Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church

Rachel Held Evans

Apr 2015 · Thomas Nelson · Narrated by Rachel Held Evans

About this audiobook

Are you struggling to connect with your church community? Do you find yourself questioning the core beliefs that you once held dear? Searching for Sunday, from New York Times bestselling author Rachel Held Evans is a heartfelt ode to the past and a hopeful gaze into the future of what it means to be a part of the modern church.

Like millions of her millennial peers, Rachel Held Evans didn't want to go to church anymore. The hypocrisy, the politics, the gargantuan building budgets, the scandals--to her, it was beginning to feel like church culture was too far removed from Jesus. Yet, despite her cynicism and misgivings, something kept drawing Evans back to church.

Evans found herself wanting to better understand the church and find her place within it, so she set out on a new adventure. Within the pages of Searching for Sunday, Evans catalogs her journey as she loves, leaves, and finds the church once again.

Evans tells the story of her faith through the lens of seven sacraments of the Catholic church--baptism, confession, holy orders, communion, confirmation, the anointing of the sick, and marriage--to teach us the essential truths about what she's learned along the way, including:

• Faith isn't just meant to be believed, it's meant to be lived and shared in community
• Christianity isn't a kingdom for the worthy--it's a kingdom for the hungry, the broken, and the imperfect
• The countless and beautiful ways that God shows up in the ordinary parts of our daily lives

Searching for Sunday will help you unpack the messiness of community, teaching us that by overcoming our cynicism, we can all find hope, grace, love, and, somewhere in between, church.

Ratings and reviews

I thank God for this woman and this book. So glad I found it (or it, me). I enjoyed the audio version and appreciate the author narrating. Highly recommend for a personal, thoughtful Christian journey, a lived experience exploring the spirit of the law. I appreciate her honesty about her rebellion at controversial concepts though overall love and nature of God is conveyed clearly. God keep blessing her and her family.

About the author

New York Times bestselling author Rachel Held Evans (1981–2019) is known for her books and articles about faith, doubt, and life in the Bible Belt. Rachel has been featured in the Washington Post, The Guardian, Christianity Today, Slate, HuffPost, and the CNN Belief Blog, and on NPR, BBC, Today, and The View. She served on President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and kept a busy schedule speaking at churches, conferences, and universities. Rachel’s messages continue to reverberate around the world.