A new year — updates and a reintroduction
Getting back to writing, at last!
It’s been a while! Thank you for sticking around while I took a break from posting. Our family moved from Delaware to Indiana just before Christmas, which made a mess of my schedule. Three of our kids just started their new schools, so we’re finally getting back to a routine after a couple months of chaos.
Though I haven’t been active here, I’ve been surprised to see how many new subscribers have joined recently. I’m so grateful for every reader — thank you for taking the time to engage.
Since many of you are fairly new here, I thought it would be a great time to re-introduce myself and share a couple updates and goals for the year ahead.
About me:
I’ve been a reader and a writer ever since I was a kid. I’ve worked as a journalist and in public relations. I hated public speaking until I began leading Bible studies for women in prison, and realized how much I LOVE teaching.
From there, I wrote and taught Bible studies at our former church for several years, becoming the volunteer women’s ministry leader.
At this point, we were in a complementarian church (Acts 29/SBC) that I believed truly valued women. Though we couldn’t be elders or pastors, I experienced the male leadership trying to involve women in new ways.
But then, in 2021-2022, our family went through an experience we still haven’t fully recovered from. The church we’d been part of for almost 10 years decided to “run me out of town,” to quote our former pastor. After several excruciating months begging for answers from the elders and watching nearly all our friendships disintegrate, we realized we wouldn’t be able to survive in that community. We sold our house — the one we thought would be our forever home — and relocated from North Carolina to Delaware.
Last January, I shared my story on The Bodies Behind the Bus podcast. (Here’s part 1 and part 2.) If you have the time to listen, it serves as somewhat of an “origin story” for the direction my study and writing has taken since then.
The abuse ripped to shreds everything I believed about the church and “church family,” wrecked my health, harmed my children in too many ways, and nearly destroyed my faith as well.
I don’t know why I still believe in Jesus after his “hands and feet” were used to cause us pain. I see why others who go through something like this might give up on God altogether. I only know that I found myself returning, again and again, to Peter’s confession: “Where else can we go, Lord?”
Though my faith in Jesus is still intact, my faith in the church as an institution is definitely not. As I’ve worked to heal and understand what happened, I’ve realized how many things I took for granted as “church” were actually broken and dysfunctional traditions, or even sinful and unbiblical ones. For instance, I no longer think “the office of pastor is reserved for qualified men,” as I once was told. Nor do I think it’s healthy for a church to have one “lead pastor,” whether male or female.
My writing here reflects questions I’m now asking about faith, the Bible, and my experiences as a woman in the American evangelical church. I’m especially interested in discussion of women’s roles, “leadership,” emotional and spiritual health, Bible study, and how American consumer/corporate culture influences the church. And, of course, I plan to regularly return to Mary of Bethany, who inspired the name of my Substack —
Where we’re going:
My plan is to return to publishing weekly, with a new post going up every Thursday.
In the meantime, you can also follow me on any of my social media: Threads, Instagram, Twitter/X, and Bluesky.
Finally, I now have an option for paid subscriptions. I have no plans to create a paywall or restrict content to paid subscribers. What I offer here is intended as a gift — so paid subscriptions are the equivalent of a street musician leaving her guitar case open while she plays. If you like what I’m sharing and want to show your appreciation, you’re welcome to toss a few dollars my way! If not, please enjoy the music. I’m glad you’re listening.
I plan to save any subscription income towards my goal of attending seminary. This has been a dream of mine for a long time. I took a class at RTS-Charlotte in 2017, but paused my studies when I took on the women’s ministry position. Last year, I took a few classes through LAMP, a denominational seminary from the PCA, but it wasn’t the right fit for me. I’m exploring a few other options now (and your recommendations are welcome!), and my plan is to enroll once my youngest is in school.
Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next Thursday!
Eastern Mennonite Seminary has been a great place for me! They’re located in VA & have in-person & online options.
Nice to meet you Joy - thanks for sharing a bit of your story and I am so very sorry for what you have been through. Looking forward to learning from you.