Coaching

I was raised in church and Christian school but somehow missed the boat.

I prayed the sinners prayer a million times and heard that Christianity was about a personal relationship with Jesus but never felt like it was anything more then a set of rules I was supposed to follow. I remember standing in my grandparent’s family room after watching a show about world religions and thinking well I guess I’ll be a Christian because in all religions I have to be good but in Christianity I also have to believe in Jesus. If I’m wrong I’ll probably still be good enough for whatever religions turns out to be right.

That didn’t have any staying power so when I went away to college I fell away, not because anyone questioned my faith but because it wasn’t fun to live by the rules. I wanted to be like all my friends and since I wasn’t convinced it was true I had nothing to sustain me.

Living by the world’s ways I ended up making a mess of things for several years before God finally got my attention again in a round about way. You see I had always loved my religion and Bible classes in school and through a series of events I ended up applying to Liberty to study religion just for fun, even though it had been several years since I’d been to church and my life was rather far from God.

Through my religion classes I ended up getting answers to a million questions I didn’t even realize I had and that completely changed everything for me.

You see I had trouble trusting and so I wouldn’t take anyone’s word for it that Christianity was true, but when I studied the archaeology that supported the Bible I was amazed to see that it is trustworthy. That began an academic journey into the truth of Christianity from many different angles that last 15 years and took me through a Bachelors, Masters, and PhD. And with each new thing I studied I fell in love with God more.

But about 7 years ago I realized I was stagnating.

I was in love with God and believed all the right things, but something was missing. I met a woman from my church who mentored people to be able to discern the voice of the holy spirit and differentiate it from the voices of the world and she agreed to mentor me. I came to realize that my stagnation stemmed from wounds from my past that remained unhealed that were getting in the way of me trusting God in certain areas of my life and experiencing the freedom he had for me in Christ.

As I worked through those things with the holy spirit and her coaching I found freedom I’d never thought possible. Fear that had plagued me fell away. I was able to give forgiveness with a freedom I hadn’t known before. I was able to experience the love of the Father in ways I couldn’t have imagined and through it all I realized that the trust issues that had prevented me from moving into Christianity in the first place where also a part of the reason that I was struggling to move deeper in my walk with God.

I’ve now been in apologetic ministry for over 10 years and had countless conversations with people about their doubts about God and Christianity. One thing I’ve come to realize is that there are a lot of people who want to believe but who wrestle with trusting God. Some of the reasons they don’t trust God, the Bible, or Christians are intellectual. For some people answering their apologetic questions are enough to help them move into intimacy with God. But for some people there are also emotional reasons why they struggle to trust God, the Bible, and what Christians say. Some of those reason are church hurt and some of them have nothing to do with the church at all.

I personally have walked that journey. I had intellectual questions that needed answering to allow me to begin trusting God and the Bible. And I had old wounds that needed healing in order to allow me to trust God more deeply.

I think there are a lot of people like me out there. I think there are a lot of people who want to know God but who feel like something is missing. I think there are a lot of people who were raised in the church who have walked away or are disconnected now. I think there are others who go to church diligently every week but who also feel disconnected from God. People who really want intimacy with God and to believe down to the core of their being in a way that lights up their life and changes everything, but that feel stuck and don’t know how. Some have even given up hope that that’s possible. And I want to help those people.

I don’t think that people have to settle for feeling disconnected from God or only hopeful that he really exists and loves them.

I help people get connected to the unconditional love of God by helping with the things that get in-between them and God, whether they be questions about the truth of Christianity and the reliability of the Bible or unresolved past pain that is getting in the way of them experiencing true intimacy with the Lord.

If this is something you’d like help with, schedule a free introductory call with me today!