Questioning beliefs you've held your whole life is one of the most disorienting experiences a person can go through — and one of the least well-supported.

If you're in the middle of what's sometimes called "deconstruction" — examining, questioning, or letting go of religious beliefs — you may find that the people around you don't understand what you're going through. Friends in the faith community feel threatened. Friends outside it don't understand why it matters so much. Pastors and counselors are often not equipped to sit with these questions without steering you towards an expected solution.

My Ph.D. dissertation research was focused specifically on what happens when people experience major shifts in their worldview — how those changes happen, what they cost relationally, and how people find their footing again. I choose that subject for my research because I had lived through two such transformations myself, and know that wrestling with your core beliefs is never a casual matter.

I am very comfortable working with people who are:

• Questioning or leaving a religious tradition

• Navigating the relational fallout of changing beliefs (marriages, family, community)

• Asking existential questions about suffering, meaning, and the existence and role of God

• Looking for meaning and identity outside the belief system they grew up in

• Integrating doubts into a mature, living faith

• Exploring spiritual questions without a predetermined destination

I am a Christian minister, and also a student of theology and philosophy. I also teach others about how to engage constructively with people of different faith backgrounds, or no faith background at all. I prioritize working with people wherever they are in their spiritual walk — whether that means going deeper into their faith, or exploring other paths.