Submit your name and email address to get inside info and be first invited to
Flip Your Faith: Going From Fear to Freedom
Signup below and you’ll be the first to know about our new program!
Does this sound familiar?
🤔 I feel like God is mad at me…
🤔 I have no idea how my sexuality and my faith fit together…
🤔 No one else is asking the same questions I am…
🤔 I’m so tired of feeling like I need to choose between my faith and my identity…
🤔 I want to read the Bible but it fills me with anxiety…
🤔 The people in my life just don’t get how I can call myself a Christian and believe what I believe…
🤔 I want to be a Christian but it’s so hard to find other LGBTQ people who share my faith and beliefs…
🤔 I’m not even sure WHAT I believe anymore or if I even WANT to call myself a Christian…
Imagine if...
❣️ You had a faith you couldn’t get wrong
❣️ You knew with your whole heart that God delights in you
❣️ You could trust that queerness is holy
❣️ Your life was filled with people who affirm, support, and encourage you
❣️ You didn’t feel split in two
❣️ Your not-fully-affirming friends and family no longer stressed you out
❣️ You fell in love with the Bible again
Introducing...
Flip Your Faith
going from fear to freedom
Submit your name and email address to get inside info and be first invited to
Flip Your Faith: Going From Fear to Freedom
Signup below and you’ll be the first to know about our new program!
Here’s what is in store for you:
🙌 Practical tools for healing from spiritual harm and tuning into your own inner wisdom
🙌 Getting over the fear of living your faith “wrong”
🙌 Setting (and actually keeping) boundaries with unaffirming people in your life
🙌 Banishing your Bible hangups around sex
🙌 Reclaiming the Bible from a queer and progressive perspective
🙌 Building meaningful spiritual practices
🙌 Finding or forming faith communities
Imagine...
1️⃣ Knowing everything you need to know to trust that queerness is good and that you and your loved ones aren’t damned to hell
2️⃣ Having tools to navigate difficult conversations with friends, family, and pastors who aren’t fully affirming
3️⃣ A step-by-step plan for engaging with the Bible in a way that fills you up rather than fills you with fear
4️⃣ Being surrounded, supported, and encouraged by a community of LGBTQ spiritual seekers who get it.
Imagine always knowing your next best step in rebuilding your faith.
Now imagine taking that step — and then the next one, and then the next one, and then the next one — for 8 weeks.
👉 NOW imagine knowing what those steps are, taking them for two months, and doing it with an experienced spiritual practices coach (ahem, that’s Brian) and queer priest (that’s Fr. Shay) at your side every step of the way, all while being in community with cool people doing the same thing.
Sounds pretty awesome, right?
Flip Your Faith: Going From Freedom To Fear is coming soon and you’re invited to be part of the VIP waitlist. You’ll get first dibs on registration and some waitlist-only bonuses.
What could queer faith look like after you’ve figured out “Yes, of course it’s ok to be LGBTQ!”?
It took a lot to get me to the point where I was comfortable coming out. I’d always assumed that after that, it would be smooth sailing.
I’d be out. I’d be proud. I’d be part of the community. But it wasn’t so easy.
I often found myself feeling split in two. The Christian circles I was part of were friendly, but not fully affirming. And my gay friends weren’t really interested in religion.
There were few places I like I could be fully myself.
I dealt with lingering fears about if I’d made the right decision:
- what if I’m wrong?
- am I in danger of going to hell? what about my friends?
- will I ever feel as connected to God as I used to?
- what are my values and how can I live them out?
- what does it look like to be a person of faith and also an out and proud queer adult?
I read so many books about being LGBTQ and Christian, about progressive and social justice Christianity, about liberation theology.
I thought I just needed more information, but what I discovered is that I needed to take action and I needed to do that with other people.
👆 here's me working at a Christian summer camp a few months after I came out to my friends (I wasn't out at camp, OBVIOUSLY) 👇 here's me a year later, rockin' that same shirt at a gay club with my (straight) roommate!
You can rediscover God through the power of queer story
I spent years and years trying to find just the right argument for why it’s ok to be gay and Christian, why I don’t have to worry about hell, why I’m ok.
I wanted to feel safe, fulfilled, secure, inspired, interconnected. I wanted to taste transcendence again. I wanted to heal. I wanted to help others heal.
It felt like I was on a hamster wheel, chasing an elusive idea of a faith that I hope for but could never quite experience.
