Some call it a slippery slope; others call it deconstruction. There is a season many of us have gone through where we question and then often lose our faith; we are warned that questioning our faith may lead to the loss of our faith, but don't really think that can happen. But then, slowly, it does. We find ourselves asking the most basic of faith questions: Is there a God? For most of their lives, Steve Fredlund, his wife Tracy, and their friends Greta & Stacey were living the evangelical dream. Steve was a long-time board chair, regional denominational board member, helped start three daughter churches, and even served as Executive Pastor. Tracy was heavily involved and taught Sunday school. Greta was on staff as the Children's Ministry Director and Stacy also held various volunteer and paid leadership roles. Life was perfect. Until the questions started. Is there really a "Hell"? Is that actually the system an all-loving god would set up? Is the Bible the literal inerrant word of God for our instruction or just a collection of stories from people and their prevailing understanding of God? Over about 10 years, the faith of these four friends unraveled; sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly; sometimes willingly and sometimes with resistance. But it is fully deconstructed for all of them. Steve once said if he wrote a book about their adventures it would be called, "Weeeeee: Adventures from the Slippery Slope." But now, several years after reaching the bottom of the slide, the friends are faced with a new challenge. It turns out that their conservative evangelical faith may have been the glue that was holding them together; and now, all four of them find themselves at different places in their faith.. .from full on atheist, to reluctant atheist, to pursuing Christian, to settled theist. With these different perspectives, there really isn't the common ground they had, or the desire to read the Bible together or watch videos together about elements of faith. And now, over the past two years of political division and a global pandemic, it is more clear they have differences in how they view the world; differences that maybe were covered up by the power of their faith
In this session, Steve shares his thoughts about this and the struggles they are having as a friendship group in the wake of deconstruction and different perspectives. The goal is to start a conversation among the group; how hard do we fight for friendships and relationships that have such a rich, shared history when common ground is lost? How do we build new friendships when we never had to do that before because our friends were always built into the church?
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