Ep 105: Ask Charlotte - When Faith Gets Messy
By Charlotte Cummings | Feel Better Podcast
Faith can be one of the most beautiful parts of life—and one of the most complicated. I grew up Catholic, have spent years in various Christian churches, and I also work closely with churches in my private investigation work when harm has occurred. I still consider myself spiritual, connected to Jesus as a historical and spiritual figure, and I value community—while holding organised religion more lightly than I used to. That “both/and” is where today’s three questions live:
What if I feel like I’m losing my faith—but I don’t want to?
How do I share my faith with my kids when I don’t trust church and my partner isn’t Christian?
How do I know if a church is safe?
Let’s get into it.
1) “I feel like I’m losing my faith—but I don’t want to.” What now?
First: I get it. When our beliefs shift, it can feel like the ground is moving under our feet—emotionally, mentally, socially, existentially. You may be grieving certainty, community, or a particular view of God. At the same time, change in faith is normal and—ultimately—can be healthy.
You’re not losing faith; you may be losing a version of faith
It’s often less about “no faith” and more about “not this version.” That reframing can lower the panic and open space for curiosity.
Get the right kind of support
Spiritual Direction for accompaniment and discernment (especially if your questions are existential/theological).
Apologetics or informed mentors if you need help with evidence/history/interpretation questions.
Counselling if the change is impacting mental health, relationships, identity, or your sense of safety.
Find living examples you actually like
Ask: Who holds a faith I admire? Seek people who embody compassion, nuance, and integrity. Exposure to wider expressions of faith can be deeply relieving.
Nurture the spiritual—without forcing religion
Nature, creativity, service, silence, contemplative practices, embodied rituals—these can sustain your spirit while you explore.
Untie church from faith
Church is one container for community and meaning, not the only one. Give yourself permission to pause church, change churches, or try different forms of community.
My stance: if there is a God, they’re big enough to hold your process, questions and pacing.
2) “I’m Christian, my spouse isn’t, I don’t trust church—and I want to share faith with our kids. How?”
This is a common (and tender) challenge—especially when your own church experiences left scars.
Focus on the person of Jesus
Start with stories and values (parables, compassion, justice, generosity) presented neutrally:
“Some people believe Jesus was both a historical figure and divine. Here’s what he taught about how we treat people.”
Let curiosity lead; avoid pressure.
Give your kids a vocabulary, not a verdict
Like maths, kids need language and stories to later make their own choices. Exposure isn’t indoctrination; it’s equipping.
Model respectful difference at home
Your kids benefit from seeing two adults hold different views with respect:
“Mum thinks X, Dad thinks Y. We respect each other. You’ll form your own views too.”
Practise the values without the building
Faith-shaped living doesn’t require formal church:
Family service (city mission, environmental planting, RMH meal rosters)
Shared ethical practices (hospitality, care for creation, dignity of others)
Rituals of gratitude, reflection, prayer/quiet—even if brief
Offer real choices
Age-appropriately: “Would you like to visit a church sometime? Try a youth group? Learn about what different religions believe?” Let them steer. And you can try different expressions (home churches, contemplative gatherings, progressive communities) that feel safer for you.
3) How to tell if a church is safe
I work extensively with churches where harm has occurred. Here’s what I look for when assessing safety and health.
Power & culture
No inner circle/outer circle dynamics. Belonging shouldn’t feel like business class vs economy.
Transparent leadership. Who makes decisions? Do they consult and genuinely listen?
Plurality of voices. Diverse leadership (gender, background, age) and guest voices matter.
Finances
Clear breakdowns of spending (not just a charity return).
Proportion spent on staff, facilities, community support, mission—does it match the stated values?
Transparent decision-making on big spends.
Complaints & feedback
Published complaints process with independent oversight where appropriate.
Psychological safety to say, “That sermon harmed me” or “This practice concerns me,” and be heard respectfully.
Inclusion & thought freedom
You can hold different views (on theology, politics, social issues) and still belong.
Critical thinking encouraged; uniformity not required.
Expectations & trade-offs
Ask: What do I have to trade to belong here? If belonging requires specific giving, service quotas, or intellectual conformity, that’s a red flag. Contribution should be welcome—not coerced.
