There is, admittedly, another reason for this post.

You may have noticed a new button at the bottom of the website. I’ve finally added a Ko-fi page, giving people the option to support Faithfully Awkward if they want to. For those of you who are new to this blog, I was made redundant earlier this year by a Christian organisation, after three years in a post in which I had developed a specialism in disability theology, something the organisation was not involved with or committed to when I joined. As I am training for ministry and will hopefully take up a position as a probationary Presbyter next September, I’ve not been able to get another job in the meantime – plenty of interviews but no offers because I have to tell employers that I will leave next summer. I’m not prepared to lie about my calling. Therefore, being new to freelancing, I have been considering how other self-employed writers and researchers invite donations towards their work.

I’ve been meaning to do this for quite a while. Actually getting round to it has taken considerably longer than I planned. Some of that is probably ADHD task paralysis. Registering as self-employed took far longer than I had planned too. It wasn’t actually that difficult once I did it, but it was another step which somehow looked much bigger to my ADHD brain than it really was.

Setting up Ko-fi was rather similar to registering as self-employed. Getting from “I really should do that” to actually doing it was challenging. But that’s not the whole story, because I also feel awkward asking people for money. I’ve been trying to work out why.

Firstly, some of this feeling is pride; while some of it is likely internalised ableism, particularly the assumption that I ought to be able to manage without support from other people. There is irony in discovering this while I’ve been thinking and writing recently about interdependence. I’m unconvinced that independence is a measure of a successful human life. None of us is really independent. We depend on families, communities, public services, infrastructure, technology and the work of people we will never meet. Disability can make some of those dependencies much more visible, but it doesn’t create them.

Second, we’re not in financial crisis. Between my wife’s income (she works part-time due to chronic illness) and using up our savings, we can feed ourselves and pay the bills while I’m completing my training for ministry. The Methodist Church doesn’t fund living costs for part-time student ministers but does provide support with books and travel connected with training, which makes a real difference. But there isn’t much margin. And I really want to keep doing disability theology; while there is a growing body of academic work, it takes a long time for academic work to be shared in formats which everyone can easily comprehend, discuss and apply in their churches and communities. There are costs around research, keeping the website going, and some of the wider work I’m trying to develop, (such as training sessions – see my workshops page) and those come out of the same limited pot.

I think what I’m doing here is worthwhile and I hope you agree with me.

Faithfully Awkward gives me somewhere to think and question in public; I’ll be doing a lot more of that as I move into ministry, and this blog provides a good testing ground for future conversations. But I hope this blog does more than record whatever happens to be going through my head. I hope it encourages other people to ask questions too.

Sometimes those questions are about God, disability, neurodiversity, technology or church. Sometimes gaming or photography provides the way into a topic I hadn’t expected to write about. Sometimes I’m trying to put words around something I’ve experienced and discover that other people have been trying to find words for similar feelings and experiences.

If something I write encourages someone else to think, question, disagree, explore something further, or have a conversation they might not otherwise have had, then I think there is value in doing it.

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the different ways of inviting donations towards my work. It became something of a rabbit hole, and it is likely that served as a handy bit of ADHD procrastination. GoFundMe seemed much better suited to raising a fixed amount for a particular need, while Patreon is built much more around membership and exclusive content. I don’t want to put parts of Faithfully Awkward behind a paywall. Someone who can afford to spare a couple of quid a month shouldn’t get access to something that someone who can’t afford it is prevented from reading. I also don’t want to invent Bronze, Silver and Gold levels of theological awkwardness. Ko-fi seems to fit what I want rather better. People can make a one-off contribution or choose to give regularly, without getting access to something other people can’t see.

Everything on Faithfully Awkward remains free to read. I don’t want anyone to think that reading something here creates an obligation to pay for it.

Read it. Share it. Disagree with it. Send it to someone who might be interested. Tell me when I’ve missed something or misunderstood or spoken from a place of privilege. Join in with the conversation. Those are all the most valuable ways of supporting what I’m trying to do.

I suspect part of my discomfort with the Ko-fi button is learning that, if I’m going to talk seriously about interdependence, I also have to be willing to receive as well as give. I’m still awkward about that, which is perhaps appropriate given the name of the blog.

Tiffany, meanwhile, has no such difficulty receiving and would like it recorded that the Dreamies situation remains pressing.