About this site

I named this site The Empty Pew because that's where a lot of us have ended up — not necessarily out of the building, but somewhere quieter. Still showing up, maybe. Still praying, some days. But sitting a little further back than we used to, with more questions than answers and less certainty than the people around us seem to have.

I'm Thomas Austin. I write about faith the way it actually happens — not the version where everything resolves in a tidy verse, but the version where you're still waiting, still confused, still doing your best to trust a God who hasn't explained Himself. This isn't a site about losing faith. It's about what faith looks like when it gets disappointed and keeps going anyway.

Most weeks you'll find something here about unanswered prayer, grief, waiting, doubt, or the particular ache of a life that didn't turn out how you thought it would. I don't have tidy answers for any of it. What I have is a willingness to sit in the hard parts without rushing you toward hope you're not ready for yet — and, when it's earned, to point toward the hope that's actually there.

If any of this resonates, I've written more on the subject in my book, Holy Disappointment: Finding God in the Space Between What You Were Promised and What You're Living. It's the longer version of everything I try to say here in smaller pieces.

Thanks for being here — even from the back pew.

— Thomas Austin