33 Churches Later... He Actually Wanted to Go Back  🔗 **Source:** [33 Churches Later... He Actually Wanted to Go Back](https://share.snipd.com/episode/0b659e0f-da35-4756-8666-87d55a053d6d) ## Highlights - **Church As An Exploratory Practice** - Church attendance can be an exploratory, transformative experiment rather than a fixed identity test. - Richard visited 33 different houses of worship across faiths to assess community value and was deeply changed by the process. Transcript: Richard Riccardi Us a little bit about the book. Like, what's it about? How did it come to be? Sure. Well, essentially it was, I'd always have been a person of faith and I had had a belief in Christian belief and actually a cradle Catholic, but I was an entirely uninspired and irregular Church goer. And so finally, after I decided I'm going to put church to the test, is going to church something worthwhile? Right. And in order to do it, there's no magic to the methodology. I said, well, you know what? I got to keep it interesting. If I go to the same song and dance every week, I won't make it. So I said, now I'm going to go every different place I could imagine, not only within my denomination, not only within my faith, but other faiths. Great. And so whether I went to the mosque, the Jewish temple, the Radha Christian temple the baha'i temple all these places i went to in search of what church meant yeah and i was totally transformed Now i am always and passionate and able to say there's a place for everyone and everyone needs a place yeah because of the powerful communities that they have. Yeah, absolutely. Jeremy Steele And they can have perhaps. Yeah. In a previous administration, the Surgeon General actually pronounced that there was an epidemic of loneliness. And one of the groups that he called on to be a ([Time 0:01:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c9ab9380-e10d-47f4-bc5a-7e8e528d2deb)) - **Unexpected Warmth At A Baha'i Temple** - The Baha'i temple surprised Richard with interfaith harmony and simple worship practices. - He found members who had been Hindu, Muslim, Lutheran yet now embraced Baha'i's unity-focused faith. Transcript: Richard Riccardi Yeah. I would say probably the Baha'i for a couple of reasons. You know, first of all, cause who knows anything about Baha'i? I actually had gone to a Baha'i temple in Delhi, India, but that's the only exposure I had. So then I go to this church and I show up and there's just a very few people here, there. And it was the most technologically least advanced. Most places have a lot of great music and worship. This guy had an iPhone, pulls out the iPhone and plays a song on it. What was very fascinating about the church, and I still probably don't understand it, of course, is that everyone there said, one said, I'm Lutheran, one said, I'm Muslim, one said, I'm Hindu. But really what they were saying is that's what we were. Now we're part of the Baha'i faith. And what the Baha'i faith is, again, I'm not a theologian, very loosely, they would say it's an evolution of all faiths. And so this is now today's faith, which incorporates and came from all of these faiths. Is that if you're one of these people who dislike because all the faiths are at war with each other, which are portrayed as being at war with each other, the Baha'i faith may be a great place To start, where you see a lot of interfaith harmony. ([Time 0:03:28](https://share.snipd.com/snip/197bfa85-a1bc-4488-9787-bb6d11f08f7a)) - **Welcomed Into A Black Church Community** - Richard was warmly embraced by predominantly Black churches where members actively welcomed and guided him. - He was pulled from the parking lot, hugged repeatedly, and eventually became the first white member of one congregation. Transcript: Richard Riccardi I chose without regard. I just went any place. And so one of the churches, one of the types of churches I went to were Christian churches with entirely black congregations. Now, many people call them black churches, and I don't want to deny anyone their culture. Yes, it is a black church culture. But there's a real reason why I say what I did is because where I was most different, I was most welcomed. I went to three of those churches. They pulled me out of the parking lot when they saw me. I was there early. The pastor came and grabbed me and pulled me in out of the parking lot and said, come on in, let me tell you about the church. Powerfully, I met someone before the church service, a young man. Then was time for services to begin. I went and sat by myself on this empty row. That young man came on over and said, wait, you're here in our church. I don't want you to sit by yourself. Oh, wow. At another church, I was hugged. They didn't know me. Of course, they knew I didn't belong because of the complexion of my skin, or presumably, apparently I didn't belong. I was