Gather Cincinnati - A Story of Arielle's Faith
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My name is Arielle, and I’ve been a part of Gather Cincinnati since summer 2023. I had recently moved back to the Cincinnati area and was looking for a Faith community. I began attending Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Loveland just down the road from where I live. While I didn’t grow up Lutheran, I found Prince of Peace checking most of the boxes on my “good church” list. However, I was still missing connections with other young adults. Someone there connected me with Gather.
I began attending the quarterly worship evenings, hesitantly joined the monthly book club, and even branched out to some of their pop-up events. I immediately appreciated the no-nonsense, gentle intentionality of this group. Gather was created to fill the gap needed: a queer affirming young adult faith community outside of any one church. I appreciate this, and I dream that one day it can be simply an extra encouragement space; I want to see young adults returning to intergenerational church bodies.
I know this can’t be done until there are sufficient changes made in those traditional churches. We may be welcomed, but we are not actively included yet. And for those who have been hurt by the church and are hesitant about our community here at Gather, I’d like to share about myself in the hopes that you feel a bit more welcome to come hang out with us.
I am 24. I have lived in many places. I spent the most time in Northwest Arkansas, from late elementary through high school. I grew up going to church on Sundays. My parents took my siblings and I to a few different churches over the years, from Methodist to non-denominational. With where my age fell in those churches, I always seemed to be the oldest, so I didn’t have the opportunity to be in any youth groups. On Sundays, I usually sat in the adult services. My knowledge of God came from worship songs, sermons, and my parents teaching me to pray before bed.
My senior year of high school, I fell into the great pit of depression. I struggled to keep up with the pace of my classmates. I began pondering the meaning of life, the role of God, and my worth in the world. I managed to hang on through graduation. That summer, I read Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and Mere Christianity.
In the Fall, I moved to the Pacific Northwest. I began classes in environmental engineering at Oregon State University. I was excited to join Intervarsity, a campus ministry and my first “youth” group. A girl from my dorm became my friend as we participated together. I attended a local church and was “adopted” by a woman who became my mentor.
After a year at OSU, I had to drop out due to my prevailing mental illness. I couldn’t focus on my school work with all the troubling thoughts that come with severe depression. That summer, I moved back in with my family, and this happened to mean moving with them overseas. Living in Switzerland is a complicated time to talk about. On the surface, it was dreamy. In reality, it was isolating, and I like to joke that I experienced prolonged social quarantine before the pandemic made it a unifying event of our generation. This was my first extended period of time not attending church. Things got so distressing that my therapist referred me to a mental hospital in London for safety and to get a second opinion on my treatment plan.
I didn’t have a work or study visa to be able to be more involved in regular activities in Switzerland, so in the spring, I returned to Northwest Arkansas to “get a life.” I moved in with a former high school acquaintance just as the pandemic hit. We were not a great roommate duo; they were vocally atheist and this made it hard to respect my own sense of self. I thought maybe I should look for roommates who shared my christian beliefs. So, I moved again, into an apartment complex owned by a christian organization.
They had a community-intensive program for student-age young adults. I lived with three roommates, attended the weekly Bible lessons, and was matched with a mentor from the community. I was still very depressed, and I think this made me a bit hard to be around. I was also rusty on social skills, having spent the last year outside of a school or place of work. I began attending church semi-regularly and joined a second young adult Bible study.
In the spring, I started taking a class called “Perspectives on the World Christian Movement”. I also started an internship at the ministry organization hosting the class. Reflecting on this now, it seems excessive, the amount of “seeking” I was doing of Christianity. This shows, however, the intensity of my emotional pain and the thirst I had for needing God to heal me. The Christianity circle I was in spoke the subliminal message that one could pray their mental illness away: that depression and anxiety were the consequences of not having enough faith.
As I desperately tried to pull God closer to me, my self hate deepened. I couldn’t stand being alone with myself. To cope, I slept the days and nights away. I reached a point when my body couldn’t take any more sleep. Then, to keep sleeping, I accidentally overdosed on my antidepressants. Although I recognized this and took myself to the hospital to get help, when the leaders of the christian organization that ran the apartment complex heard about it, they labeled it a suicide attempt. When I got home from the hospital, they met with me, illegally terminated my lease, and told me I wasn't allowed to participate in their events anymore either. One leader used the exact words: “Our community isn’t really a place for people like you”.
That summer, I moved to Cleveland, Ohio to live with my aunt. Her tough love pushed me to get a part time job right away. I found a Vineyard church that I liked, and I tried going to some of their young adult events. It was hard for me to be consistent. I was drowning in shame about my situation: college dropout, barely employed, overweight, living with my aunt. None of these are reasons to feel ashamed; however, this was my thinking at the time. I was still feeling really hurt from the previous christian community, too. I was afraid that if this new group got to know the real me, they would also no longer want me.
In Cleveland, I received a new diagnosis. It turned out that my “treatment-resistant depression” was actually only a symptom of a more deeply entangled mental illness called Borderline Personality Disorder. If you google BPD, a lot of articles with stigmatizing language come up, written by friends, family, church leaders, and even mental health professionals. Via my internet research, BPD seemed synonymous with bad person disorder. People with BPD were selfish, manipulative, dramatic; these people couldn’t be fixed and were a toxic force that the church must be protected from.
