People on or perhaps of the margins of Church hold a special interest for me. Perhaps because I struggle to feel part of the traditional church and have drawn much of my inspiration for my own journey of faith from beyond the margins. That said I’ve never completely fallen off the end… yet, probably because I’ve been employed by the church in various ways for my adult life. But some days the edge wouldn’t be a very big step away.
Many people struggle to stay around church, many leave, some hang on by their fingertips. Help is at hand…
Spirited Exchanges is a network offering support and encouragement to people who are experiencing faith and its struggles at the edges of or beyond Church.
This network has been inspired by the work of Alan Jamieson, Jenny McIntosh and Spirited Exchanges in New Zealand and shares their ethos:
finding a place to be real: respect for our journeys; not saying you have gone off the rails; finding faith in the absence of god; valuing questions and doubt; escape from control based spirituality.
This network could prove to be one of the most worthwhile things to have happened in a long time.