A Wider Faith grew from a question that has become increasingly important to me over the years: what might Christian faith look like if we made more room for questions while remaining deeply rooted in Jesus?
Why “A Wider Faith”?
The name A Wider Faith reflects something I have gradually come to recognise in my own journey. Faith can sometimes become narrower than it needs to be. We can become preoccupied with defining what we believe, drawing boundaries around who belongs, or finding certainty where perhaps there is still room for mystery.
Yet when I return to the life and teaching of Jesus, I find myself drawn towards something more spacious. Jesus continually brought people into relationship, crossed boundaries, asked questions, challenged assumptions and invited people to see both God and one another differently.
A wider faith is not, for me, about believing less. It is about allowing faith to reach further — into the way we live, the way we treat people, the way we care for creation, and the way we understand healing and wholeness.
It is a faith rooted in Jesus, but open to questions; shaped by Scripture, but willing to wrestle with it; grounded in Christian tradition, but attentive to what God may still be teaching us.
A faith shaped by life
My own understanding of faith has changed over the years. In the earlier part of my Christian journey, I was much more concerned with what I was supposed to believe. Gradually, though, I found myself becoming more interested in what faith meant for the way we actually live.
During my years in Christian ministry, I have seen that same tension in many other people’s journeys. There are those who feel that being Christian depends upon accepting a particular set of beliefs, and others for whom faith is increasingly about belonging to a community that is trying to work out what it means to live faithfully in the world today.
For me, following Jesus has increasingly drawn those things together. What we believe matters, but so does what our believing produces. Does it make us more compassionate? More willing to listen? More concerned for those who are overlooked? More attentive to creation? More open to healing, reconciliation and wholeness?
Those questions lie behind A Wider Faith. This is not intended to be a place where I provide all the answers. It is a place where we can explore some of the questions together.
Four ways of exploring a wider faith
The reflections on this site will move through four broad areas which, for me, belong together rather than existing as separate parts of Christian faith.
LIVE — Faith lived in everyday life
Exploring how following Jesus shapes our relationships, choices, communities and engagement with the world around us.
CARE — Faith that brings healing and wholeness
Looking at Christian healing in its widest sense — not simply physical cure, but God’s movement towards wholeness in ourselves, our relationships and our communities.
STEWARD — Faith that cares for creation
Considering what it means to receive creation as gift and to allow that understanding to influence the way we live, including the choices we make about food and our relationship with other creatures.
THINK — Faith that makes room for questions
Exploring Scripture, theology and Christian tradition with curiosity and openness, recognising that questions need not be enemies of faith but can sometimes take us more deeply into it.
These four strands continually overlap. Questions about what we believe affect how we live. How we understand creation influences the choices we make. Healing involves relationships and communities as well as individuals. And through all of them runs the question at the heart of A Wider Faith: what might it mean to follow Jesus faithfully in the world in which we actually live?
An invitation
Wherever you are on your own journey of faith — whether you have been part of the Church for many years, are beginning to explore Christian faith, or find yourself somewhere between belief and uncertainty — you are welcome here.
I hope A Wider Faith can be a place for thoughtful reflection, honest questions and practical exploration of what it might mean to follow Jesus in everyday life.
We may not always arrive at the same answers. But perhaps there is value in making the journey together.
What might a wider faith look like for you?
About David Walton
David Walton was ordained as a minister of the United Reformed Church in the UK in 2002 and has been Director of the Order of St Luke the Physician since 2023. His years in Christian ministry have shaped a continuing interest in how faith is lived in everyday life, in Christian healing and wholeness, and in the questions that arise as faith develops and changes.
A Wider Faith grew out of that continuing journey and a desire to create a place where Christian faith can be explored openly while remaining rooted in Jesus.