Following Jesus Beyond Church Walls

A Catalyst for Your Spiritual Growth

Chantal Morales McKinney

What happens to faith when the institutions meant to sustain it fail?

In Following Jesus Beyond Church Walls, ordained Episcopal priest Chantal Morales McKinney

offers a searching memoir of spiritual reckoning from inside a progressive Christian community

that could not live up to its own values. As cracks appear in the church's moral and relational

foundations, she confronts painful historical questions about power, accountability, and the limits

of institutional belonging.

Rather than walking away from Christianity, McKinney turns the church's failure into an

invitation-one that leads her beyond institutional limits toward an expansive understanding of

Jesus' teaching: "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there with them." Beyond

church walls, she begins to imagine a way of following Jesus grounded in relationship, moral

courage, and presence rather than hierarchy or institutional authority.

Drawing on Christian mysticism, the Divine Feminine, contemplative practice, immersion in the

natural world, and her own pastoral formation, McKinney reimagines what faith can look like

when institutions fail. Structured around the spiritual arc of Root, Thrive, and Soar, this deeply

moving memoir is both an expos