Your internal safety
No church can keep you safe if you’re asked to switch off your intuition. Give yourself permission to notice:
Shame-based messaging
Us/them narratives
Charismatic leaders who can’t be questioned
Overemphasis on “honour/loyalty/covering” to shut down critique
If you’re uneasy, believe yourself and step back.
Matters of faith are deeply personal. If anything in this post doesn’t fit your situation, leave it here. These are general reflections shaped by my lived experience and professional work. If you want a thinking partner—spiritual direction or counselling can be a lifeline. And if you’d like more faith-and-wellbeing content on the podcast, tell me—happy to go there.
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Well welcome along to this episode of Ask Charlotte where I'm answering three listener questions all on the topic of faith.
Now what I want to address just at the outset here is that I am a person who holds a Christian faith. I had a background as a child of going to church. My family were Catholic and then in my secondary school years I was at a Catholic college.
Then over the course of my adult life I've belonged to a number of Christian churches. I do some work with churches. I have a real specialty area in my role as a private investigator working with churches where there have been situations of harm.
So I have got a real sense of relationship with church. It is not always straightforward. I've had my own journey when it comes to my faith.
That certainly hasn't been untested. It is my own faith. It is probably a little bit different to how people might perceive it to be.
I have my own sense of how I hold things together and intention at times. I'm often asked, oh but what is your view about this? And I say, I don't have one. I love the saying that my husband has actually about church being kind of like book club.
But it seems sometimes like people read a different book to you. And I think that there is a little bit of the reality when it comes to faith. Actually my interpretation probably is quite liberal.
I've been critiqued for that in many a public forum. You can Google if you need to. But basically one of the key things to say here is that I very much understand what it's like to grow up in church.
What it's like to have moments of feeling like your faith is moving and changing. What it's like to fall out of relationship with church, to change church communities. And at the kind of top end of things, I have journeyed with people through their experience of profound abuse and harm in churches.
So I've seen some of the very worst of what it can look like with organized religion and institutional religion. So I describe myself as definitely being a spiritual person. I definitely acknowledge the person of Jesus.
I like to be involved with a church from the perspective of community. But I also hold that a little bit lighter than I ever used to. I don't think I'm a bad person if I don't go to church.
And I definitely try and show up in my life and the community and the relationships that I have outside of church in a way that's really authentic to my values. So I'm really confident and happy with where I'm sitting from a faith, religion perspective at the moment. But that is something that hasn't been without its issues and hasn't had a lot of need for processing over the years.
So I'm imagining that that's important for you to understand if you've asked these questions, because obviously my responses today will be somewhat influenced by my own perspectives. But also this is an area of real interest to me. My PhD is looking at the impacts on women leaving cult communities.
And so this is something that is a topic that I'm happy to speak into. I've probably been a little bit reluctant to speak much into the space on the podcast because I know that it's not everybody's cup of tea. But also I'm really happy to answer the questions that have been asked of me.
And I can see that there are people who are sitting in some difficult situations who would like some advice. So happy to go there with you today. So the first question is, how do you handle it when you feel like you're losing your faith but you don't want to? I really feel for you because it can be incredibly unsettling to feel like things are changing with your faith.
But also when I read this question, I felt really excited for this person. And people who are in the situation where their faith is changing, I think it is a really good thing ultimately. Now, I know that there can be a lot of grief around that, potentially if that means that you don't have the same kind of community around you that you used to, that you think and feel differently about things to other key people in your life.
Or if there's a real loss of stability of having that sense of trust in a God that you believe in, that can change how you feel emotionally as you go about your life. And it can be a real source of mental anguish to try and work out this topic. What do I believe? What do I think happens after I die? The issues around mortality are really significant here when it comes to our mental health.
And often there are very many layers around our belonging and our sense of identity that are tied to our faith. So in terms of the impact of there being changes in your faith, that is an area where I go, oh, I get it. And that can be really hard.
But in terms of your faith itself actually changing, I don't necessarily think that that is a bad thing. Even to say I feel like I'm losing my faith. Sometimes I think that that is often better expressed as I feel like I'm losing the version of faith that I had.
