Where Do Folks Leaving Traditional Church Go?

By Rev. Dorothy S. Boulware | Word In Black(WIB) – With “The Day God Saw Me as Black” and Unfit Christian, Thomas is pushing the boundaries of what faith communities can look like.Danyelle Thomas is a church girl —& born and bred in the church. But with all the drama and trauma she found in church, she never envisioned becoming a pastor, mostly because that office was rarely offered to believers of the female persuasion.But today, Thomas stands as the “Passuh” to thousands who are members of her online congregation,& Unfit Christian, a digital faith community she launched in 2016 that offers a safe haven for those seeking acceptance, kindness, healing and wholeness.RELATED:& The Hidden Pain of& Church Hurt“It’s a faith community where we confront religion at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, all of the systems of oppression — but more than that, all of the systems and structure of culture,” Thomas says. She says the community has grown because it resonated with “folks who had left the church but hadn’t left God.” These are the “folks who didn’t immediately jump to atheism or agnosticism, but folks who were like, ‘I still believe in God, I’m just...