And then I met a cute boy with a chocolate Labrador and rediscovered the Garden of Eden in the park around the corner from our houses. That experience helped me to understand queerness in a new way and finally connect my queerness and my faith.
But that’s not really the whole story.
Fr. Shay and I talk a lot about how you can find queerness on every page of the Bible, but first you have to make sure you aren’t afraid of the Bible. And more than that, you have to know how to read it well.
We think that Scripture can be pastoral and prophetic, but in order for that to be the case for you, you’re going to need to learn a whole new way of approaching it.
When I tried to queer my faith before I was ready, I ended up falling back into unhelpul habits like:
- arguing on the (rigged) terms of conservative Christians
- arguing with people committed to misunderstanding me
- missing powerful queer themes because I was too busy looking for a gay character
- keeping my faith practices and my progressive values separate
- thinking there was only one right way to read the Bible or be a Christian
I studied religion in undergraduate and then have worked in faith-based nonprofits and as an author, speaker, and educator on Christianity for 10+ years. Fr. Shay went to seminary and has been working in churches for 20 years (and still has the debt from it!)
You don’t have to do all that. We’ve distilled the best of the best from our experiences and education so you can make years of progress in just 8 weeks.
We’ve seen the power of re-building a strong spiritual foundation and then layering queerness on top of that with so many of our community members and coaching clients over the years. In order for things to start being different, you’re going to have to start acting differently. Fr. Shay and I are here to guide you through that process in Flip Your Faith.
We’re lifelong students too and we’re in the trenches. We do this work because it’s changed our lives and we want it to change yours too.
Was there a time you walked away from your faith?
I’m living in the attic in my childhood home, even though I’m 22 and graduated from college. My bed is directly over my mother’s bed in the room. I’m laying there, unable to sleep. I’m stressed out.
See, I’m working as a Baptist Youth Pastor at a church that isn’t fully affirming of LGBTQ+ people. And I know I’m gay. After years of praying I would somehow wake up straight, I am… not. I am terrified my mother will find out, terrified the church will find out, even though I’m not even dating anyone.
I can’t sleep as all of the fears swirl around in my head:
- Why would God make me gay and then hate me for it?
- What if I’m just not trying hard enough?
- What if I’ve gotten everything wrong?
I’m about ready to just quit.
Quit the church.
Quit Christianity.
Quit everything.
It feels way easier than trying to make sense of my life. I have no idea that it’s possible to be an out, proud, queer Christian. (I still don’t even know trans people exist.)
But that night, laying in that bed, I make a deal with myself:
I’m going to let myself ask all of the questions and I’m not going to stop until I get the answers. Questions about the Bible and homosexuality, questions about sex, questions about the Rapture and Hell and the death of Jesus, questions about the church and calling. I’m going to ask ALLLLLL the things.
And so I did. And it saved my life AND my faith. But it also took a REALLY. LONG. TIME.
Because I didn’t know what I was doing. I was trying to do it all alone. No one was writing or talking about this stuff (not really). No one was creating community around it. No one was showing me how to do it well.
I want the freedom I’ve found for you, but I want you to get there a LOT faster than I did and with less angst.
Which is why I’m so stoked about Flip Your Faith. It’s the years and years of searching, and questioning, and learning synthesized and made doable. It’s all the trial and error so you can have less error and more practice.
I’m so excited for your journey from intellectual acknowledgment to embodied practice, from siloed faith and sexuality/gender to an integrated wholeness, from fear to freedom.
This Is FLIP Your Faith
an 8-week group program to move from fear to freedom and build a solid spiritual foundation that compliments your queerness
Flip Your Faith Includes:
- Weekly training + coaching calls with Brian and Fr. Shay where we’ll tackle one of the foundational flips that will help your faith go from fear to freedom. These calls are part practical tools and part conversation.
- Assignments and exercises to help you take the stuff you’re learning and apply it to your own life. Practical, fun, and doable no matter where you are.
- A private Slack community JUST for our cohort so you can keep the conversations going all week long and connect more deeply with one another.
- Workbooks to guide you through exercises, challenges, and wins.
- Recordings of every call (only available to your cohort) so you can catch up on anything you missed.
Here's how we're gonna Flip Your Faith in 8 weeks! Starting Week of September 10
Week One: Flip Your Foundation
You’ll learn the process and tools needed to ACTUALLY flip your faith! (You might be surprised by what is and isn’t part of the process.)