I think that when it comes to there being some change in what you believe in, it can be really important to have some accompaniment through that. This is where the value of spiritual directors is epic in terms of journeying with you through your questions and your wonderings and you having a sense of being held by another spiritual person who's done a whole lot of thinking in this space. Sometimes what we need is someone who's really good at apologetics, i.e. dealing with people's questions.
If you've got really practical questions about how do we know that this was true or, you know, how can we rely on this story that we have heard? It's important to identify what is it that I need in the way of support. Is it spiritual direction? Is it someone to help me with my questions? Or is it that there's actually a real mental, emotional, relational toll from losing my faith that I need support around? And in that case, a counsellor is a really good option. This is also a really well populated area in terms of what other people have written and podcasts and resources that are out there for people who are grappling with what's happening with their faith.
So I would definitely make yourself a plan around how do I find solidarity in this? How do I find a sense of validation of my own journey and where I'm up to and who might I reach to for support? I think one of the most exciting questions that you can ask yourself if you feel like you're losing the faith that you have had is, is there anyone I know who has a version of faith that I like? Because I definitely, in all honesty, look at some people who profess to be Christian and think I don't like their version of faith. That's not what I want to sign up to. I don't want to be in that same club.
I don't interpret things the same way. I find some of how they hold their beliefs incredibly damaging. And so it can be important to get ourselves some fresh examples of people who hold faith in a way that is inviting and attractive and something that we could consider holding on to.
Now, that is, again, assuming that part of how you've asked this question is suggesting that this is really tough for you. So I'm wondering about maybe whether there is some benefit in thinking of what could this look like if I did hold my faith to some degree, if it changed, if it looked really different to what it looks like now? I think it's so important in this space too to meet new people, to try new things, to nurture the spiritual part of ourselves. So placing ourselves in situations where we do feel that spiritual connection to the world around us and to other people, to really lean into community and other spaces because church doesn't, in fact, have a monopoly on community.
We can find community in lots of other really nourishing spaces and groups around us in the world. So if you're in a space of really struggling with your faith, I encourage you towards those things, to be thinking about how you find community, how you nurture your own spirituality through these questions and challenges. Because I think it's likely that for most people, when they're grappling with their faith, they need to untie their faith from their relationship with church.
So often that is entwined and can be really unhelpful. We can have some really clear moral judgments of ourselves around belonging to church that sometimes we need to free ourselves from because it is OK if you do lose your faith. It is OK if faith is something that for a period of time is not a part of your life, where you give yourself some freedom to go, I'm kind of putting this in a box for a period of time.
I want to see what happens if this isn't a part of my life. I think that if we have the perspective that there is some kind of God, then surely God is big enough to accept that time, that we have space to determine our own faith, to answer the questions that we have. And maybe we return to a new faith or return to some components of what we used to believe in and some new and different things as well.
I think we don't give people enough freedom to answer their own questions, to do that in their own way, with their own process. And I know that there would be certain people who would listen to my response here and really heavily critique it. But I'm not sure that that is in the interests of people having a robust faith, of giving themselves the option of maybe returning to some kind of faith, returning to some kind of belonging and community.
We do need to know that it is an option for us. This is not something that we have to do. These are not beliefs that we have to hold.
And if we're going to hold them, they need to be our own. I actually think that that is so exciting and it is gut wrenching at the same time and can lead to all sorts of other upheaval in your life. But I hope that this is something that you can find life through, that you can find something rewarding through and that how you progress through this issue brings some real opportunities to you too.
So lots of love from me to you. I do get this issue and I hear many people grappling with their faith in my counselling spaces over the years, just the damage that's been done, the sense that they've had to follow along and toe the line and now they just want to give up on the whole thing. I do understand lots of the complexities here.
And my really big encouragement to you is to think about what would this look like if this was fresh and different and if there was a faith that you could hold here. OK, the next question, this is a bit of a bigger one, so stay with me. I grew up in a very Pentecostal household where church was everything, then went on to join a megachurch when I left home, which had its own complications.
I'm now married to a non-Christian. I still have a faith, but I haven't been to church in years. We have two kids and I find it hard to share my faith with my kids when I don't trust church and my husband doesn't have the same beliefs, especially when I think I still have lots of trauma and complications from my own childhood experience of church.
