Spirch: Church for Spiritual but Not Religious
A church being built for people organized religion left behind
About
Spirch is short for spiritual-not-religious. It is a church being built for people who carry a spiritual life but have never had a comfortable home for it: people who do not belong to a religious institution, or who tried one and it cost them something. It is early days, and the first people are still gathering. Either way, there is a place for you in what is being built.
Who this is really for
People working in adult industries who have been told their work disqualifies them from a spiritual life. LGBTQ+ people who were made to feel like a mistake instead of a creation. People without a permanent address who found out fast that most sanctuaries have an unspoken dress code. People at the very top of their field, running companies, running households, running toward every goal they have ever set, who quietly wonder if any of it means anything and have no one safe to ask. And people who got asked to leave a Bible study, or asked a question nobody wanted to answer, or were quietly made to feel like the odd one out in a faith community for being a little different. Different stories, same door.
Religious guilt has a history, and Spirch takes it seriously
If you grew up Mormon, or in a home where Christianity was used as a weapon instead of a comfort, you likely know a specific kind of guilt: the sense that you are always one step behind a standard you never agreed to and can never quite meet. Add to that the pastors and clergy throughout history who misused the trust placed in them, and Sundays and Saturdays stopped being about peace for a lot of people. Spirch does not ask you to get over that first. It starts from it.
When gender roles became a cover for control
For some people the wound is more specific. Maybe you were taught that a rigid script for men and women was handed down by God, and that questioning it was the same as questioning Him. Plenty of families genuinely love traditional roles and build good lives inside them, and that is not the problem. The problem is when control, shame, and outright abuse get dressed up as gender roles, or when stereotypes are forced on a household with no patience, no peace, and none of the grace those same scriptures actually call for. If figures like Douglas Wilson, the harder edges of biblical patriarchy, or a strain of traditional religious teaching left you feeling small in your own home, you are welcome to bring that with you. It is one kind of religious wound among many, and Spirch takes it seriously without pretending it is the only story in the room.
An experiment, first and foremost
Spirch is an experiment before it is anything else: an attempt to build a church for people who are spiritual but not religious. It is just getting started. The parts below, a bible study, a run club, a book club, an honest conversation about the supernatural, are not separate clubs or franchises. They are different ways into the same mindset, different doors into one room. The hope is to start in northwest Indiana and around Denver. If you are near either and this is what you have been looking for, reach out and help us begin.
Bible Study
Reading and discussing scripture without a pulpit standing over you. Bring the questions that got you talked over, talked down to, or asked to leave somewhere else. Questions about authority, headship, and the ways scripture has been used to keep people in line are welcome, not off limits. Here they would be the point, not a disruption.
Run Club
Miles together, low pressure, no sermon required. A place to move your body and clear your head alongside people who get it, whatever "it" is for you this week.
Book Club
Real books, real conversation, no assigned takeaway. What you get out of it is yours to decide, not something handed to you at the door.
Supernatural Discussion Group
People sharing supernatural or spiritual experiences they have had and are not sure what to make of, and bouncing them off other people who take the question seriously instead of laughing it off. Eric holds his own views on what best explains a lot of what people describe, and is glad to share them. That view is on offer. It is not required, and it does not lead. You are free to weigh it against your own experience and walk away with your own conclusion.
A scientific approach to spiritual matters
Across all of these, Spirch aims to approach spiritual matters the way you would investigate anything else: what works and what doesn't, tested against real experience, not handed down on authority. Nobody would be required to believe anything to take part, and nobody is required to have their life sorted out first.
Where this house church stands on outside authority
On matters outside Scripture itself, sometimes called private revelation, this house church holds those loosely and with real discernment, because different claimed sources call for different scrutiny. That includes Roman Catholic teaching and authority: the Roman Catholic Church is visibly divided on major questions right now, which itself signals something isn't settled there. This house church does not operate under Roman Catholic hierarchy or with any imprimatur from Rome. It is spiritual, and it is not tied to a denomination.
One body, many strengths: working with any Christian church
Spirch holds that Christians are one body, and that different groups and traditions each carry real strengths worth learning from. Any unpaid volunteer from any Christian church is welcome to work with us cooperatively, and we'd like to share prayer requests and prayer intentions across that cooperation rather than staying siloed inside one group.
For the rigorous + the skeptical
Spirch is not only for people carrying a wound. If you are an academic, a scientist, or just someone who thinks carefully and suspects that spirituality, if it is real at all, lives outside the physical world, there is room for you in it too. Consciousness, evidence, methodology, and the honest question of what would actually change your mind are all fair ground. You can hold a high bar for what is true and still belong. An honest search for what is real is enough.
Why this page runs long
This page is longer than most, on purpose. It goes deep on a few hard subjects because people searching for those exact words deserve to find a real answer instead of a slogan, and because spiritual but not religious covers a genuinely wide range of people: the hurting and the searching, the doubting and the certain, the newcomer and the lifelong seeker. Read the parts that are for you and leave the rest. The door is the same either way.
From the last gathering: Trompeau Bakery
At the last Spirch gathering, we met at Trompeau Bakery, not by any of our own doing but through happenstance and God's timing. The discussion covered a wide variety of things, including linked experiences from that day with another person's dream from months earlier, down to the specific colors of a prayer device, remembered again just days before the meeting. One person had prayed that morning to connect with more spiritual people, came to the bakery for the first time, and found what she had prayed for. Thanks be to God.
Next gathering: Buena Vista
The next Spirch is likely to be in Buena Vista on Saturday. Video calling in is likely to be set up by that point. All are welcome.
Part of one community
Spirch is part of Zoseco, and it will run on the same membership as the rest of the community: the same network, meetups, and support that Zoseco's other community builders get. When the gatherings begin, you are welcome to join, whether you come for a book club, a run club, or the discussion group.
Interested? Reach out below. Tell us whether you are in northwest Indiana or around Denver, and which part of this you would most want to help start.
Get in Touch
Have a question or ready to get started? Reach out and we’ll get back to you.