A reflection inspired by The Soul’s Garage podcast
We’ve all been there—sitting in a church service, or reading some religious literature, or engaging in a conversation about faith, or overhearing others talk about faith, and wondering: “Where exactly do I fit in all of this?” Maybe you’re the person who laughs during serious moments, asks too many questions, or finds yourself somewhere between the “super spiritual” crowd and the folks who only show up on Christmas and Easter.
If that sounds like you, then welcome to The Soul’s Garage—a place where we’ve opened the garage door to hang out and tinker with this vehicle called faith, trying to keep it running smoothly in all our messy, complicated lives.
The Space Between Sacred and Silly
Here’s what we’ve discovered after years of wrestling with faith: You don’t have to choose between being deeply spiritual and genuinely human. In fact, we think the best kind of faith happens when both exist together.
We’ve been told for too long that Christians are supposed to be “straight-laced sober and sad”—always serious, never questioning, perpetually walking around with that stained-glass window expression. But what if that’s not the whole picture? What if faith is big enough to hold our laughter alongside our tears, our questions alongside our convictions?
As our friend Grady Nutt used to say, “Laughter is the hand of God on the shoulder of a troubled world.” In these days of division, fear, and uncertainty, maybe what the world needs isn’t more people who have it all figured out, but more people who can find God’s grace in the midst of the mess—and maybe even share a laugh about it.
Finding Jesus in the Unexpected
When we look closely at the Gospels, we find a Jesus who told stories about servants owing “bazillion dollar” debts and people trying to swallow entire camels. We see someone who used humor to make profound points about forgiveness, hypocrisy, and the upside-down nature of God’s kingdom.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day probably didn’t appreciate his sense of humor any more than some folks today appreciate when faith gets a little too real, too human, too… unpredictable. But that’s exactly where many of us find ourselves fitting in—in the space between the expected and the surprising, between tradition and authenticity.
The Danger of Either/Or Thinking
We’ve learned something important through our own journeys: faith without humor becomes puritanical fundamentalism, while humor without faith leads to total cynicism. Neither extreme is healthy, and neither reflects the full reality of what it means to be human beings created in God’s image.
Some of us have been burned by rigid religious systems that left no room for questions, laughter, or honest struggle. Others have swung so far in the opposite direction that we’ve lost sight of anything transcendent or sacred. But what if there’s a third way? What if faith is spacious enough to hold both our reverence and our questions, our worship and our wonder, our prayers and our belly laughs?
Creating Space for the In-Between
This is where The Soul’s Garage comes in. We’re not trying to convince anyone to check their brains at the door or pretend they don’t have doubts. We’re not interested in drawing lines between who’s “in” and who’s “out.” Instead, we’re creating space for the people who find themselves in the in-between places:
- For the questioners who love God but aren’t afraid to wrestle with difficult passages or troubling aspects of church history
- For the laughers who find joy in their faith and aren’t ashamed to smile in church
- For the wounded who’ve been hurt by religion but still sense something sacred calling to them
- For the seekers who are attracted to Jesus but repelled by some of his followers
- For the tired who are weary of performative faith and long for something real
Angels Fly Because They Take Themselves Lightly
G.K. Chesterton once observed that “angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly.” We think there’s profound wisdom in that image. When we take our faith seriously but ourselves lightly, we create space for grace to work in unexpected ways.
This doesn’t mean we’re irreverent about sacred things. It means we recognize that God is big enough to handle our honest questions, our genuine struggles, and yes, even our laughter. It means we can approach the holy with both reverence and relaxation, knowing that when we cry, Jesus cries with us—and when we laugh, Jesus laughs with us too.
Where You Fit In
So where do you fit in? Maybe you’re discovering that you don’t have to fit into anyone else’s box. Maybe your faith journey looks different from your parents’, your pastor’s, or your small group leader’s—and maybe that’s perfectly okay.
Perhaps you’re learning that being “barely Christian” isn’t a failure but an honest admission that following Jesus is complicated, messy, and rarely fits into neat categories. Maybe you’re finding that authentic faith happens not in spite of your questions and struggles, but right in the middle of them.
The Garage Door Is Open
Here’s our invitation: Come as you are. Bring your questions, your doubts, your hopes, and your laughter. Let’s tinker with this thing called faith together—not to fix it or make it perfect, but to keep it running in the real world where most of us actually live.
Because at the end of the day, we believe God shows up in garage conversations just as much as in cathedral services. We believe sacred moments happen over coffee and honest conversation just as much as in formal worship. And we believe that sometimes the hand of God on a troubled world looks a lot like friends gathering to laugh, question, and discover together what it really means to follow Jesus.
The garage door is open. There’s room for everyone. And who knows? You might just discover that the space between certainty and doubt, between sacred and ordinary, between serious and silly, is exactly where God has been waiting to meet you all along.
What’s your story? Where do you find yourself fitting in—or not fitting in—when it comes to faith? We’d love to hear from you.
