Mary – Slow Down
The tranquillity of the park where I sat in my favourite coffee shop with my two-year-old, did not reflect how I was feeling. As I gathered our things together, after a failed attempt for a moment of peace over my coffee, I heard it clearly. “Slow down.” The words came from deep inside. They stopped […]
Matthijs Vlaardingerbroek – The Parable of the Sea, the Beach and All That Wretched Sand
What started as a fun outing soon became a weekly tradition. Every Sunday morning, my parents and I would go to the beach. We never missed a week. There, we sang children’s songs about the Sea and listened to exciting stories about people who had experienced adventures at Sea. If there was time left, we […]
Carolyn – How a Plant Medicine Experience Has Supported My Faith Journey
It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds. Black Elk Sometimes opportunities come along that on the one hand seem totally outlandish but also offer a chance to grow and reframe old ways of thinking. My […]
Alissa Rose – You Do Not Have to be Good
You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves. – Mary Oliver In the dusky twilight of Alaska, my faith grew in the arms of my father’s faith. I […]
Roger Nuttall – Still Coming Home
When I left the UK in 1987, as a 21-year-old atheist, to hitch-hike around America for the second time, I was in search of ‘truth’: on the one hand envisaging finding it by meditating on a mountaintop, on the other hand not really believing ‘truth’ existed. I’d previously run away twice, including ‘eloping’ with a […]
Andy Read – Five Days in France
Church was always going to be my thing. My mother raised her hand at Billy Graham’s London crusade in ’54, and her life was never the same again. Too soon after, she was making another big choice; delaying chemotherapy until after I was born. Her last words six months later were filled with prayers of […]
Tim Annan – It Started with a Cup of Tea…
As I sit down to write this, I’ve become very much aware of the fact that I’m in the twilight days of my 20’s…and I’ve spent 17 years of my life doing *something* in the church. That’s more than half my life. *Insert exacerbated expletive here* This is, to those that knew me growing up, […]
Tim F. – How Stepping Out of Church Brought Me True Salvation
In 2018 I found myself at a point in life where I was terrified upon realising that my faith as it had been for my entire life didn’t seem to be working anymore. After already suffering a few years of general anxiety (often subconsciously and not knowing any obvious cause), there seemed to be a […]
John Griffiths: Why Am I Still in Church? – A Story of Deconstruction From the Inside
Hearing the stories of so many others who have left I have wondered why I have not – this is a kind of explanation. I found four reasons. First I was raised in a missionary family so left home aged 6 to go to the mission school and left the far east aged 9 to […]
Ann van Wijgerden – An English Dutch Filipino Journey
“Suppose you have one guilder. Which poor person would you give it to – the one who’s a Christian, or the one who isn’t?” It was around 1990 and my husband and I were facing The Dreaded Grilling by his home church elders. We worked with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in the Philippines, were […]
Emma Ellenn – Boundaries
After four decades I’m starting to learn about boundaries. My partner came into my life and introduced them to me. The hippy party scene where he’d spent some years taught him about self-respect in a way that Christianity hadn’t for me in a half life time. Quite the opposite in fact – I grew up […]
Gerrianne Pennings – Traveling to Remote Places With a Backpack Full of Questions
Hello beloved listener! So let me introduce myself first. My name is Gerrianne (you’ve probably got no clue how to pronounce that– that’s okay, however sounds right to you). I’m turning 30 this year. The Netherlands is my passport country, but I live and work in the humanitarian sector in Yemen. So quite literally have […]
Lisa Andradez – Finally Fearlessly Pursuing Freedom
I grew up in a brethren church in the 70’s and whilst I knew that God loved me unconditionally, I also felt that God was someone who needed to be kept on-side and pleasing him was paramount. When my parents divorced, and my dad subsequently left the church, I realised for the first time in […]
Stephen Lingwood – Searching for Radical Faith, and Deeper Belonging
I think a lot of my life has been about searching for a sense of belonging. In most communities I think to myself, “I kind of fit here, but not quite”. I feel this about the Nomad community too. I feel I have a lot in common with the people I’ve encountered, virtually and in […]
Anonymous – Travelling the Road through Fear to Freedom
I was brought up in the Anglican church tradition and as a child, I understood God to be a loving, ever-present father figure. God wasn’t particularly threatening to me as a child and God was just always ‘there’ and wanted me to be good or ‘live well’. Christian faith continued to be important to me […]