Exvangelical Survival Guide (Part 3)

You’ve slipped out the bathroom window. You’ve caught your breath outside the old house. You’ve started stacking new bricks and planting new roots. And now?

Now it’s time to live. Not just as the person who left. Not just as the one who rebuilt. But as someone who knows deep down that Love was never locked in those walls to begin with.

This is about claiming the joy, the freedom, the sacred irreverence of a life no longer defined by what you escaped.

Tip 1: Don’t Just Survive — Thrive

Leaving bad religion can make you cautious, like you’re always looking over your shoulder for the next sermon-shaped guilt trip. But at some point, survival has to give way to celebration. 

Let yourself throw parties, start projects, take risks. 
Life after exile isn’t just breathing. 

It’s dancing, creating, laughing until you wheeze.

Tip 2: Make Peace with the Past

The ghosts may still pop up.

Moments when shame whispers, “what if they’re right?” 
Bible verses that land like sucker punches. 

Instead of trying to banish them, learn to talk back: “Thanks for your concern, but I’ve got a better landlord now.” The past is part of your story, but it doesn’t get to be the author anymore

Tip 3: Practice Everyday Sacraments

Holiness isn’t confined to stained glass. 
It’s in your morning coffee. 
In long walks. 
In belly laughter with friends. 
In honest conversations that don’t require a statement of faith. 

Let ordinary life become hallowed again. Stop waiting for permission to call something sacred.

Tip 4: Keep Raising Hell (in the Right Places)

Leaving evangelicalism isn’t just about personal healing. It’s about joining the bigger fight for justice. 

Speak up. 
March. 
Vote. 
Resist. 

Raise hell wherever fear and oppression still hold sway. You’re not faithless. You’re faithful to the only thing Jesus actually preached: Love your neighbor.

Tip 5: Write a New Ending

You don’t owe anyone a return trip. 

Not the pastor, not your family, not the voice in your head that keeps asking if you’ll “come back someday.” Your story isn’t about circling back to prove you’re still respectable. It’s about writing a new ending… one where Love wins, fear loses, and you live free.

Benediction for the Free

You are no longer defined by what you escaped. You are more than the rubble, more than the baggage, more than the ghosts.

You are the laughter echoing across the open field.
You are the builder of something sturdier.
You are the friend, the healer, the neighbor who knows Love is not small.

So live free. Boldly, joyfully, unapologetically free.
Because survival was never the finish line.

Love has always wanted you alive.