Hello, I'm Leighton.
You've reached the
home of my very first
blog.

TheHeresy.com has been around since…drum roll please… December 22nd, 1998!  It started as an exploration of the Christian faith.  At the time I was really excited that I discovered a way of being a Christian that seemed to be the exception rather than the rule.  This experience was labeled “the heresy” by other irreverent friends.  

Looking back what I had discovered was grace.  That I was valued and valuable regardless of how well I performed.  For me this was revolutionary and freeing.  Although I have to admit my affinity for and experience of that grace has taken years to deepen and broaden in my life.  

I had another phase, which was the Emerging Church phase.  My friendship with Jordon Cooper was very significant for me.  I like to indulge myself in saying I was a B list blogger in a very niche genre.  There was a time I had a significant following.  

The Emerging Church movement eventually came under heavy criticism, many of it’s thinkers and leaders dunked their heads under the water, when they popped back up we were all “Missional.”  It seemed like “Missional” language was popping up everywhere and lost it’s potency outside of the narrow constituency that made up the hard core.  I never did quite jump on that wagon, mostly because I knew what it mean to be truly missional, and I never was.

I had my house church era.  That was meaningful personally but I didn’t write much about it.  Most of what I was learning was important, but it was learned in the context of community.  I didn’t want the people I was so tightly connected with to think I was writing about them.  I tried to funnel my thoughts in a website about organic church but it never took off.

I did however create a response to an authoritarian theology that had been adopted by a local church I had lots of connections to.  In 2008 I registered CoveringAndAuthority.com and while there is no active community around it, it helped a lot of people.  I leave it up as a free resource for people seeking to understand a better Christian idea of leadership.

The last significant era of my life has been the one I’m still in.  I decided to make a major life change, go back to school and become a counselor.  In 2019 I started Cairis Counselling.  Now in a ways I’ve come full circle.  Whether you call it it grace or something like Roger’s “Unconditional Positive Regard” I’ve seen the power of this to free and to heal.  I love my work as a counselor.

I’ve decided to start writing again but I think doing it here might be a little too cheeky.  I own Tebay.ca which is a nice short domain name and kind of describes me.  I’ll be writing on the intersection of faith, mental wellness, and spiritual practice.