But it’s not necessary. I want to provide support for him and others in similar situations. And there are many!
I also provide resources for communities experiencing this same urgency of change.
So this is what nakedpastor is all about. My cartoons and art and writings all illustrate this central concern, this core passion of mine.
I thought “exit strategist” would be a funny name. But “exit” has negative connotations. Transitioning away can actually mean growth. So I am going to go with “transition support“. That’s what nakedpastor is about.
Email me if you want to make arrangements to talk with me.
My BOOKS.
My ART.
My name is David Hayward, and I am the nakedpastor. I am a graffiti artist on the walls of religion.
Barbara Glasson, in her book The Exuberant Church, talks about the need to look at those on the prophetic fringes of the church and likens the process to a gay person coming out. Personally I am still in a church but I have been fortunate to be in churches (Baptist and now Anglican) that encompassed a wide range of theology but I like to look to those like you on the prophetic fringe.
Hi David,
I was a card carrying, toe the line company man while in “church”. Believed, acted on and trusted everything that was said and done within it. One of the main no-no’s was admitting the need for psychological help and seeking out care and support for psychological issues.
Now,,,,30 some years later, I’m out of the church and facing things within myself that I should have faced way back when. And because I believed the church’s stand on this topic of life, I chose to deny, repress and “take up my cross” instead.
What a jumble I’m in now. Like you pointed out in your tweet, the support I need during this time in my life is coming from the exact sources the church didn’t endorse and actually warned me about. Ironically, I find more love, acceptance and grace in these sources than I ever did in the church. In fact, the church abandoned me.
Perception is everything. I can appreciate your passion, but it can most certainly be viewed, from the church perspective, as satan standing outside the door, telling everyone with questions, “it’s okay, you’re not being abandoned, you’re being set free!” and further encouraging the trashing of the system. This is not my perspective mind you David, but I believe some perceive it this way. I don’t see you on a prophetic fringe, AT ALL, but I do see an authentic move of the Holy Spirit to make evident that a “system” or “institution” is not necessary to be in a great close personal relationship with Jesus. I admire and respect you and appreciate you sharing your own journey, especially your fears… aka, Sophia.
Superbly stated!
I can imagine the next frame with that person facing a huge exciting (and possible welcoming) world no longer limited by parochialism.
I want to provide that support to people too David. I look forward to us working together on that as well.
I have been “inside” and “outside” – I think now, from this vantage point in life being older, it comes down to seeking guidance and discernment – if then the guidance and discernment that you seek takes you “outside” the fold, you need to listen and respond. I could have maybe said that better, but you get the gist.
Thank you for your work and for offering all that you offer.
There is so much I would like to contribute to the world but am uncertain how to do so. I know many people who feel this way. Our own small monasticism sits outside the walls and still offers our small prayers.
Thank you for being there for me in my time of transition….kinda like a midwife…
Connie your comments are very poignant and ring so true with what many have and still go through I think. I* have a very fundamentalist background and have experienced the same teaching of “taking up your cross” contextually bastardized into a weapon of control and abuse.
I too am now outside and have found greater strength and clarity in my faith. I pray you find the help you need and stronger faith as I have.
Take Care
This line really struck me:
“Because that’s how the church wants you to feel.”
This seems a little further than even NP typically goes, although I do not disagree. Does this represent a shift from a passive-leaning to active-leaning role in the continuum starting with “support the church from the outside” and ending with “proactively campaign against the church”?
If this is making any sense at all, please explore it a bit in the future.
You are so spot on with your entry today. I am in transition….some days I identify as an atheist, others as an agnostic and still others as a Christian…all outside of church environs.
I’m not sure where I’ll end up…I’m a bit weary of “the search”….yet something keeps drawing me back to paying attention to spiritual matters. I guess I’m part of the confused mob too.
It’s been 10 yrs. now (and some years prior to that when I was full of questions and changing churches from Methodist to Pentecostal to an independent fellowship that I would now label as a cult….I ran from that one!!).
I’ll be watching, reading and hopefully contributing/sharing on the site too…it’s been a great start to 2012 to find “friends” online who are travelling the same path in what seems a spiritual wilderness at times. Thanks for your blogs/cartoons and your understanding.
Dave: It’s not a campaign against the church. I’m just stating what I think is a fact. It’s like a divorce where the spouse wants the leaving spouse to feel guilty, lost and alone.
This is not just an issue with churches. I can think of very few organization that actually help people transition out of their group – yet alone churches. I can only think of 2 reasons that religions help people transition out of their religion/church:
(1) You want to seem open and friendly so that they come back when they realize the error of their ways.
(2) You are a pluralist and actually care more for a person than you do for their salvation.
Am I missing others?
I’m not sure if the “church” as a whole wants “you” to feel lost. It would be kind like saying White people want to exterminate Black folk/
There are far too many “christians” and/or churches that ARE abuse, but I really believe there are more “Jesus followers” than might think.
Tho the United Church of Christ is not in lockstep, they often many resources for those who seek to be justice-loving Christians. There is also the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, which has resources for GBLTQI Christians who feel know need to divorce their spirituality from their sexuality.
David,
– but because I think that what you principally do here is hold up lights of different kinds so that people can find their way – albeit maybe one painful or difficult step at a time – through the unknown territory of the liminal spaces one stumbles into as one moves outside the structured order of a societal grouping – be that church, family or whatever.