hugged and kissed more times than an Italian family reunion. It was unbelievable. Yeah. Jeremy Steele And so, um, so coming from a Catholic background, when people are dancing, falling down, all of that kind of stuff, how do you process that? Like, what was that experience like being in such a sort of polar opposite? Richard Riccardi Yeah. So now I didn't go to anywhere. They, you know, fell down and rolled on the aisle and holy rollers in the aisle. But it was certainly a much more boisterous worship experience. And I was the old Catholic that I just like a couple of stanzas and just with an organ and real simple. But then I came to a realization about what the whole worship experience is about. It's that stretching before you exercise. It's warming up. It's getting lathered up for the sermon. It's opening your mind. It's getting yourself receptive and in a spirit to receive the word. And in fact, if I can just want to continue on about the last church experience and not to jump to the end, but when it was all said and done after 33 churches, it came down to two churches, Both Christian churches, one with a South Asian Indian population and one with an entirely black population. And I alternated weekend to weekend in my second year, like the child of divorced parents going back. And finally, something Providence said to me, your home is at the church with the black congregation. Oh, wow. So I became the first white member of my church. Wow. And now more of us have crawled underneath the fence. ([Time 0:07:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7008f8ab-3ae0-4000-9450-8275c8f256e1)) - **Church Care That Cared For His Mother** - Joining the Black congregation led to deep integration: Richard spoke at Black History Month and his mother was embraced by the church. - Congregants offered to transport his immobile mother to services and held her until she passed. Transcript: Richard Riccardi Yeah. So a few months after I joined, it's Black History Month. So I happened to send the pastor some writings I had done about Charleston, South Carolina, slavery, plantation homes, racism. He calls me up and says, oh, this is all great. He goes, this Sunday, you get on the stage with me for Black History Month and you talk about these things to our congregation. Oh my gosh. So it's a few months after I've joined. Here's the middle-aged white guy gets up in front of everybody and talks about it. Wait, it was entirely well-received. No one kind of bat. I'm sure some people may have batted an eye, but really that in this environment, it was entirely okay. I like to say, and I don't want to be arrogant. So I don't say they're related to me on a higher level. Maybe it's a lower level, but on a foundational level, we're just all children of god you're one we are and so welcome here you are this is your home i know it could go ahead it was funny because My mom i was a cradle catholic and so i told my mom i was doing this journey and she said that's fine but just remember your soul is stained with the mark of Catholicism. No pressure or anything. Well, we all know how stories take a weird turn. My mom, mobility declining. I had to find a place to incarcerate her for the rest of her life. And so happened to be in assisted living across the street. So I said, now, mom, you can go to church because she could only roll. She couldn't even get in and out of the car. Right, right, right. Boom, I take her to church. The first few times, she cries. This ain't my people. This ain't my service. This ain't my religion. This ain't my music. It's nothing. This ain't me. I'll tell you, in about five weeks, she had a conversion that Billy Graham never did. She fell in love with the church the church entirely embraced this immobile woman who didn't say more than a sentence at a time after every service it was a scene out of the godfather on The occasion of his daughter's wedding she was mobbed by 20 people nevertheless when. ([Time 0:10:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/df4422b5-edfc-4ea0-af97-e748e93e3fc2)) - **A Deep Conversation At An LGBTQ Church** - At an LGBTQ-affirming church Richard found familiar worship and unexpected intimate conversations. - A young attendee shared paternal struggles, leading Richard to offer practical fatherly advice after the service. Transcript: Richard Riccardi I will. So, um, visiting my kids in Chicago and I look up and there's an LGBTQ church. So I said, well, I'm going to go. Well, I walk in and I was worried for a second because by looking at them, I couldn't tell what letter of the alphabet they were. In fact, they look like me or I look like them. And I was worried people might think I was one of their letter of the alphabet. And then I was convicted. Yeah. I said to myself, they ought to be worried. They're not my letter of the alphabet. H, not heterosexual, but