I don't want to get it wrong with my kids. But how do I share faith with them? OK, this is an interesting one because I think that this is a grapple that is really common, and it can be that our own kind of middle age time where our faith is quite simply at a different point in development coincides with the reality of also having children. I know that there were times when I was going to church thinking I 100% would not be here if it was not for my kids.
And then there was a time where I thought I'm not going, even if my kids need it, because this is really damaging to me. So I think you need to give yourself real freedom there in acknowledging that often our own faith dilemma collides with where our children are at developmentally and perhaps wanting to be able to represent faith to them in some way, but that being difficult because of our own experiences. So I get the complexity of this scenario.
I think one of the things that you can do as a way through here is to bring a little bit of focus to Jesus as a person and as a historical character. That seems to be an easier in than talking about God. What are the parables? What are the stories we hear from Jesus about how we relate to other people, about generosity? Where are there some values based stories that you can bring through? Because there are a number of them.
How can you represent this historical character of Jesus to your children in a way that is a little bit neutral? Like, guys, you're going to hear about this person of Jesus. Some people believe in him. There is some evidence maybe that he existed.
So let me tell you a bit about what he taught. So presenting it in a really neutral way. I've got a little bit of a funny story here.
My mum used to work as a school secretary in a Catholic school, and she would deal with enrollments and inquiries, and she would often say that parents would come in and they'd want to get an enrollment form. They'd want to get their children on the waiting list for the school, and they would make some little comments to her about, look, we're not sure whether we do want a Catholic education for them, but, you know, we're going to hedge our bets and put them on the waiting list and see what happens. And mum used to say to them, you know, I really respect that.
And I think that that's great that you're thinking about these things. But also, how can your child be a mathematician if you don't teach them maths? And I know that that comment could be perceived as being something that adds some pressure, but I think in its simplest sense, there's something really interesting there that if we want our children to have the option of pursuing faith to some extent, then we actually need to teach them some of the basics so they have that freedom of choice, so they have some knowledge, some opportunity into that world that they otherwise wouldn't get. So I wonder if that's part of the approach that you can take here of presenting the person of Jesus, of presenting your own views around this and talking about the elements of faith that you have maintained, sharing that with your children, because this is an issue that they will need to work out across their lives.
The odds are that they're going to come to some point of going, I need to work out what I think about this. Do I want to go to church? Do I want to believe in X, Y or Z? There are lots of options for them when it comes to religion and faith. And I think it is something we can do as parents to share something of our own experiences and some of the elements of that, that we feel are good and healthy.
There are also so many other people in this boat. So I think it would be really interesting to connect with those people who've had a similar story to yours, where they've been burnt by church to some extent, but they're trying to nurture something of a little bit of understanding and maybe faith in their children. There are a number of people in this situation and finding their stories, connecting with those people could be really helpful to you.
The other thing I think you can consider if church is really problematic for you is how would you share your faith and values and sense of ethics in life if you weren't to include church? So, for example, I'm thinking here about, you know, do you as a family sign up to regularly go and do a river planting day or have some kind of outreach, go and serve meals at Ronald McDonald House or go and do a collection and take some things into your local city mission? Are there things that you can do that help you express faith and show up and maybe have a little bit of belonging around faith that don't rely on church? Church is not the only place where you can learn to be a good person with good Christian values. And so I wonder whether that is part of the way through for you is to think about how do you nurture some of those values, some of those basics around care for other people, around care for the planet, around human dignity, some of those fundamentals that shape a Christian viewpoint. You can certainly give your children exposure to without necessarily exposing them to church.
The other thing I think is a real gift to your children is that it sounds like they've got two parents who have some different ideas. And one thing I think our world needs a whole lot more of is the ability for people to coexist happily with some different ideas, to have respect for each other's opinions. So I think you've got a really amazing opportunity within this dilemma here to present to your children that mum and dad actually think slightly different things here.
And this is not a case of choosing team mum or team dad, but we're actually both able to talk to you about our views when it comes to this topic. We both respect each other. We both understand each other's views.
