First and foremost, Project Sanctuary does not seek to gather members. We do not attempt to convert or promote any religious ideals.Instead, our sanctuary space is a safe haven which serves as a place forhealing within a supportive community, without religious themes. Futurereligious participation is not our aim, only healing.
Imagine being told that who you are is sinful. That yourlife is inherently wrong in God’s eye. What pain must come from the cold,unwelcomed arms or eyes that look with disdain from behind scripturalmisinterpretation and abuse?! When even family members are told to pray foryour ‘conversion’. Enter Project Sanctuary.
Project Sanctuary serves people who will be served are people who have experienced rejection at the hands of churches and spiritual institutions. This includes but is not limited to members of the LGBTQIA+ community, divorced or separated individuals, peoples of varying politicalpersuasions, and varying socioeconomic means.
Project Sanctuary and its success rely on two components: Sound Healing (often with other trauma releasing modalities) and Healing Circles. We provide regular Sound Healing events, with two online healing circles in between. Each event takes place on the second Tuesday of the month at 7:00pm.
Sound healing has been an empirically proven method of helping to release stored up trauma. These are once every three months evening events with blended alternative healing methods facilitated by trauma-informed practitioners. This is for all, but most especially for those marginalized communities who have experienced rejection by organized religion. Its goal aims to show these communities they are loved within community and accepted, worthy of the Divine/Spirit/All-That-Is/God’s full redeeming grace (of your own understanding). We bring them into an affirming sanctuary space so they can experience that their identity does not inhibit them from full acceptance and boundless love. It opens the door for their own unique spirituality to bewelcomed as they are into a community of radical acceptance.
Quite simply stated, the goal is for participants to know they are loved for who they are, as they are; not to subscribe to any form ofreligion. Through proven alternative healing methods such as sound healing,participants go into an experience of inner child work, then reprocessing andreframing hurts, challenges, and traumas in a way that healthily integratestheir past into their present so they can live more fully into their futures aswelcomed children - possibly of an all-embracing Higher Power of theirunderstanding. This takes place in a church sanctuary, so they know they arewelcomed through the doors and into sanctuary (safety) without condition.Though challenging, we believe a church space can offer an opportunity fortremendous heling, especially with well-seasoned trauma informed practitioners.
Post sound healing, a non-mandatory participatory sharingperiod, debriefing, or group assimilation space is opened after eachsession. We allow participants to openly share their experience, ask questions,and comment about the different physical and emotional feelings they observed.We have further recourse to offer should we feel it necessary and are in theprocess of offering community healing throughout the month.
Inevitably, someone will say, and many will agree, that being in a sanctuary surprisingly was not frightening or intimidating. They felt welcomed and safe - exactly how we want them to feel. As in the safety of a sanctuary, in every sense of the word.
The second component of Project Sanctuary is our online Healing Circles. Healing Circles take place on zoom and help answer “and now what?” This is available to all who attend Project Sanctuary, and even to those who have not attended one of the in-person sound healing events offered once every three months.
Healing Circles alleviate loneliness and isolation by fostering social connection. We meet this need via small circles that encourage participants to treat one another with kindness and respect, hold one another’s stories in confidence, withhold judgment, and honor one another’s unique path to healing without advising, fixing, or recusing. Circle participants, hosted by trained personnel, work together to explore, in confidence, ways to alleviate suffering, remove instancesthat prevent healing, and deepen their capacity to heal. They also access theirown inner guidance to determine where the greatest healing-physical, emotional,mental, and spiritual-can occur.
A called circle is an invitation to discover a deeper way of being together andprotected by agreements. (See below). The circle is a living entity, afull-bodied presence that we co-create.
The agreements we follow are as such:
1. Treat each other with kindness and respect
2. Listen with compassion and curiosity
3. Honor each other’s unique ways to healing and don’t presume to advise or fixor try to save each other
4. We all hold stories shared in the circle confidential
5. Trust each of us has the guidance we need within us and we rely on the powerof silence to access it
These circles take place online, and you can be assure thatHealing Circles do not use or subscribe to any religious practice in anyway. Itwould be unethical and antithetical to the aims of Healing Circles. Beyond this, and in partnership with SQSH (St. Louis QueerSupport Hotline) and LGBTQIA+ Faith Alluance, we also offer further resources for any who may need or desire to go further.
are now available for each service. Standard prices:
$225 for a 1:1 individual sessions,
$250 for a Couples session, and
$225 for a Tuning Fork session.
You can also purchase a $50 card (or any another amount of your choosing) that can be applied to any service. Perfect for any gift-giving occasion.