hypocritical. For why am I standing in this room with my fellow children of God and passing some sort of judgment on them? Yeah. Jeremy Steele And I think that, that, you know, in the, in the queer community, when, when we have those kinds of experiences, we call it this internalized homophobia. Um, but, uh, you know, that's one of the things I think that a lot of, uh, a lot of straight people don't realize, you know, that, that think of themselves as accepting, think of themselves As affirming, but really aren't in queer spaces, um, can find their, um, sort of homophobic bias, um, exposed when they walk into a space and, and all of a sudden, like you said, they're Afraid that somebody might think they're queer as if that is, there's something wrong with that. Right. Yeah. Richard Riccardi And I mean, I exaggerate the story a little bit, you know, to make, to make my point. Yeah. You know, my, you know, so look, there's debates on, uh, is homosexuality a sin? And I'm certainly not in a position to resolve that. Um, but here's what I am in a position to say that even if it's a sin, what kind of emphasis are we placing on that sin? You know, what happens a lot more frequently than homosexual sex is heterosexual sex outside the marriage. Yeah. And guess what? We become infinitely clever about how we might justify that type of sex. Well, you know, it's natural. It's unavoidable. Maybe it's even necessary experimentation. We let the hypocrisy come pouring out. And so I always had to say, wait, what are you getting? So if I was, and again, I'm exaggerating my position here for the sake of the argument, but we need to look in the mirror ourselves first. And regardless, we all have sin right and so this is if we believe it's sin let's assume for the fact for the argument that it is well it's just like hey any other sin that we have um so i mean That's just i i can't stand the hypocrisy around the attacks on homosexuality Yeah. Jeremy Steele And to be clear, and nobody that is, that listens to this podcast will be surprised. I completely disagree that it's a sin. And, you know, obviously, you know, when queer people grow up in a place that says that it is a sin to be that it it is like it is damaging at this like deep fundamental level um that the trauma Around that is is awful and you know if a queer uh young person comes out to their family um and they are rejected by their family or the church community they're twice as likely to try to Commit suicide. But tell me about your experience that people would put that on people like that. Richard Riccardi It's an abomination. Jeremy Steele Yeah. So tell me about your experience at the, this you called it a gay church, LGBTQ church. Tell me what that was like. Richard Riccardi It was really nice. Well, you know what? For the most part, I couldn't tell the service from a non-LGBTQ church. Yeah. You know, it had the same worship. It had, you know, I knew I was in the right place because the pastor got up and said, okay, the queer prom is this weekend. Gay pride parade is this weekend. So I said, okay, I'm in the right place. I know I'm here. But something beautiful happened there at this church. So during the sermon, pastor says, hey, everyone stand up. We're going to talk about struggling with your relationship with God. All of you are struggling in the relationship with someone. Talk to your neighbor about that. So this young lady, my daughter's age in her early 20s at the time, said, hey, I'm struggling with my relationship with my dad. He doesn't treat my mom right. And all this sort of stuff. And I kind of chuckle, Hey, tell you, you can be in your fifties and struggle with your relationship with your dad. As I well know. And I had a daughter that age. So we chatted a couple of minutes, sat down, passed to resume the service, but something inside me said, Hey, I should talk to this young lady afterwards. I should give her a piece of my mind from the perspective of an adult father with an adult daughter. So I said at the end of service, hey, do you have a few minutes to talk? She said, yes. Fortunately, I abandoned my prepared remarks. And we had the most beautiful, intimate conversation about a very intimate relationship in our lives. And because sometimes I have a difficult relationship with my daughter. And so we had this incredible conversation. And I say, where else can you have this? Two strangers don't know each other, walk in. And in this faith environment, it removes some inhibitions so that we could talk about something so deeply personal. And I know I took something away from it that I shared with my daughter. And I don't think you're going to get that on the pickleball court or on the bar stool next to you. I mean, you can. And those are not bad places. And I've been both places and had and had good conversations there. But there's something about