The anonymous.church podcast is a safe space where we read and share real stories submitted anonymously by people who’ve been shaped, challenged, or hurt in church settings.
Each episode gives voice to experiences that are often silenced while offering honesty, empathy, and hope for safer, healthier spiritual communities.
In this first episode of a multi-part series, Audi sits down with Ashton as she shares her story. Together, they walk through Ashton's early experiences in faith, the complicated pull of church culture, the shame she carried from childhood, and the deeply painful events that reshaped her life in ministry. This conversation explores harm, silence, survival, and the long road to healing with honesty, clarity, and compassion.
Trigger Warning: This series includes discussions of trauma within church spaces, including spiritual abuse, emotional harm, childhood trauma, and sexual abuse. Please listen with great care. Resources and Mentions:
Ashton's Substack All of It
Share your story at Anonymous.Church
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18 Nov 2025
Between Hope and Harm
In this episode, we sit down with licensed professional counselor, Kimberly, to talk about the blurred space between pastoral advice and actual mental health care. We explore why the difference matters, how power dynamics shape the guidance we receive, and what safe, informed care really looks like. It’s a gentle, honest conversation for anyone sorting through faith, healing, and the kinds of help that can hold us or hurt us.
Relevant Links
Find a Licensed Professional Counselor in your area at Psychology Today.
Good Boundaries and Goodbyes by Lysa TerKeurst
Submit your story at Anonymous.Church
Follow us on Facebook or Instagram
12 Nov 2025
Endings and Exits and Everything Else
In this deeply personal and tender conversation, Audi sits down with her longtime friend Crissa to talk about what happens when both marriage and ministry unravel at the same time. Crissa shares her journey from serving in full-time ministry to suddenly facing divorce, the loss of community, and the quiet ache of rebuilding faith from the ground up. Together they talk about grief, identity, and the slow process of learning to trust yourself again.
From bathtub-cry nights to unexpected redemption, this episode explores what it means to keep showing up when the life you built no longer exists, and how healing sometimes looks like sitting in church with no makeup and a ball cap, just waiting for your heart to thaw.
4 Nov 2025
Will You Make Me Brave?
What happens when worship stops being about performance and starts becoming a question?
This week, we sit down with Wes to talk about how faith and ministry evolve over time. From growing up in church pews to leading worship under the lights, Wes shares what it was like to move from certainty to curiosity, and how leaving vocational ministry didn’t mean leaving faith behind.
They talk about fragmented beliefs, the beauty of small community, sacred moments found in unexpected places and what it means to reimagine worship outside the walls of a church.
Together, they explore how healing happens in small, unassuming spaces and why “everything belongs,” even the hard parts of our stories.
Links from this episode:
Follow Anonymous.Church on Instagram or Facebook.
Share your story anonymously at anonymous.church.
Telos Studio
The Place We Find Ourselves – podcast by Adam Young
You Make Me Brave – song by Amanda Cook & Bethel Music
28 Oct 2025
Indoctrinate a Child in the Way He Should Go
This story is one of growing up in church, walking away from certainty, and learning how to raise the next generation in freedom instead of fear. In this episode we explore what it looks like to have space for science and faith at the table when we choose not to indoctrinate, but instead to model the teaching of Jesus through love, curiosity, and proximity.
14 Oct 2025
We Thought It Was A Carnival
Red flags in ministry aren’t always loud. In this week’s episode with Paige, we walk through the subtle (and not-so-subtle) cues she ignored. We talk gaslighting, why speaking up gets labeled “disloyal,” and how therapy and boundaries helped her trust her gut again. Content Note: This episode contains references to spiritual abuse, manipulation, shame, and references to an abusive relationship. If these are sensitive topics for you, please listen with care or skip this episode. Featured Resources and Helpful Reading:
Share Your Story at Anonymous.Church.
Connect with us on facebook at @anonymousdotchurch or instagram at @anonymousdotchurch.
Find a Licensed Therapist in your area at Psychology Today.
7 Oct 2025
How to Stay
Our guest today grew up in church, questioned everything, and found his way back to faith. but now different, quieter, and centered on Jesus. We talk deconstruction, parenting while questioning, staying in church with new boundaries, and what it looks like to rebuild belief with honesty and hope.
30 Sept 2025
What You Come Home To
In this episode of Anonymous.Church, Grace shares her journey of growing up in a family deeply rooted in church life, leaving religion as a teenager, and finding a new sense of spirituality beyond traditional faith. From navigating purity culture and teen motherhood to redefining what love, family, and faith mean, Grace’s story is honest, tender, and full of wisdom. Her reflections remind us that healing often begins with asking why.
23 Sept 2025
Leaving Well
In this episode, we talk about what it looks like to leave ministry, faith, or the church "well" in a way that makes space for healing. We spend time talking about faith, identity, and the practical steps of rediscovering who you are outside of church systems.
15 Sept 2025
Episode Zero
In this ”episode before the episode” of Anonymous Church, we share why this space exists, what it is, and what it is not. This is a safe place to tell stories of faith, church, and ministry without shame, names, or blame. Here you’ll hear honesty, heartache, and hope. All with the goal of breaking silence, reducing shame, and reminding every listener: you’re not too much, you’re not alone, and your story matters.
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