Week Two: Flipping Authority
You’ll get clear on who you trust, who to listen to, and why. You’ll also learn specific techniques for tapping into your inner wisdom
Week Three: Flip Your Fear
We’ll take the sting out of scary theology. What do you DO with all of these beliefs that scare you? You’ll learn the facts behind some of the scariest theology, explore alternative, freedom-based theology (spoiler alert: these are actually the traditional Christian beliefs — most Christians have historically believed over the millennia), and you’ll be equipped with tools and tactics to settle lingering fears that pop up.
Week Four: Flip The Bible
Reading the Bible with fresh eyes (and seeing queerness on every page). We’ll do a crash course in how to read the Bible in new ways (and why it matters). You’ll walk away with tools for deeper study, but more importantly with permission to bring your WHOLE self to the text and to see your queer/trans identity on every page.
Week Five: Flip Your Sex Life
Let’s talk about SEX. Bodies and orgasms and questions- OH MY! We’ll tackle allllll of the questions you have about sex: what’s okay and not okay? How do you get in touch with your body and your desire? How do you move past shame? We’ll get both practical and philosophical as we talk about sex and bodies and you’ll walk away with some really fun things to try (both solo and with others if that’s your jam)!
Week Six: Flip Your Family
Dealing with the haters (and your conservative uncle). In this week we tackle how to have hard conversations with the unaffirming (or just not as affirming as you’d like) people in your life. From how to keep yourself emotionally, mentally, and physically safe in the midst to what ACTUALLY changes hearts and minds.
Week Seven: Flip Your Focus
All about you: Where are you? What do you need RIGHT NOW? In this week we go deeper into your next steps. Where are you still feeling stuck? What’s feeling exciting and like you want more? What does it look like to get centered and clear about what you want? You’ll get tools for tapping into desire, focusing on your spirit, and getting unstuck.
Week Eight: Flip Into Freedom
Diving deep into freedom (and what comes next). Now that you’ve gotten past fear, how do you really live into freedom? As we close out our time together we’ll dream about what’s next and give you ideas of things to keep your momentum moving!
A Peek At What's Possible...
The process of going through this project has just blown the lid off of what the Bible can mean and be. I just used to have so much pressure on me reading the Bible.
I’ve had a really hard time trying to re-read parts of the Bible, without all these things I was taught by other people distorting what I reading instead of just reading it for what it is. But just now, I was able to just look at it and just see so many other things I’ve never, ever seen before. It was really cool.
Henley (they/them)
I’ve never come to the Bible with all of myself before and though that feels super vulnerable, I think this is the first time all of me has really sat with the Bible and with Jesus — not having to section anything off. Which is pretty impressive. So I’m really appreciating that.
Yolanda (she/her)
Delf (they/them)
One of the best parts of this course is how Brian and Shay really make space for everyone. It’s encouraging to hear diverse voices and I am grateful for the space to share. Brian and Shay reminded us throughout the course that no theology takes place in a vacuum. Whenever I read the Bible, it’s me. And this course does a good job highlighting some of the ways we can bring ourselves to it while still being true to who we are as people.
Robbie (he/him)
Before taking the course, I would describe myself as pretty comfortable in my sexuality and my gender identity. I had been out for a few years already, but I wasn’t really sure how my gender and my orientation fit together with my faith. The biggest thing I got out of Queering the Bible was a baseline sense that I am OK as I am and that God doesn’t need me to change my gender or my sexuality in order to be a Christian. I don’t wonder anymore whether I might be wrong. I don’t have that sneaking suspicion of “what if the hammer comes down when I die.”
Mac (he/him)
I studied religion in my undergrad and it was always very distant because it was, “We’ve got to use the Historical Method” or whatever other type of method, and we’re going to use our textbooks to try do it in an “official” way. I’m seeing in this course that I am an expert in my own way: so reading the Bible in a more personal way rather than a distant way and it’s been really nice.
Lauren (she/they)
Heather (she/her)
After Queering the Bible, I am finding that life as a queer Christian means reclaiming myself from feeling evil and sick and unholy. And that reclaiming oneself on a spiritual level is also an act of reconsecration. I find that I can be at peace. Perhaps not out in the world, but inside of myself. That is a big gift that this course gave me.
Aer (they/them)
In the transition period [between going to an unaffirming church and finding a new church home] the courses and community here became, in my mind, the real manifestation of the Body of Christ for me. This space will forever remain in my heart as the place where I learned that I deserved more than tolerance, and could ask God for more grace as manifested in a community “in real life”
Jon Carl (he/him)
