Counter Culture Mama Podcast with Danielle Venables

113. Overcoming Religious Shame, Healing From Church Hurt, and Finding Your Way Back to Jesus

• Danielle Venables • Episode 113

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Ever been told to obey first and feel later? I grew up equating faith with performance, penance, and shame—and it kept me far from the church. Today we get honest about church hurt, the weight it puts on our hearts, and the quiet ways it can block a real relationship with Jesus. This is a story about moving from condemnation to conviction, from checking boxes to living in grace, and from isolation to a community that actually helps you heal.

We revisit a striking childhood memory of face-to-face confession and the pressure to produce the “right” sins, then contrast that with what Scripture shows: a God who seeks us, leaves the ninety-nine for the one, and calls us into a personal relationship. We explore repentance as a heart posture, not a transaction; the gentle, persistent work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification; and how inner transformation naturally reshapes habits—like my slow shift away from drinking—not from fear, but from desire to draw closer to God.

Along the way, we name the difference between legalism and love, offer practical first steps for those wary of returning to church, and share what a healthy, Bible-centered community looks like: honest, humble, and grounded in grace and truth. If past experiences have made you hide, there’s room to breathe here—and a seat at the table with your name on it. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs hope, and leave a review to help others find their way back to freedom.


Ready to explore church without shame? Check out Lakepointe Church Online. Join the live services on YouTube at 4:00 & 5:30pm CST every Saturday (I'll be greeting and praying with you in the comments at the 5:30 services most weeks! Come say hi!), and 9:30 & 11:00am CST every Sunday.

