Welcome
My heart has always been with teens and the Church. ​
This work grew out of the decades I’ve spent serving in those settings—and from my personal wrestle with how faith in Jesus Christ can endure spiritual wounds, including my own experiences of abuse within faith-based settings.
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For most of my adult life, I’ve served teens and youth leaders—teaching religious education, leading and supporting church camps, and mentoring youth in both local and broader programs. Today, I serve as a resource to leaders within my faith community across the western United States.
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Outside of church, I’ve worked in early childhood education and with a nonprofit promoting evidence-based programs for at-risk youth, including editing research publications designed to strengthen outcomes for vulnerable teens.
My name is JEN
Nice to meet you, and thank you for being here!
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You may be wondering who I am, what this space is about, and whether everyone is truly welcome here. The answer is yes.
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I’m Jennifer Weaver—a mom of three grown children I’m grateful to share close relationships with, and an empty-nester married to my best friend of over thirty years.
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As a teen, I had impactful experiences in my faith community that stayed with me. Years later, those experiences resurfaced as unwanted feelings in places that had once brought me joy.
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Working through that opened my eyes—not only to how common this is, but to my Savior’s steady ability to heal spiritual wounds.
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More recently, I’ve seen aspects of what I experienced as a youth described as coercion in my faith community’s youth protection training. That recognition helped me better understand my experiences, and it strengthened my desire to gather the resources I wish had been available then—along with the support I needed while mentoring the faith of my own teens.
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If you’ve ever felt confused, pressured, or uneasy in relationships where faith played a central role, you may find encouragement here. If you believe in Jesus Christ but feel unsettled by certain experiences, you are not alone.
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Our Savior understands everything we have experienced. He stood by us then. He stands by us now. With His help, we can overcome and learn to reflect Him.
Your friend in faith and hope,
Jen Weaver
“You may have noticed definitions of spiritual abuse that seem to condemn entire faith communities. Remember how Jesus ate with ‘sinners’? He kept everyone at the table.
Just as Jesus Christ never gave up on people, I believe He doesn’t give up on families—or on entire faith communities—either. He cares deeply about us all. No one is beyond His reach.”
—Jennifer Weaver
The Book
The Girl Who Dropped Jesus and Then He Carried Her is my upcoming memoir about faith, belonging, and the subtle ways fear, God's beauty, humor, and shame shape both faith and family. From childhood mishaps like dropping Jesus in church to barely surviving a faith change at a religious high school, my story is one of being caught between two faith communities and three generations—and my Savior’s power to heal spiritual wounds.
Art in frame by Jorge Cocco Santángelo
