Why I Chose Keep the Word “Church”
Words carry memory. They carry wounds. They carry power.
When I began building what would eventually become Rainbow Bridge Church, I spent a lot of time sitting with the question: Do I even want to use the word “church”?
For many people, that word brings up pain, control, exclusion, or disappointment. I understand that deeply. I have felt all fo those things myself.
And still, I chose to keep it.
Because sometimes the most radical thing we can do is not abandon a word, but reclaim it.
Church as a Feminine Principle
Before church became an institution, before hierarchy and power structures shaped it, church was something far more ancietn. It was people gather. Feeding one another. Singing through grief. Holding life together when eveything else had fallen apart.
That is a feminine principle.
Across cultures and throughout history, when wars ended and societies cracked open, it was women who gather the fragments. Women who buried the dead, fed the childre, tended the broke bodies, and rebuilt meaning. Women who carried spitirual labor quietly and consistently while the world tried to reset itself.
The church, at its best, was never just a building. It was a shelter created by human hands and human hearts.
And women have always been the ones keeping the fire lit.
Where I First Felt Belonging
For me, church was the first place I felt belonging.
The Black church, especially, held something profound. It held rhythm, survival, community, and a kind of spiritual honesty that made space for both grief and joy at the same time. There was music that lived in the body. There was collective prayer that felt like breathing together.
It was there that I first met the masculine face of God not as an idea, but as a presence.
And it was also through church that I eventually experienced disillusionment.
Because when institutions lose alignment with love, the people inside them feel it first.
I became angry. I became distant from God. I questioned everything I thought I believed. And like so many others, I carried the ache of feeling betrayed by a space that was supposed to be safe.
The Tension I Couldn’t Ignore
There came a moment where I realized something important: My anger wasn’t proof that church was wrong. It was proof that I believed it could be more.
I didn’t want to throw away the idea of church because I knew what it could be. I had tasted it. I had seen glimpses of spiritual refuge, belonging, and collective healing.
The problem was never the concept itself. The problem was what we allowed it to become.
Reclaiming the Word
Church shouldn’t be a bad word.
Church should be a place where people come to breathe again.
A place where questions are welcome and encouraged.
A place where healing is practical and embodied.
A place where spirituality serves life rather than controlling it.
I chose to keep the word because I believe it can still mean sanctuary.
I want to reclaim church as something feminine in spirit and structure:
Nurturing instead of shaming
Gathering instead of dividing
Restoring instead of demanding perfection
Listening instead of preaching at people.
This is not about erasing tradition. It is about returning to its most human purpose.
A Church for the Future
Rainbow Bridge Church exists because I refuse to beleive that spirituality and safety must exist apart from each other.
I believe that church can evolve into something honest enough to hold trauma and strong enough to hold joy. A space where science and spirit sit at the saem table. A space where belonging is not conditional.
A church where people don’t have to pretend to be whole in order to enter.
Because the truth is simple:
We don’t come to church because we are perfect. We come beacuse we are human. And humanity deserves refuge.