Befriending Doubt: Companioning Those Who Ask Deep Questions of Faith

Learn how to stay present when someone you serve is questioning what they believe.

Someone tells you they are no longer sure what they believe.

They may be questioning beliefs they once held with certainty, reconsidering their relationship with the church, or trying to understand where faith fits in their life now.

What do you say?

And perhaps more importantly, how do you stay with them without rushing to defend, correct, or resolve what they are experiencing?

Befriending Doubt is a two-session online course for pastors, spiritual directors, counselors, faith leaders, and others who accompany people through seasons of doubt, deconstruction, and deep questions of faith.

Doubt Does Not Always Need an Immediate Answer

When someone begins questioning their faith, the instinct can be to reassure them, explain more clearly, or help them arrive at an answer.

But seasons of doubt can be more complex than a theological problem to solve.

They may involve identity, belonging, relationships, lived experience, changing understandings of God, or a growing distance between what someone has been taught and what they are actually experiencing.

This course helps you better understand what may be happening in those seasons so that you can respond with greater curiosity, compassion, and care.

What You Will Explore

Understanding Doubt and Deconstruction

Develop a clearer understanding of what people may mean when they talk about doubt or faith deconstruction and the different directions those experiences can take.

How Scripture Engages Doubt

Explore how God responds to people who question and wrestle in Scripture and consider what those stories might teach us about accompanying others.

What Happens When Faith Begins to Shift

Draw from theology, sociology, and psychology to consider what people may experience emotionally, relationally, and spiritually when long-held beliefs begin to change.

What People Need in Seasons of Questioning

Consider the kinds of presence, relationship, and support that may be most helpful when someone is uncertain about what they believe.

Companioning Without Fixing

Learn practical ways to walk alongside people without assuming that your role is to resolve their questions or determine where their faith journey should lead.

This Course Is for You If…

Someone you care for has told you they are questioning their faith and you are unsure what to say.

You regularly accompany people through spiritual questions, doubt, or deconstruction.

You worry that saying the wrong thing could push someone farther away.

You want to understand what deconstruction can look like rather than treating every experience of doubt as the same.

You want a theological framework for doubt that leaves room for honesty and complexity.

Or you want practical ways to remain present when there is no quick answer.

This course is especially relevant for pastors, spiritual directors, counselors, faith group leaders, teachers, parents, nonprofit leaders, and others who walk alongside people in their spiritual lives.

What You Can Take Into Your Conversations

By the end of the course, you will have:

• A clearer understanding of doubt, deconstruction, and questioning in faith
• A reframed theology of doubt
• Greater awareness of what people may experience during seasons of spiritual uncertainty
• Practical ways to respond when someone shares difficult faith questions
• Greater capacity to listen without immediately trying to fix
• Tools for accompanying people with curiosity, compassion, and presence

You Do Not Need to Have the Answer

Sometimes the most meaningful thing a leader can offer is not certainty.

It is the willingness to stay present.

Befriending Doubt helps you develop the understanding and practical tools to accompany people through questions of faith without rushing the process, fearing the uncertainty, or assuming that every question needs to be resolved immediately.

Enroll in the Class

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