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Counterculture Mama Podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Venables, and I'm going to start this episode by just being really real with you today. That if there are any background noises, anything like that, I do have a toddler jumping around on the couch behind me. And as much as I have tried to distract him and give him other options for things to do, he is choosing insanity today. So we're just going to roll with it. We're going to record this podcast episode anyway because I really feel like it's important to get out to you. But if there are any interruptions or noises in the background, that is where that is coming from. So today I wanted to talk to you about church hurt. I wanted to talk to you about something that is very real, something that a lot of us carry, and something that kept me personally away from my faith, away from the church for a long time. Because I had my own experience with churches and seeing corruption and seeing things that I didn't agree with. And I think that's a theme that's also being exposed online, like literally as we speak, which I will get into. And it's a really important thing to address because it does keep a lot of us away from our faith and away from practicing our faith in a way that supports, you know, community and sound biblical teaching and not doing it all by ourselves. And community is important. It's important for accountability, it's important for deepening in our faith, it's important for not feeling alone and also not being misguided by the enemy, right? And there's the saying the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and that's a lot of what the world will tell you is like things that sound good or things that are well-intentioned, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're of God and it doesn't mean that they're righteous. And so for that reason, community is really critical. It has been an absolutely life-changing thing in my faith journey and continues to be as I am going through a program called Rooted, which is actually where this conversation came up. I was on a call with um one of my sisters in Christ who has a very similar story to mine, which is, you know, raised Catholic and then got into coaching, got into new age spirituality, and then has been walking this journey alongside me back to Christ. We actually met through the church, but our stories are very, very similar in a lot of ways, and we came back into the church world at the same time. So we've been journeying together in that time, but we were on a call with a couple of our mentors, and they we were talking just about our relationship with God, our relationship with Jesus, how God seeks to have a personal, intimate relationship with us, which seems crazy because it's like who, me, like of the of the billions of people on this planet, like why me? I, you know, I have my flaws, I have my issues, I don't always choose to have a relationship with him. Like, why does he care so much? And so that was sort of the topic of of the discussion. And, you know, realizing that our relationship with Christ is very personal and is something that is reciprocated, right? Like we're not just seeking him, he is seeking us. And you know, the Bible talks about leaving the 99 to find the one and things like that. And this is really the case um with the true God and with Jesus Christ, that he is seeking us, he is seeking a personal relationship with us, and that's something that got brought up on this call and what it led me to, because the question that our mentor asked was, you know, how well do you know Jesus? Like, do you have a personal relationship with Jesus? And obviously, being raised Catholic, I knew what Jesus was about, I knew what the gospel was about. But when it really came down to it, I realized that the answer was probably no. That there were glimmers of that relationship, that there were glimmers of feeling like I knew Jesus, but there was also a lot of interference, there was a lot of shame. Um and that kept me away from having like a true meaningful relationship with him, right? And so, for those of you who aren't Catholic, and I'm sure a lot of you aren't, um in the Catholic Church, you are basically taught the the vibe of being in the Catholic Church is more about obedience and less about relationship, right? It is like, don't do this, don't do that, be a good Catholic, um, as opposed to, and then like go through the priest. Like when you aren't good, then go through the priest to ask for forgiveness for your sins. And this is a process called reconciliation. I had my first reconciliation when I was in third grade, and that's the story that that was brought up by that question, right? I I accessed something that I had honestly been kind of blocking out for most of my adult life, um, because I had my first reconciliation in third grade. And, you know, you see it in the Catholic churches where there's like the confessionals and things like that. And basically the idea is that you have to confess your sins to the priest, and then the priest will tell you, okay, go say this many Hail Marys, go say this many our fathers. Um, he'll basically give you instructions for what's called penance, which is supposed to be like restitution to God, right? Like it's supposed to be what repentance isn't. Um, but it's supposed to be like a form of repentance, um, where basically it's like, okay, I went wrong, I confessed my sins, and now I'm gonna make it right by going and sitting in the pews and praying. And um we didn't even have this is something that I wasn't even on my radar until this came up in conversation, but so we're in third grade, and we are going to our confession, and we had to do it every single year, multiple times a year, um, after that, through the catechism program, through the Catholic Church, and we had to confess our sins. Now, like I said, on TV, there's these confessionals where it's anonymous, it's private, you're through like a screen basically, so that the priest can't see who he's talking to, um, and you confess in that way. So there's a degree of anonymity. Um, the way that we did it, we were sitting, there were two chairs sitting face to face with each other. Um, and we had to sit in front of the priest and confess our sins. And then he would issue us our penance and we would go do our penance, and there was no anonymity, there was no um confidentiality at all. I don't know if it's because they're like, oh, they're children, their sins aren't that bad, or if that was just the way that my church did it, but um, that was the experience. And I when I recalled that memory, it came online so viscerally for me, I remember like my whole body like seized up. I remember the humiliation, the shame. I also remember like leading up to reconciliation, like trying to strategize, like