We're not going to speak negatively about how one another chooses to see life, but we can share both of us from our perspective when it comes to these matters. So I think making some space there that this is not you going out on a mission to convert your children to a particular belief, but getting on board with your husband around actually, you know, are you happy for me to share some of these things? And you're welcome to share your perspectives as well. I think depending on your children's age, you can give them quite a bit of choice around this.
So, for example, you could talk to them about the dilemma here. Hey, when I was growing up, I used to have to go to church all the time and I really hated it. And then when I was an adult, I went to church and it kind of sucked for me.
What is it that you would like to do when it comes to this? Because some families do go to church and I'm happy to take you to a church if that's something that you're interested in. Some people believe in this person of Jesus. Would you like to know a little bit more about that? Like being open and honest with our children always, I think, goes down a treat and respects where they're at, respects their own independent thought, helps them have opportunities they want to have.
Maybe this is something they're curious about. Maybe this is not where they're at. But talking to your children about this explicitly is, I think, something that you could try.
Now, in a moment, I'm going to flow into the next question, which is about how to determine if a church is safe. And what I want to say as part of the second question and wrapping up is that there are churches that are doing community a bit differently now, that where we used to just have options around going to the Catholic church, the Anglican church, a Baptist church or a Pentecostal church, there are different versions of Christian community coming up. For a while, I went to something of a home church with my family, and that was great.
It really fitted in with where we were at as a family at the time. So giving yourself permission to make some decisions and maybe be a little bit outside the box and find your version of church and community, I think, is important. And thinking, too, about safety, especially if you've had difficult past experiences and certainly in more than one environment, I'd really encourage you to be very alert and reflective about what makes a safe church and where you might have another go at finding some belonging if you chose to do so.
So I want to wish you and your family all the very best. It is a complicated dilemma to navigate and something a lot of other people are facing. So hopefully there are a few ideas for you today.
OK, so the last question I'm going to answer for today is around how do you know if a church is safe? Now, my answer here is going to be very well informed. I think from the extent of work that I do in this space that I've had a lot of experiences of where things haven't gone well in church environments and a lot of experiences in helping churches to get on a better path when it comes to ensuring that all people are safe within their church. We definitely want to make sure that if people are part of a church environment, that it is not a place where they're going to get harmed.
This should be a place where you find belonging and acceptance and love. And not judgment and condemnation and having difficult experiences along the way. So there are some things that I think you can definitely look out for.
One is how does the leadership hold power? Is it clicky? Is there an in club and an out club? Because so often that can be a sign of some really tricky, toxic stuff within churches. Now, I know that it's nice to feel like you're part of the club and sometimes that's a really important aspect of a church to treat one another as family and to have a sense of familiarity with one another. But where that becomes a scenario where there are people who are in business class and people who are in economy, that is not what you want to happen.
So what I encourage you to look for there is how is power held? Do people here feel like equals? Do I feel good enough when I'm here? Because you certainly should. What is it that I observe about how the leadership holds power? Part of that is how do they make their decisions? Who do they listen to in making their decisions? And not that I think that all churches need to be by committee or every issue needs to be determined by a vote, but there definitely needs to be a sense that people's voices are heard and listened to, that there is some kind of consultation with people about how they want to progress together and what it is that they're trying to do together as a church, how they want to be together. I think a couple of other real basics is the transparency around things like finances.
So especially if you're giving money to a church, I think you have a right to know where that money goes. How is that spent based on percentages or how much of that is going to staff? What are we spending the rest of our money on? How much do we put towards practically supporting people? How much of what we spend as a church goes towards community initiatives? You'll be able to then judge what the church does and whether you're happy and comfortable to be part of that church based on where and how the church is choosing to spend its money. But if how it spends money is not identified for you in a really easy to understand way, then I think that that's pretty tough.
So often I've heard churches say, oh, well, it's all on the Charities Commission website. You can go and have a look at that. If you're outside of New Zealand, our version of a public repository of data about churches, including things like audited financial statements from the year.
If you are looking at that charity's return and you're able to see we had this amount of income and that amount of expenses, that's kind of all it tells you. I think what you're really looking for is a breakdown of how money is utilised and who makes those decisions. What is it that we can see about the values of the church reflected in how the money is spent? And if you don't see how the money is spent, it is pretty difficult to make those judgments for yourself.
