Leslie Nease Leslie Nease

the wisdom of the question

Have you ever noticed that Jesus rarely answered a question directly? People came to Him looking for clarity, and instead, He offered more questions. Not because He didn’t know the answer, but because He wanted them to discover something deeper than information.

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Leslie Nease Leslie Nease

do highly sensitive people deconstruct more often?

Recently, I watched a documentary called Sensitive—The Untold Story, and it stopped me in my tracks. It was like someone finally put words and science to things I’ve always felt but couldn’t quite explain. This film explores the trait of high sensitivity, a trait that 15–20% of the population is born with, and it got me wondering:

Are highly sensitive people more likely to deconstruct their religion?

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Leslie Nease Leslie Nease

under construction: my last christian retreat

Ironically, the last retreat I spoke at for Evangelical Ministry was titled “Under Construction”. By the time I stepped up to that podium in 2019, something inside of me had already shifted. Preparing for that talk was one of the hardest moments I’d had in ministry to that point. I had already left the institutional church, though my faith hadn’t fully unraveled yet. I was still holding on, still trying to make it work. I was fighting the change that had been quietly unfolding since 2016.

And standing on that stage… it showed me just how much had changed.

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Leslie Nease Leslie Nease

It’s All About the Light

It’s all about the light.

These photos were taken about 20 minutes apart. Same angle. But the first one was taken as the sun was shining bright on the rock just before it set.

Lighting in photography is essential for creating depth, contrast, and emotion, much like the internal light we shine as humans influences the world around us…

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Leslie Nease Leslie Nease

The Beauty of Deconstruction

The majority of the time, deconstruction is not about tearing everything down and walking away—it’s about making room for something more authentic. It’s about letting go of the things that no longer align with who we are becoming, while holding onto what’s real, beautiful, and true.

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who deconstructs their faith?

I took a survey earlier with people going through deconstruction to see what their faith was like prior to deconstructing. The results proved what I suspected…

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that’s what love does

Today, I was having a conversation with Todd Herzog, the winner of my season of Survivor China in 2007. He wrote the foreword of my upcoming book, and I was letting him know how much I appreciated not only him writing that for me, but also for the patience and love he showed me over the past seventeen years that we’ve known each other. I had a lot to learn, I had to wrestle with a lot of my theology and I have said some things to him when I was in my faith tradition that hurt him deeply. He simply said this:

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AN excerpt FROM MY UPCOMING BOOK…

This is an excerpt from my book, Honoring the Journey: The Deconstruction of Sister Christian, coming out either late 2024 or early 2025. This excerpt is from the chapter Fear and Love

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Life updates

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve blogged here, and for that I apologize! I have been so busy interviewing, editing and producing my new podcast, Honoring the Journey. It’s been so much fun and we are just getting started!

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Leslie Nease Leslie Nease

stepping out of the boat

I remember talking with a friend when I first stopped attending church back in 2017. She said that perhaps the evangelical church could represent the boat the disciples were in when they saw Jesus walking on the water. Jesus called Peter out to walk on the water with Him, away from the boat. She suggested that could be what Jesus was doing with me. Could He have been calling me out of the boat and onto the water for some intimate one-on-one time and at some point, perhaps He and I would return to the boat and things would go back to normal?

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Leslie Nease Leslie Nease

wrestling with the real thing

One of the hardest things I’ve had to wrestle with during this faith transition was coming face to face with the fact that I was going to disappoint people I care about. My going public could make their hearts heavy with grief, fear, disappointment and sadness. Ugh. I wish there was a way to avoid hurting people while still being true to myself.

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BORN AGAIN…AGAIN

I was recently asked about my journey out of religion and Evangelicalism. Someone wanted to know my thoughts about how it felt to be a strong, very outspoken Evangelical Christian and then go through the process of an intense faith transition out of religion.

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HONORING THE JOURNEY

My journey out of Evangelicalism doesn’t mean that every experience I had in religion was negative. There were also some really great moments…

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YOU’RE GOING TO BE OKAY

Whew! It’s been a journey since going public about my faith transition and now I’m finally coming up for air…

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breathtaking

The Fall Season is in full bloom here in Utah, and it got me thinking…

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PULLING ON THE THREAD

I’m not sure when I began to pull on the thread, but once I did, it unraveled pretty quickly.

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