what do I say? Is this bad enough to even confess, or do I have to come up with something worse? Um, you know, how honest do I be? Like, there were all of these things going on where it's like you want it to be good enough that like the priest believes you, but then you also like don't want to confess your deepest, darkest secrets with a priest face to face. Like it's like a a power structure, right? And so when all of those memories came flooding back, I was like, wow. And it it made me realize, and that's the intention of recording this episode, it made me realize how many people have past church experiences, whether you're Catholic or Protestant Christian. Um, you know, we all have these stories of things that were done within the church that we grew up in that may not have been functional, that may not have made sense, and that definitely didn't show us the freedom and love of Christ. Right? And that's what I found in my adult life through the church that I go to now is I found freedom. I, when I confess my sins to another person, it's because I want to. It's because I know that I will be supported and you know, loved through it and also guided with sound biblical doctrine, not just told to go pray a bunch of prayers over and over again as if God is some vending machine for forgiveness, and I have to like put my coins in to receive the forgiveness, right? Like that's not what having a relationship with God looks like. That is like very input output, you know? Like to me, I just I look at that and I'm like, that's not that's not freedom, that's not relationship, and it's not genuine, it's not true repentance. And so when when I talk about repentance, well, when I first joined the church, um they would say repentance, and I would be like, huh. Because my relationship to repentance was very much like, oh, you have to repent. You you're a bad person, you're a sinner, you're whatever, right? All this shame, all this condemnation, which by the way is not from God. And like that was what would come up when I would hear the word repentance. So when when this church would use that word, I would be like, ugh, like everything about me would like sort of pull back. I'd be like, I don't like this. And um what I realized when I came back to church in my adult life, and when I found this church, which really prioritizes finding freedom in Christ, I realized that repentance isn't an action, it's a heart posture. And what I mean by that is like when you get convicted, and again, convicted, not condemned, when the Holy Spirit convicts you of something where you're like, I know this is wrong, and I don't even want to do it anymore. And then you're like, I got this wrong, and I see the ways that I got this wrong, and I, you know, it's like that that change in your heart of like, I used to live like this, and now I see the the faults in my ways, and I genuinely have had a change of heart about it because I've been convicted by the spirit. It's not because some power structure came from above in the hierarchy of the church and condemned you and said, You're a sinner, this is wrong, this is bad, you must repent, right? That's a very different energy than when you are guided by the spirit, when you place your faith and your belief in Jesus Christ, and you are then you you're filled with the Holy Spirit, right? When you accept Jesus as your savior, you are filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps you along this sanctification process, which basically just means like being made holy. And what starts to happen is anything that is sinful, anything that does not align with God's word and God's will will start to be brought to your attention. The Holy Spirit will like tap you on the shoulder and be like, hey, by the way, this this isn't this isn't serving you, this isn't helping your relationship with God, like this is creating a separation between you and God, which by the way is all that sin is is making a decision that creates some sort of barrier between you and God instead of drawing you closer to Him. And also, by the way, it's hurting your own soul. You're hurting yourself by sinning. And so the Holy Spirit will bring that to your attention and say, Hey, like maybe this doesn't feel right anymore. And then you evaluate it and you're like, whoa, actually, yeah, I don't even want to do this anymore. Um, a prime example of this is drinking. Um, you know, I'm not a hundred percent sober at this point in time, but you know, over the last few years, there has been a lot of call for me to sobriety. So where it used to be like a weekly thing where I'd have a couple of drinks with friends or something like that. Now it's like once every three months, maybe once a year in some cases. Like I just don't feel like I want to drink anymore. And that hasn't been me telling myself, oh, drinking is a sin, because I mean that's up for debate. There's there's scripture to back like being of sound mind, but um actually having a sip of alcohol is not a sin. Um, but it so it's not so much that it's a sin, it's just like in my sanctification process, I'm not feeling the need to anymore. I'm not feeling not even the need to, I'm not feeling the want to anymore. And so that's the sanctification process. It happens from within. It's an inner transformation that is then reflected by your outer actions. And it's the same with repentance. It's like when you see that the way you were living was wrong or was hurting you or was hurting other people, that hits your heart differently. And when it hits your heart differently, then your heart posture changes and that leads and informs your actions moving forward. That is repentance. So, you know, I just I think about all the shame, all the condemnation, everything that I felt within the church. And again, it's not necessarily a specific adult within the church telling me that I was bad or telling me that, you know, I like condemning me, right? It wasn't necessarily that. It was just the whole vibe of how it was gone about, the way that it is practiced in the Catholic Church, brought up a lot of guilt, a lot of shame, and therefore actually took me farther away from Jesus because guilt and shame are barriers between you and a relationship with Christ. Right? If you are constantly told that you are unclean, you are impure, you are doing things wrong, and that's going to impact how worthy you feel to have a relationship with our perfect savior. And that's not it. That's not what the Bible teaches, that's not what Jesus teaches. Right? Like he came because we're imperfect, and because we're imperfect, we need a perfect savior. And he came because he wants to have that relationship with us, regardless of our imperfections. And so, of course, like you do your best, you go through life, you try not to harm one another, like you try to be a good person and you try to be obedient to what God