The Trust Again Course

What The Experience Is Like

The Trust Again Course is designed as a conversation rather than a debate.

Participants gather in a small group setting to explore questions about trust, authority, freedom, and faith. Each session includes short teaching, guided reflection, and open discussion.

The goal is not to pressure participants toward conclusions but to create space where people can examine the deeper reasons trust has become difficult and consider whether a different kind of authority might still be possible.

Who The Course Is For

The course tends to resonate most with people who are carrying complicated experiences around authority. This may include adults who are still processing difficult encounters with leadership or institutions, as well as those who find themselves navigating seasons of faith deconstruction or reconstruction.

It is also meaningful for seekers who remain open to faith but feel hesitant about trust, and for Christians who are wrestling with questions about surrender, authority, or disappointment within the church.

Many churches have also found the course helpful as a way to create healthier, more thoughtful conversations around trust, authority, and faith within their communities.

A Space for Honest Exploration

Many people who join the Trust Again Course arrive with real hesitation about faith and authority.

For some, those questions grew out of difficult experiences with leadership or institutions. For others they reflect a broader cultural instinct toward self-reliance and caution. In either case, the course begins by taking those experiences seriously.

Trust Again is not designed to pressure anyone toward belief or to win arguments about faith. Instead, it creates space for people to explore a deeper question together: if trustworthy authority really existed, what would it actually look like?

The Six-Session Journey

The course unfolds as a guided exploration across six sessions:

• Session 1 — Why Trust Feels Unsafe

  Explores how personal experiences and cultural shifts have made trust more difficult.

• Session 2 — Naming the Stance

  Introduces the concept of Defensive Autonomy and how self-protection forms gradually through experience.

• Session 3 — The Cost of Self-Rule

  Examines the burden of carrying life’s authority alone.

• Session 4 — Authority Unlike Any Other

  Explores the historical claims surrounding Jesus and what trustworthy authority would need to look like.

• Session 5 — Jesus’ Invitation

  Examines what faith, trust, and following Jesus mean in practice.

• Session 6 — You Remain Free

  Reflects on the meaning of trust and commitment while affirming that the invitation remains voluntary.

Each session is designed to move the conversation forward while respecting the freedom of every participant.

What Participants Can Expect

Participants can expect a setting that values thoughtful conversation rather than quick or simplistic answers. The environment is designed to be open and unpressured, where questions are welcomed and people are free to engage at their own pace.

The course also takes seriously the ways authority can fail. Rather than avoiding those realities, Trust Again acknowledges them honestly and creates space to talk about how those experiences shape our reactions to faith, trust, and spiritual leadership.

At the center of the experience is meaningful conversation—listening carefully to one another and paying attention to the deeper spiritual questions that often sit beneath skepticism.

Trust Again is not built around shaming resistance. It begins by trying to understand it.

Where The Course Leads

Trust Again begins by acknowledging something many people already feel but rarely say out loud: trust has become difficult. Rather than rushing past that reality, the course starts by exploring why trust can slowly erode and how certain experiences can reshape the way authority feels.

From there, the conversation moves toward a deeper question: if trustworthy authority really existed, what would it need to look like in order to deserve trust again?

The Christian claim is that in Jesus we encounter a form of authority that looks very different from the kinds people have learned to fear—an authority that does not preserve itself through coercion or control, but bears cost rather than deflecting it. That vision of authority lies at the heart of the Trust Again framework.

Participants are invited to engage these questions honestly and at their own pace. The course does not assume where anyone will ultimately land. Its purpose is simply to reopen a question that many people quietly closed long ago: whether trustworthy authority might still be possible.

Interested in bringing the course to your church or community?

We would be glad to talk with you about a pilot, partnership, or future course opportunity.