Invest in a more compassionate world

Why give to the gentle way?

  • ✽

    Because there are people who fall through the cracks — and this work catches them.

    Some people don’t feel safe in church anymore. Others can’t access traditional therapy, or need something more spacious, spiritual, embodied, and trauma-informed than those systems can offer. The Gentle Way exists in that sacred middle space — where people can heal, question, feel, and become whole without shame or pressure.

    Your giving makes sure this space stays open for the people who need it most.

  • ✽

    Because healing shouldn’t only be for the people who can afford it.

    Your donation allows me to offer sliding-scale sessions to individuals who are burned out, grieving, deconstructing, or navigating life as neurodivergent — people who deeply need support but are often carrying financial and emotional strain.

    When you give, you’re helping someone exhale for the first time in years.

  • ✽

    Because this work is slow, relational, and countercultural — and we need more of that.

    Most institutions rush people, spiritualize their pain, or try to fix them. This work honors a different pace — a gentler, nervous-system-honoring rhythm that actually allows change to happen.

    Your generosity helps protect that rhythm. It keeps this work from getting swallowed by hustle culture, scarcity, or burnout.

  • ✽

    Because you’re investing in a more compassionate world.

    When one person gets to heal in a spacious, embodied, spiritually grounded way, they bring that gentleness back to their families, their workplaces, their communities.

    Your gift ripples far beyond one session — it helps create a culture of softness, courage, and presence.

  • ✽

    Because this is ministry — just not the kind that fits inside a Sunday service.

    The Gentle Way is pastoral. Therapeutic. Embodied. Spiritual. It’s the place people come when they can’t find a home in traditional spaces.

    If you believe in the importance of soul-tending work that meets people where they really are — your giving makes that possible.

  • ✽

    Because your support sustains the sustainability of your pastor/practitioner.

    This work requires deep presence, emotional resilience, and spaciousness.

    By donating, you’re helping ensure I can offer care without burning out, rushing people, or operating from depletion — which directly translates to the quality of support clients receive.

3% Cover the Fee

How Your Gift Is Used

1. Client Access & Sliding Scale

A portion of all donations goes directly toward making sessions accessible for people who couldn’t otherwise afford support — especially millennial women, neurodivergent adults, those healing from religious harm, and anyone carrying burnout, grief, or transition.
Your giving directly covers reduced-rate and no-cost sessions.

2. Community Care & Group Offerings

Your support helps me create low-cost or donation-based groups, workshops, and community gatherings that offer embodied healing, nervous system education, and spiritual care without financial barriers.

3. Training, Supervision & Professional Development

This work stays high-quality because I invest in ongoing training in somatic experiencing, IFS, trauma-informed practice, neurodivergent support, and spiritual care. Your donations help cover these continuing education costs so clients receive deeply grounded, ethical, and up-to-date care.

4. Space & Resources for In-Person Sessions

Funds help support renting or accessing quiet, safe, sensory-considerate meeting spaces for in-person or walk-and-talk sessions within the Salem area.

5. Sustainability for the Practitioner

Gentle, embodied, relational work takes time, preparation, emotional labor, and presence. Donations help ensure I can maintain a sustainable workload so every client receives unhurried, thoughtful care — not burnout-driven or overextended energy.

6. Technology, Tools & Client Support

Your gift helps maintain secure telehealth platforms, scheduling systems, accessibility tools, and resources that keep sessions safe, confidential, and smooth.

A note to those of you who’ve journeyed with me in the local church

What’s Changing

I’m shifting the container, not the calling.
I’m moving from the traditional structure of local church ministry into a more spacious, embodied, therapeutic–spiritual model of care. This means:

  • I won’t be serving in a weekly congregational role.

  • My schedule and energy will be grounded in one-on-one and small-group healing work.

  • I’ll be offering sessions, retreats, and teaching outside the Sunday rhythm.

  • I’ll be creating a practice designed for people who fall between therapy and church — those needing slow, nervous-system-honoring support, spiritual deconstruction/reconstruction space, neurodivergent accommodations, or deep grief tending.

This shift lets me offer the kind of support and presence I’ve always tried to bring — without the constraints of a job description, institutional expectations, or a pace that pushes me past my limits as an autistic/ADHD pastor.

What’s Not Changing

My calling to care for people — gently, honestly, and with deep spiritual grounding — isn’t changing at all.
The heart of who I am remains the same:

  • I am still a pastor at my core: someone who listens, blesses, accompanies, and helps people make meaning.

  • I am still a spiritual companion who believes healing is sacred and that every person carries divine image and deep wisdom.

  • I am still committed to the United Methodist Church, its flourishing, and the wellbeing of the people who have shaped me.

  • I am still holding trauma-informed, progressive Christian values.

  • I am still someone who believes in curiosity, compassion, nervous-system gentleness, and honoring the whole person.

What’s staying the same is my presence — just offered in a new form.

The Heart of the Transition

Instead of leading from the front of the room, I’ll be walking alongside people in the quiet places — where stories surface, bodies soften, and healing can finally land.

Instead of carrying the wide load of congregational systems and expectations, I’m carving out a space where I can offer the depth of care I’m built for, in a way that’s sustainable for my own nervous system.

Instead of leaving ministry, I’m letting ministry evolve into what it’s always wanted to be in me.

Thank you for all the ways you’ve supported me over the years. This is simply a new chapter and I’m deeply curious to pull some new threads!

Grace,
Jenny