is telling you and what the Holy Spirit is telling you, right? We have an entire book that tells us God's will, and we also have the Holy Spirit within us convicting us, and we do our best to obey that, right? But at the end of the day, we will all fall short, we will all end up in these positions where we we're not cut out for it, and that's why we have a savior. That is literally why. And so when we can bring that to light, and when we can approach that from a place where that is freeing as opposed to condemning, then we're no longer hiding in shame, right? Like think of the beginning of Genesis, when they eat the forbidden fruit and then they're hiding themselves because they're naked, right? That's shame. And that shame causes them to hide from God. That's not what God wants. That's why he sent Jesus to cleanse our sins, right? To pay the ultimate price for our sins and for our shortcomings, is because he wants that relationship with us. And you can see that time and time again if you open your Bible. So if you are a Catholic and you are resonating with some of the shame programming and the condemnation that I described in my experience, then open your Bible. Read, I mean, I'm reading the Old Testament right now. I read um Genesis and then I'm partway through Exodus. And what becomes apparent over and over and over again is that God longs for that relationship and he is willing to continue to renew covenants, to continue to work with imperfect people in order to bring the covenant forward, which ultimately leads to Christ, which ultimately leads to our ability to be in relationship with him, even though we fall short. Because there's no such thing as a perfect person other than Jesus, because he was God and man. So all of that to say, like if you are letting shame, condemnation, and especially shame and condemnation rooted in the church keep you from a relationship with Jesus, my invitation is don't. My invitation is to stop letting what humans have ruined keep you from seeking out Jesus. I'm a firm believer in community. I opened the episode saying that. And so I do believe that finding a community of people who are in that walk, who are, you know, reading their Bibles and trying to live to the best of their abilities a life that will glorify God, you know, that's an important piece. Um, but you don't have to subject yourself to a church that relies on guilt, shame, and condemnation in order to control you, right? Because that's just like the Pharisees in the Bible. That is outward behavior as opposed to inward heart posture. And it is true that like what really matters is where those actions are coming from. Are they coming from shame and like forced obedience, or are they coming from a place of a desire to do good, a desire to do better, a desire to repent because you are seeking a relationship? Right? So my invitation is don't let past church hurt, don't let past church experiences where things did feel heavy and negative and condemning. Don't let those keep you away. Because humans are imperfect, they don't always get it right. And that goes for the leaders of the church as well. They are not some supernatural, you know, without fault people, they are just people. And so don't let people ruin your relationship with the living God. That's my invitation to you. So if you are in a position where you're not ready to come back to church, I completely understand. Open your Bible or come to church online. I'll I'll link the uh YouTube channel down below. If you want something that's like, I'm not attending, I don't want the old shame programming to come online. That's exactly where I started. I just started quietly watching church online. But check it out. And just just check it out. Um, and if you're in a place where you are ready to be in community, but you're like a little bit gun shy about like, well, I'm not there yet. Like I'm not I'm not a typical Christian. Same. Right? And like that's okay. So if you're looking for a community of people who are seeking, of people who are walking in relationship with Jesus, of people who aren't pretending to all be finished projects, who don't have anything to work on, and who, you know, don't have any sin anymore, like that's not that's not the reality. That's an illusion. So if you're looking for a community where people are real about it and where it's okay to admit that you fall short because we all do, and you know, we're all just trying to do better, and we're all just like on this walk. Like the the point of it is that we are all eyes on Jesus. You know, it's it's not condoning sin in terms of like, oh no, like that's totally fine, but at the same time, it's like, yeah, we've all got we've all got our stuff. And like join the club, right? We're all trying to do better, but we've all got our stuff. We've all got strongholds in our lives, we've all got things. And so, like, you're welcome here anyway. You have a seat at the table anyway. So if you're looking for that kind of community, I found an online community that has absolutely transformed my life. Um, my baptism was online, my life groups are online. Um and I'm honestly like getting a little bit choked up, even like thinking about these people because of the ways that they have shown up for me and the ways that they have supported me in my journey. Um, the the types of conversations that we have, the way that we can be so real with each other, and also the way that we always keep the focus on Christ and that we always keep our advice to one another based on the word of God, right? Like it is such a supportive and uplifting community. So if you're looking for that, reach out to me on social media. I will connect you to wherever you need to go. They have groups for couples, they have groups for women. Um, I heard there might be a group for men in the works, so stay tuned for that. But I have seen the life-changing power of community through this church. And so if that's something that you're seeking, even if you're just in the beginning of your journey, like just reach out. I'm happy to connect you. I'm happy to have a conversation with you, even if you're not ready for a group and you're just like, I need to talk. I'm here. I'm here to pray with you, I'm here to pray for you, whatever you need, right? Um, but that has been the biggest the biggest shift in in my journey has been coming back to church after the experiences of church that had me staying away from church and coming back into a biblically sound, good church with genuinely good people who are genuinely guided by the Lord and guided by the Holy Spirit. That changed everything in my life. And I want the same for you. So that's what I've got for you this week. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Feel free to subscribe, follow wherever you're at, um, so that you don't miss future episodes. And I will talk to you next week.