A standalone study on the specific moment when the faith you grew up with comes under serious pressure for the first time, away from home, away from easy answers.
The Big Question
What do you do when the faith you inherited gets shaken hard, by a class built to dismantle it, by a church culture that overpromised, by the first real exposure to people who do not share a single one of your assumptions? Many people quietly walk away in that exact season. This study traces Lisa Fields's own collision with that moment and asks what staying, instead of leaving, actually requires.
Spiritual Discipline: A Practice for the Pressure-Test Season
This study centers on a discipline rather than a debate, because Fields's own breakthrough was not primarily intellectual. It was a decision made before her questions were resolved. The discipline is this: commit to seek before you have answers, instead of waiting for answers before you commit to seek.
In practice, that discipline has three parts. First, name the actual pressures rather than letting them blur together. Fields was hit by two distinct things at once, manipulative hyper-spirituality and serious intellectual challenge, and naming them separately let her eventually address each one rather than being flattened by a single undifferentiated wave of doubt. If your faith is under pressure right now, write down what kind of pressure it actually is. An unanswered intellectual question is a different problem than disappointment with a church that overpromised, even though they can feel identical from the inside.
Second, make the decision to stay before requiring yourself to feel resolved. Fields's moment in John 6, Peter's where else would we go, came while she still had zero answers to her New Testament class's hardest questions. The decision came first. The seeking that followed, the years of study that eventually became the Jude 3 Project, came after the decision, not before it. Waiting to feel certain before committing to stay gets the order backward and explains why so many people leave in this exact season: they are waiting for a feeling that honest faith rarely delivers on demand.
Third, treat the discipline as ongoing, not a one-time event. Fields says questioning made her faith stronger over years, not over one tearful night on her bed. The practice this week is to pick one question you have been avoiding and actually start researching it, the way she eventually did with textual criticism and the Gospels, rather than either suppressing the question or assuming it will resolve itself with time alone.
Scripture to Sit With
John 6:66-69. When many disciples leave, Peter says, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Staying is sometimes the most honest thing faith can do, even without full understanding.
Mark 9:24. I believe, help my unbelief. Jesus welcomes a faith that admits its own doubt rather than requiring polished certainty first.
Psalm 73. Asaph nearly slips when life seems unfair and the wicked seem to prosper, until he enters God's presence and sees clearly again. Doubt brought into worship gets reframed rather than simply dismissed.
Jude 1:3. The call to contend for the faith assumes the faith is worth examining and defending, not simply inheriting without ever testing it.
Quotes Worth Discussing
“A faith that can't be tested can't be trusted.” (Lisa Fields)
“Where can I go? You have the words of eternal life. In that moment I said, God, I don't have all the answers, but I'm not going to leave you now.” (Lisa Fields)
“The more I question, the stronger my faith gets. The things that used to break me down are now places of strength.” (Lisa Fields)
“Honesty is where you get healing.” (Lisa Fields)
“My Jesus isn't big enough. I need a bigger Jesus.” (York Moore)
Discussion Questions
- Was there a season, in college or otherwise, when your faith got seriously shaken? What shook it, and what did you actually do in response?
- Have you ever felt pressure to hide your doubts in a church or campus ministry setting? What would it take to bring them into the open honestly?
- Read John 6:67-69. What does it mean that Peter stayed not because he had all the answers, but because of who Jesus is? Could you say something similar right now?
- Fields names two distinct pressures that hit her at once. If you separated your own doubts into categories, intellectual versus relational versus disappointment with the church, what would that list look like?
- Who in your life has given you permission to struggle honestly? Who might need you to offer them that same permission?
- What is one specific question about your faith you have been avoiding researching? What would it look like this month to actually look into it instead of just sitting with the discomfort?
Why Naming the Pressure Matters More Than It Sounds Like It Should
It is easy to read the discipline above and treat the first step, naming the kind of pressure you are under, as a throwaway. It is not. Fields specifically describes being hit by a hyper-spiritual culture and an intellectual challenge at the exact same time, and part of what made the season so disorienting was that the two pressures blurred together into one undifferentiated crisis. Once she could separate them, even just in her own head, each pressure became something she could actually address rather than a single overwhelming wave with no clear starting point.
This is worth practicing concretely. If you are in a season like hers right now, try writing two separate lists. One list: specific intellectual or factual questions you do not have answers to. Another list: specific disappointments with how church, leaders, or community have treated you or failed you. These are different problems requiring different responses. An intellectual question calls for research, reading, maybe a conversation with someone trained in apologetics. A relational or spiritual disappointment calls for honesty, maybe distance from a specific environment, maybe a different kind of community. Treating both with the same response, more emotional intensity or more academic argument, is part of why the combined pressure feels so impossible to escape.
Go Deeper
This study grew out of the Jude 3 Project conversation in which Lisa Fields tells her own story. For related studies already in this collection, see the conversation on whether it is okay to doubt your faith, and the study on reaching someone who is disappointed with God.
A Closing Reflection
This week, name one doubt out loud, to God and to one trusted person. Do not try to resolve it alone in secret the way Fields once tried to. Ask the question, seek an honest answer, and let the wrestling draw you closer rather than push you further away. Tested faith, hers and yours, is not weaker faith. It is usually the only kind that lasts. If you are currently in the season this study describes, give yourself permission to take longer than one semester. Fields's own resolution unfolded over years of study, not over a single night on her bed, even though that night was the turning point that made the years possible.