However, this went against what I had been taught about Christianity growing up: “For God so loved the world that he sent his son…”, “God is the great healer, and the church is a hospital for the hurting…” Except for people with mental illness, especially those with BPD. Except me. I guess I was too far gone, too broken, for the church (and God) to be able to heal.
It was about this time that I began a combination of treatments that were finally helpful. The gold standard treatment for BPD is Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). I entered a comprehensive DBT program. For my still severe depression, I received a round of transcranial magnetic stimulation. And for my loneliness, I adopted a cattle dog puppy!
When my family returned from Switzerland, moving to Cincinnati, Ohio, I moved back in with them. My aunt hadn’t exactly been the loving support I needed. I was able to keep my job, transferring to a local store, as well as continue seeing my therapist via Zoom. That same summer, in a desperate attempt to feel like myself, I came off all my medications cold turkey. Between my mind clearing up and adjusting to living again with my parents, existence was painful. I was still quite emotionally dysregulated and held a lot of anger and resentment towards my parents for how my life had unfolded. To cope, I began using sleeping pills to numb the pain. I knew this was a problem, so my therapist and I targeted this behavior.
I didn’t go to church for the first six months of living in Cincinnati because I wasn’t comfortable asking for Sundays off my retail job. My depression had robbed me of my reading comprehension ability, so I mostly texted my faith questions to my friend and mentor, rather than reading books or the Bible.
In January of 2023, I was ready to try taking college classes again. I decided to enroll at God’s Bible School, a small Bible college downtown, and I started with one class, called Church Health. My brain was healing, growing stronger. I could read again!
I recommitted to attending church regularly, settling for the megachurch Crossroads. I tried going to the young adult events, but I didn’t feel like a member of that club. Hoping for someone in person (versus via text) to ask my spiritual questions to, I asked around for a mentor. In a multicampus network of thousands, they didn’t have anyone to mentor me. I was told, “Just get involved, and you will find someone organically.”
One Sunday in May, my dad said, “Hey, I’m going to check out the Lutheran church down the road, do you want to come with me?” “Sure,” I replied, glad my dad had an interest in going to church. My family hadn’t been attending church since their break from the routine over in Switzerland. I was surprised that I didn't hate the “traditional” Lutheran service. The people were kind and friendly. The words spoken were focused on the gospel. I went the next weekend. I eventually stopped going to Crossroads and became a regular attendee of Prince of Peace. I found myself learning to like the liturgy. I joined the weekly adult (old people) Bible study and started going to Gather events.
Since I had passed my one class at God’s Bible School, I decided to take two more in the fall, New Testament Literature and General Psychology. Like exercising a muscle, it got easier for my brain to read and write. I finally read the entire New Testament for myself, and my professor lectured week after week about the sins of gay and transgender people. This harsh interpretation didn’t sit well with me. Luckily, the new-to-our-church pastor welcomed me into weekly meetings in her office to discuss all my biblical questions. Just as I stopped looking for a mentor, she came along! As the weeks went by, I became passionate about an issue I hadn't before: queer affirmation in the church. It turns out my passion wasn't just from a "but Jesus loves the diversity of the expression of love" and "invalidation is harmful". I came to realize that I am queer myself.
Despite all my pain and questioning over the years, I had held onto my faith. I slowly learned to use DBT skills to manage the emotion dysregulation of BPD. And yet, it wasn’t until I was able to embrace my queerness that I was able to begin the process of learning deep self-compassion. After this realization, I no longer wanted to financially support an institution that supports “acceptable christian hate”. I passed my classes and am still deciding where to go next.
In January of 2024, I picked up part time work as a youth leader at Prince of Peace on top of my part time job at Tractor Supply. It was nerve wracking, trusting the church to further welcome me. Two staff members knew about my mental illness and queerness, and, like Gather, they didn’t care. These two aspects of my identity that I thought would disqualify me from being able to lead at my traditional church were seen and embraced. Again and again, I would doubt their radical acceptance of me, and again and again I would be reminded I belong.
While I am glad to have found a home in a church, it is impossible for me to fully enjoy my place when so many others are not present. On Sunday mornings, I look around the sanctuary. Where are the young adults, the queer folks, the people battling a mental illness? They belong too. The answers I’ve got from some well-intentioned yet busy people are that these populations are tricky to get to come to church. Like I said earlier, we may be welcomed, but we are not actively sought out after.
The great thing is Jesus sought out those who society outcasted and religious leaders looked over. Which, to me, means God cares about me no matter what people may say. The church may not do the best job of loving others; let’s change that, because wherever we are on our faith journey, whatever our beliefs, church is the place to figure out our faith, as long as we have people who love us unconditionally.
Wherever you are on this weary and beautiful journey of life, we would love to meet you at our next Gather event! We are here to witness your story and walk alongside you in young adult faith community.
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Thank you for taking the time to read Arielle's story!
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