this faith element that takes down some inhibitions and allows great sharing. And so that's my whole mission. If you say, hey, what's your mission? ([Time 0:13:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2919f8bd-6947-447a-9944-54feee0c7b2a)) - **Small Churches Offer Stronger Community** - Smaller congregations often provide stronger relational community than megachurches. - Richard favored churches under ~100 people where nearly everyone knows each other, offering more meaningful connection. Transcript: Richard Riccardi They don't have two nickels to rub together. No high flying pastors or anything like that. I love the small churches where it was like, Hey, everybody knows each other. And that was great. And that's what I gravitated to. We have about a hundred now that go to my church and almost everybody knows each other. I did go to a couple of very large churches. Obviously they try their best to form communities and I will give them a lot, a lot of credit. And I have a friend of mine, some friends go to a real mega church that it's like a football stadium parking lot out there. And they said, what they're very intentional about is breaking them up into subgroups, sub departments. Hey, you're going to get in a group with about 20 people that have some common interest. And so you get to form that kind of community there. Hey, if that works for you, great. ([Time 0:20:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/03e869c2-415d-45f1-84f0-0f81d6bb3a8e)) - **Try Churches With An Open Heart** - Go to services with an open heart and try to release past church wounds before judging a community. - Richard recommends searching broadly, even beyond expected denominations, because welcoming communities can be surprising. Transcript: Richard Riccardi Okay. I think the very first thing, I'm going to back up the question a little bit and say, you kind of got to go with an open heart and open mind and try to remove some of these preconceived notions. Because if you think they're too friendly and if you think they're a cult, if you think they're greedy, you will walk in there and you will gravitate. They'll pass the collection plate. Oh, too greedy. Oh, the people came up and said hi to me that they're a cult. They want me to join. Plus there's wounding you may have to release. And I know people have wounding. All I can say in this case is I can tell you that the church community is an incredible virtue if you can find it. And so I'd liken it to our personal relationships. Many of us have had a partner cheat on us and that creates a profound wounding and makes it difficult to get with another partner to have that sort of trust. So all I can say is that most people are hopefully able to work past that wounding. And because I know, hey, getting in a relationship, personal relationship is good. So I'm going to try to get over this wounding for the same reason I say, the church community is great and work through that and try to work through that wounding. So that's the first thing I'd say. Then I would just say, you know, you can draw the list of attributes, big, small, but in many ways I say, hey, go and search around because who would have said that Richard would have wound Up at a South Asian Indian church or a black church? I would have never said that. I never suspected that. And it was only because I tried and I went in. And in turn, those communities proved to be very welcoming and very loving. So maybe, you know, it's not, it'd be nice to draw a list of attributes. ([Time 0:22:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a249e688-cacd-49c9-a388-2edd12e73159)) - **Faith Often Gets Co-opted By Politics** - Political polarization has co-opted religious identity, obscuring authentic spiritual community. - Richard noted both political sides have co-opted virtues, urging listeners to separate faith from partisan claims. Transcript: Richard Riccardi And actually, one, I really love what you said. And I've got to put my glasses on. Opposing viewpoints stop sounding human. You said that. And so there's so many. There's such a cultural war between Democrats, Republicans, those who are Christians and non-Christians. And everybody's co-opted everything. In fact, the Senator Cohen's hat on said, wait, you know, Republicans have co-opted faith. But then I would say, you know what? Christian nationalists have co-opted Christianity. Jeremy Steele Yeah, for sure. Richard Riccardi And then I would say Democrats have co-opted compassion away from Republicans that, Hey, if you're a Republican, that means you hate helping people. That's the only possible conclusion. And so there's all these preconceived notions. So I love those podcasts, that, and the one on the evangelical terms, really powerful and really eyeopening. ([Time 0:24:16](https://share.snipd.com/snip/638b1777-4cf6-4236-8fac-f9883d38ddfe))