Episode Zero

Welcome to Anonymous Church. Before we dive into the podcast, I wanted to take a moment to tell you about it, exactly what it is, why it matters, and what you can expect.

This is Anonymous Church, a space for real stories about faith, church, and ministry, and the way that all of those things have shaped us, helped us, hurt us, and changed us.

Over the years, I've had countless conversations that often start with something like, I can't believe I'm saying this out loud, or I've never told anyone this before, followed by a confusing, heavy, or heartbreaking story of their experience in church.

The common thread in all of these stories? Silence. People have carried them alone. Maybe they're afraid of being misunderstood or damaging relationships that they value. Maybe they're worried about being viewed as bitter or even divisive. Or, like a lot of people I know, maybe they just signed an NDA when they left vocational ministry.

When I started this platform a few months ago, I wasn't really sure where it would go. I didn't even know if anyone would submit any stories. I was shocked when they started pouring in. Some of them were just a few sentences, but some of them were entire essays. All of them were heartbreaking though.

I decided to just do the next right thing and we invested in podcast equipment. I started reaching out to voices behind some of those stories that I'd heard over the years. I just asked them if they would be willing to join me in sharing their stories, but out loud. All the people I asked that first week gave me a resounding yes.

And while that was exciting, I still had not figured out what this was going to be. Would it be a collection of anonymous stories? Would it be advice from experts? Would it be help from people who are already healed?

To be honest, I still don't know, but I think it's all of it. It's the messy and the beautiful. It's the healing and the healed. It's the stories that are shouted and the stories that are whispered.

Each week you'll hear anonymous submissions, guest conversations, and reflections. Through all of that, we'll keep coming right back to what this is. A safe space to share your truth and a reminder that you are not too much, you are not alone, and your story matters.

I'll do my best to remind you often of what we are, but I also have to take a moment to remind you what we are not.

This is not a space to take down the church. We don't name names here or point fingers, not because justice isn't deserved or necessary, but those spaces already exist. And that's not really our point. Here, we're shifting the focus from the problem to the person.

And now, what started as whispers is going to be spoken into microphones for the whole world to hear. But before we get started, I want to share the first few anonymous stories that we received because they deserve to be heard out loud too.

As a pastor, I always went in with the same agenda and framework. I remember this one so vividly though.

I asked them if they were completely invested in their faith, and then I went through a list of things that Jesus did in the Bible, spending time in prayer, reading scripture, serving others, and tithing. At the end of my spill, I would always ask, which one of these areas needs the most attention in your life?

I already knew that this volunteer was not tithing, but I acted surprised when she shared this with me. I told her to spend time praying for a week and see what God called her to do, and that I would pray with her. I even started a Bible plan. She was a full-time graduate student who had to be exhausted, but she was still serving multiple services every weekend and even sometimes during the week. She told me with so much humility and conviction

that she needed to trust God with her finances.

I felt so proud for leading her to tithe, but now I have so much shame around it. I use spiritual language in the name of God to encourage someone already stretched so thin to give even more of themselves. I know that at the time I didn't consider what I did as manipulative. I truly believe that I was helping this person. Even though I thought I was doing the right thing, I was actually just a part of a really broken system exploiting people in the name of obedience and trust. I can't go back now and change it.

but I can at least acknowledge that while I experienced so much trauma during my time in ministry, I also caused so much trauma for others.

People toss around the word burnout in ministry like it just means you need a good nap or a vacation. But the truth is, it leaves scars that your body cannot forget. I've been out of ministry for years and holidays still feel like a fight with my body. Easter, Christmas, even summer, my body just shuts down before I can even celebrate that I'll be spending those times with my family now. And what gets me the most is that my leaders knew that that happened.

I'd watch people get sick, fall apart, ruin their marriages, and leave, only to be brushed off with a flippant, ministry isn't for everyone.

But ministry is for everyone because everything is ministry. Whatever that was, that system that chews people up and calls it serving, that wasn't ministry. That was harm. Ministry shouldn't break people.

I worked at a church as a new parent. On a Sunday, I explained to a children's ministry leader that my child had a severe diaper rash that had blistered and was still healing. Because of my child's skin tone, the healing looked different than it might for the predominantly white children who normally attended.

An hour or two later, my supervisor called me into a meeting, a room that was locked and windowless with no context. I walked in and I was shocked to see my 13 month old child undressed and naked on the table where offering is usually counted. A police officer was checking my child's genitals with several other staff members standing by staring before I even entered the room.

When I came in, they asked me about the diaper rash, assuming that the dark color was bruising due to abuse, even though no one else had ever cared for my child besides a local daycare. Fortunately, I had records of my communication with the daycare. They required me to show those messages before they would give me my child back, even though there was no other caregiver that they could have entrusted my baby to. They even filed a police report about the incident. And weeks later,

I received a call from the local police department to tie up the

I have never felt so threatened in the workplace, especially working at a church. I never brought my child back during services. It was clear to me that my communication with colleagues was meaningless. They put my child's safety and dignity at risk without even having me in the room as they undressed and touched my baby inappropriately in the name of double checking.

It was humiliating as both an employee and an attendee.

After that, I began paying for child care privately on Sundays so that my child never had to be in that environment again.

The day that I knew I needed to leave ministry was after a large staff event. One of the pastors spoke during his sermon about how little we care about people once they leave their role in vocational ministry. The entire room seemed so inspired. They took that comment as bold leadership, but it felt so uncomfortable to me. Many of them had spouses or parents or even children who were no longer in vocational ministry.

To hear that from a leader that they respect about people who had once given years of their life to serve in this church, that they no longer mattered, was difficult to process.

The next week our individual teams had debriefs and everyone was praising the pastor. They felt so seen. It was almost as though they wanted not just the confirmation that they were more important than everyone else who had built the church, but that it was okay to stop caring about those who had walked away.

I just could not shake it. Not the words, not the praise, not the realization that the culture I was a part of was actually a club with no room for grief or questions or for those who outgrew it.

And that was the moment. I didn't walk away right then, but that was the day that I knew I would eventually.

I don't know where you are in your healing journey. I don't know if any of these stories will impact you, but I hope that if they do, you'll share them. I hope that you'll connect with us on social media and answer our daily questions. And I hope that when you're ready, you'll submit your story too.

I also know that not every episode is going to resonate with you, but I do hope that at least one does because we have quite an eclectic season ahead of us.

We'll be featuring a pastor, an atheist, a licensed professional counselor, a drummer, and even a pediatric occupational therapist.

There will probably be more, but I don't know yet because we're still recording. have no idea how many episodes there will be in this season. Right now we have eight, but I hope that it's 800.

I hope we give a voice to every single story until there are no more stories to be told, until every story has been said out loud.

Because silence deepens shame, but telling the truth, even if it's anonymously, that's where healing begins.