I think of you more as a ‘liminality lamplighter’. I was going to say ‘guide’ at first but changed my mind – not just because it’s not so nicely alliterative
And of course, one does not (or should not)stay suspended in liminal limbo for ever, comforting though that idea might seem to be sometimes. The journey through the liminal space is one of self discovery, of identity claiming and of equipping ready for the moment when one steps out the other side into a different (or maybe even the same) set of structures to live by/within.
So, I’d see your work here at NP as firstly being to provide the possibility of a communitas in which people can experience liminality together and secondly, of shining some lights on(or allowing some lights to shine on) that experience to help people in that rite of passage – whatever the specific nature of their own individual transition journey.
Pat
I’m in the church still but not of the church. I feel like I have one foot in and one foot out. My greatest God experiences are now happening outside the church and I experience great loneliness and struggle when I’m in the church. Surrounded by thousands I have loved for more than 10 years, only a handful, 3 at best, really understand me and accept me for who I am now…I have become a walking paradox. As I walk through the church and everyone smiles and hugs me I want to scream, “Do you really know who you are hugging and would you still hug me if you knew?” So I have decided to fully be me among the congregation. I’m no longer going to quietly talk about Rohr, Rollins and Bell in the shadows. I’m no longer going to pick and choose my words so they are acceptable to others. I’m no longer going to keep quiet that I meditate, love science and believe there is no conflict between creation and evolution. I’m going to start sharing with people the freedom and the truth I have come to know outside the church even though most will find it heretical. I’m sure I’ll be posting soon that I have been run out of the church, as they chased me with kindling in their hands…but maybe not. Maybe there is still a chance. I just don’t know anymore.
Thanks for all your great cartoons and comments. I have found them very encouraging.
Jen
Our primate (presiding bishop) in the Anglican Church of Canada has stated that Anglicanism is a big tent. Right now, for us, in this place and time, it isn’t big enough. It isn’t because we have embraced or even explored non-Christian teachings lately; I have extensive background already in Buddhist and Eastern philosophies. But the parameters for the ordained suddenly became very constricted, and we were left outside. We were taught that Anglicans may believe and study anything they feel illuminating privately. There is no Book of Discipline, no Confessio. So what is this secret oath we failed to take? I suspect this happens in a lot in other denominations. But we (my husband and I and our home church) are Christian, not gnostic.
You may or may not be aware of Spirited Exchanges: http://www.spiritedexchanges.org.nz/ and http://www.spiritedexchanges.org.uk/SEUK/Home.html.
They do work in a similar space, with people who start questioning their beliefs and are leave church/faith because of it.
I am definitely grateful that as I went through these very same transitions I was granted the space by the institution I serve and that a few people continued to listen and care as I rebelled, questioned and continue to grapple my way through faith fundamentals.
Kudos to you NakedPastor for being one of the people available to those that have been abandoned in their journey.
Nope, I’m not on my own. I have friends, I have hope, I have love.
Cheers David. Happy New Year to you! xx
And happy new year to all of good will
….going out to ya TGM, hope the missus and baby within are both doing fine!
Lots of love.
Naked Pastor has DEFINITELY been helpful for me as transitional support. Thanks.
I think the only way we can BE “outside the church” is if we narrowly define church as the worldly human institution as manifest in the world. (Which we mostly do!) But is God’s church is confined and defined by the fucked up human institution/concept? I apparently overlooked the scripture that says “Go forth and gather into insular groups, carefully categorizing and classifying yourselves and having little to do with those who differ on minor points. Make much of little and little of much.”
Facemelter. I love that verse! Go forth and gather into stupidity and negativity. What a great way to put it. I fully agree. It may not be in the Bible but we sure act as if it is. As Peter Rollins would say it’s not what we believe in our heads but what we live out…that’s what we actually believe. And I also agree, there is the truly ‘universal’ church that I am part of and Christ is in and through. Thanks for the post. That made my day.
@Facemelter Love your free verse, “Go forth and gather into insular groups, carefully categorizing and classifying yourselves and having little to do with those who differ on minor points. Make much of little and little of much.” — We put up so many barriers to feel safe in the walls of our church and the frailty of our faith.
David, it sounds like your obsessio is with helping those who have come out of terrible church conditions get back on their feet and live again. Dr. Beck’s blog post on this has been extremely helpful to me ( along with his series on summer and winter Christians). I hope you find it as helpful as I did. http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2011/01/theological-worlds.html
As I found out, transitioning in one way can branch out into other areas. Some of this is by necessity. After hearing so many times, “God loves you but thinks you’re a piece of crap”, I had to decide to pick which half of that I was going to believe. It just didn’t make sense to me that God would dislike me for having a congenital medical condition treated.
“exit strategist” might be just the term. In the web start up world “exits” can be a great thing. Especially if you can take the posititives with you: your money and your experiences and use them in your next adventure. If you consider the 10% tithe you will no longer be paying to the church, you might take some money from the deal too.
-A
i think i have just found a safe place
I’m still in the church, albeit a different church. On Sunday I’ll be installed again as an elder. I didn’t seek this, but questioned and kicked and eventually came to that it is the way I should walk for now. Ironically, I’m not the typical leader. Budgets are beyond me and spreadsheets make my eyes swim. My visions are of the Word being interpreted visually, not of long range planning or programs. I think that I lead by not following and not leading, either. I’m an introverted artist and elder. Maybe this time, in this healthier place, my leading will be accepted for what it is which being a unique part of community and avoiding the ruts worn by those leaders who have gone before. I love the liturgy but I hate the rote, and the ruts. I am finding my own way, but so far I’m not on my own and am comforted by that.
my thoughts are with you elderyl