"Post-Traumatic Church syndrome" (Reba Riley)

TITLE: Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome: A Memoir of Humor and Healing
AUTHOR: Reba Riley
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Howard Books, 2015, (368 pages).

Disappointment with Church? Longing for an alternative to searching for "Godiverse"? According to author Reba Riley, she thinks that there is a God bigger than the one defined by her home Church, and that there is a bigger form of spirituality that does not leave her feeling "hollow inside" amid all the religious talk. The title, PTCS reflects her own need for spiritual recovery after getting disillusioned with "narrow religion." Her solution: Try 30 different religions or expressions of faith and spirituality before she turns 30. Feeling broken and exhausted, she takes on this spiritual project of hers and begins with Word Alive, a megachurch who has a new pastor change its name to "The Palms" which is known for its Pentecostalism fundamentalist practices. After experiencing the different physical expressions of verbal pronouncements and how people were "felled" by the Spirit, she feels more "Word Dead" than the former name of the Church. It even causes her to throw out her own list of "thirty by thirty." Her book club friend helps her to get back on track with a journal of repairing one's own spirituality: "Finding Your Own North Star." While it didn't exactly spring her back into a New Age spirituality, it did get her back on track to other spiritual expressions, including other forms of Christianity. She tries "Tenth Avenue Baptist," which really engages them in a warm and friendly fellowship.