The other thing I think is really important is that there is a complaints process and that it is robust. So when things go wrong, what happens? Who is in charge? Who deals with them? Is that done in a way that really respects the person who has something difficult to share? And what, as well, is the process for just feedback? You know, if something is said in a message up the front on a Sunday that you find problematic, how do you raise that and how easy is it to raise that? Can you say, hey, I didn't love it when this was said? Look, I'm not out to critique everything that everyone says, but I just want to let you know how this landed for me. So it is about being able to feel like you've got a voice, you're able to give feedback and there are assurances around how to difficult issues get dealt with, particularly when something escalates to the point of a complaint.
I also think that being safe within a church is often about internal factors for us and not necessarily all about the church itself. We can't really operate in the world assuming our safety. We do still have to have our intuition, our emotions and our minds turned on.
So we need to still have the ability to think critically about things, to have independent thought, to develop our own views and be able to hold to those without losing our sense of belonging within a place. I'd be particularly looking at, does the church allow people to have different views and can we comfortably be together within that? Because it is so important that this is not a homogenous expression of faith. We're not needing to all think and believe exactly the same things to be a loving, kind community that potentially reaches people outside of these walls as well.
So thinking about safety is about what's going on within the church, but also how you keep yourself safe and the things that you can continue to think about and believe, how able you are to do that within that context. Now, this is a bit of a difficult question, but I think it's an exposing one for churches and that is, what do I have to trade to belong to this place? So if you do not belong there unless you give a certain amount of money or a certain amount of your time or toe the line in terms of your thinking on particular issues, then that is quite problematic. And I think that being able to recognise that you actually deserve belonging in a church regardless of views, regardless of what's going on in your life, regardless of different things that you might think from other people, you need to know that you will belong whether or not you have differences.
And there needs to be an arrangement where you're not having to be part of holding up some kind of deal in order to get that belonging. You don't have to trade anything to belong. You belong because you are a person who has value.
And yeah, I get it that churches need people to sign up to help with putting the chairs out or doing the music or the lights or the whatevers. And that is an important part of the functioning of any group. It's like in a family, we do need people who will do the dishes from time to time or things descend into chaos and the family can't function.
I get that for churches as well. But sometimes that goes to a real extreme with churches and there's a very, very high expectation. I would be thinking too around the key messages you hear.
What do you hear about mental health? What do you hear from sermons around judgment of others? What is it that's important to you to listen for when you're hearing content that comes from the church? Because we may all have, we do all have our own markers when it comes to what's important to us. So what are the messages when it comes to those things that are fundamental to your own understanding of faith and church? Okay, I don't know how this episode's going to go. I hope that some people like it.
I know that it will not be everybody's cup of tea. I know that it is a territory that I haven't really explored before and it is certainly something I can give a lot more input into. At some point in the next couple of years, I'm going to come out with a PhD in gender and religion.
That might come as a bit of a shock to some people. But I think that, you know, being able to speak into the space is a capacity that I have that I haven't really ventured into this before because it's so much part of some of the other areas of my work and I've kept it out of my sense of identity of who I am as a counsellor mostly. But if this is something you want to hear more of, do let me know.
I'm really happy to answer your questions and this podcast exists to be able to give people real advice about the dilemmas that they face in their life. So I hope I've been able to do a little bit of that today. I hope you've enjoyed the episode.
I think when it comes to matters of faith, it is really important to say that if I've said anything today that you don't agree with, just leave it here. These are my views, my perspectives, obviously shaped from a bunch of work with other people. I hope they're not weaponised in any way and I hope they don't harm you in any way.
I certainly can't speak to everyone's individual journeys in a way that's nuanced and unique. And this is general advice and general perspective. So feel free to reach out to me if you've got any more specific questions.
I'm always happy to chat. People often ask me, too, about my associate counsellors and their ability to deal with matters of faith and counselling. And I can certainly assure you that all of the people I have chosen are really well equipped and experienced and having these conversations.
So if you need some support, do feel free to reach out for counselling, too.
