Healing and belonging in Community of Christ – A seeker's journey

After years of feeling unworthy and experiencing loss, one young family found peace, acceptance, and new life in a community that welcomed them just as they are. By: Jamie Funk from Topeka, Kansas

My faith journey has been somewhat of a rugged one at times, as I imagine it is for a lot of people. Growing up, I was never really ever consistently taken to one church or denomination from one or another. However, general Christianity was always important—or at least, I always felt like it was supposed to be—as a kid. I always loved and enjoyed whenever we went over religion in history class and mythology. I'd love renting books from the school library on different old-world religions and learning about all the different variations in religion and culture.

My mother was raised Baptist, and my stepfather was raised Catholic (though on my mother’s side of the family, they generally didn't care what denomination it was). I have a great uncle who is the pastor and minister in two different churches—so growing up, I was exposed to several different points of view. My personal journey runs counter to stereotypes. Many people start out having liberal beliefs when they are younger, and by the time they get into their mid-to-late twenties (or older), they slowly become more conservative. By contrast, I’d say I was raised pretty liberal—at least in the “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood” sense—and yet I was attracted towards more conservative denominations.

I was introduced to the Restoration movement when I was 19 by some missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I immediately became fascinated by the uniqueness of the denomination and many of the bold and “as a matter of fact” claims made by those in the church. I found that this denomination also puts strict requirements on its members, which it defines as living “worthily.” Somewhat like a Catholic confessional, you have a private meeting with the LDS bishop (who is like the pastor of the church), and he goes over a list of questions with you to determine whether you're “worthy” to enter an LDS Temple.

Most of the faith-based questions were easy for me at the time, like “Do you believe in God and have a testimony of Jesus?” Other questions, like “Do you strive to be honest in all you do?” were more difficult for me because I tend to do deep, critical analysis of myself constantly. When asked, “Do you follow the teachings of Jesus in your private and public dealings?” my initial answer was “yes, of course!” But for some reason, during the interview, the thought came to my mind where one day I was at work and I opened the break room fridge and my coworker’s coffee (which he always left in the door of the fridge) fell out and splattered onto the ground.

Now, I was somewhat afraid of this gentleman at the time (I hadn't been working there long, and he had already been there many years), and I was afraid to tell him that I spilled his coffee. And of course, he was extremely upset when he found out. According to the bishop, this alone was apparently enough to be rejected for a temple recommend, and at that time, with that incident and others, it kicked my self-judgment into overdrive. Every little thing that I did, thought that I had, or action I took made me question if I was ever going to be “worthy.” I didn't understand how people could honestly be able to answer every question and be genuine while I struggled with myself.

Thankfully, however, I met my wife in the church. Because I was not deemed “worthy” to enter an LDS Temple, we got married at the courthouse in 2016. While we constantly made each other feel special and important, we felt like we were being divinely punished and prevented from being able to begin our family until we were “worthy” of it. About once a year to a year and a half, my wife and I experienced miscarriages in the first trimester. It had gotten to the point where we had finally firmly believed that either we needed to reach this point of perfect humanhood to deserve a family, or one just wasn't in our cards.

As time went on, we became less and less active at the LDS church, and we began attending a local, non-denominational Evangelical church. We had become spiritual seekers, but we were not sure where the Spirit was leading us. After we had another loss in the Evangelical church, the Spirit led us to Community of Christ in 2023. I remember walking in on my second visit, on a Communion Sunday, and being absolutely fascinated by two ordained women blessing the sacrament in the same style they had in the LDS Church. One thing that I really liked was the encouragement to kneel as much as possible in reference to the sacramental act.

Upon taking the sacrament, I just remember being spiritually lifted out of my seat! I felt the Spirit stronger than I had in any church before—and it was done by God’s priesthood through a woman!

That really turned my head around. Another confirmation of the Spirit came after we had made the decision to join and were confirmed as Community of Christ members. We were finally able to carry our son to full term, and he was born a perfectly healthy, bouncing baby boy. I can't give anyone praise for this, but Jesus alone, for blessing us.

Now happily in our faith home, we began bringing him to church as soon as three weeks old. He loves church, and it’s starting to get hard to keep him from running around during the service. He’s such a good boy, and I'm so blessed to have such a loving and wonderful wife who takes care of us and is such a good mother.

Community of Christ embodies a lot of the core beliefs I hold dear and was encouraged to have. I'm definitely not perfect—far from it—and if it came down to a litmus test on my moral integrity, I'm sure it'd be easy to poke holes in it. But I thank Jesus for that forgiveness that I can't earn. This is a hard concept that many wrestle with: forgiveness that we can never earn but is a gift from our Savior.

We are firmly happy in our new faith home and are so grateful to have been accepted “right where we are.”

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