This page is for you.
If you are a pastor, and something in you is worn out or worn down or worn through, this page exists because Drew has been you and knows what he needed and could not find. It is small, private, and not connected to anything else on this site. What you read here, and what you write from here, does not travel.
There are two doors on this page. One is for the pastor who is still hiding. One is for the pastor who has already crashed. If you are not sure which door is yours, read both, and the one that sounds like the room you are already sitting in is the one that is yours.
Whichever door you choose, three things are true before you open it.
Nobody on the other side of these doors will ask you to identify yourself, your church, or your denomination.
Nothing you write from these doors reaches anyone but Drew, and nothing Drew hears from these doors reaches anyone else, ever.
Neither door is an accountability system. Both doors are a room where a person can tell the truth to another person who has been in the same room, and go from there.
For the pastor who is still hiding.
Drew was you. Not "similar to." Not "identifies with." You. He did the Saturday pacing and the Sunday dry heaving and the walk down the stairs where the performance started at the bottom, not on the stage. He ran the survival program at the highest level, and it ended the way survival programs always end, in one of two rooms, and now that he has been in both rooms, he wants to say to you, gently, what nobody said to him.
You are not uniquely evil. What you are is sick and hidden, inside a system that rewards the exact performance that is killing you. The behavior you cannot stop is not the problem. It is the symptom.
The one sentence he would tattoo somewhere if he thought it would help: tell someone before you are caught. Confession you initiate is the beginning of trust. Exposure that catches you is the beginning of an excavation. Both hurt beyond description. Only one of them ever has to happen twice.
If you would like to write to Drew, quietly, from wherever you are, you can. The door is at the bottom of this page. It goes to him, only him, and no one else.
For the pastor who has already crashed.
Brother. Sister. Come here.
Drew has stood in the precise center of it. The announcement made, the sermons wiped, the phone silent, the title gone, the word ringing in you like a struck bell. And the two o'clock in the morning question, the one everybody asks and nobody answers: was any of it real?
It was not all a lie. You were a hider, not a fraud. Those are different species. The sincerity and the hiding lived in you at the same time. Surviving is not the same as lying. You will need to say that to yourself many times. Say it until it holds.
Disqualified was for that race. That race is over, and mourning it is right and takes the time it takes. But nobody, no board, no announcement, no headline, has the authority to disqualify you from the next race, because they are not running it and did not start it. Consequences and identity are not the same thing, and confusing them nearly killed Drew, and he will not watch it kill you.
The pit has an exit. It is slow, it is clunky, and it does not lead back to where you fell from. It leads somewhere honest, which is better, though you will not believe that for a while. That is fine. He will believe it for you.
If you would like to write, the door is at the bottom of this page.
The First Ninety Days
A practical companion for the first three months after you say the true sentence for the first time.
Whether you are still hiding or already crashed, the first ninety days after the truth starts moving are the hardest and the most important. This is the guide Drew wishes someone had handed him in week one. It is short. It is honest. It is written by someone who has been on both sides of that sentence.
The guide is sent once. There is no sequence, no follow up, no marketing. It is the rope Drew wishes somebody had thrown him, and it costs nothing and asks nothing.
Awake Collective is funded by a roster of treatment and recovery programs, one to a lane. They pay a flat monthly fee to be part of it. The reason that is disclosed here, on this page, is that the pastor who reaches this page has a right to know before writing to anyone. Nobody pays us per head. Drew is paid the same whether you ever call a member or not. Your conversation with Drew is never shared with a member, a church, or anyone else.
The disclosure is not a footnote. It is the point. A door that promises what this door promises only works if the money underneath it works the same way. The church invites the teacher. The roster rides behind it, and never pitched from a stage. When someone needs more help than a church can give, the recommendation is made by fit and said out loud.
It goes to him, only him.
This form goes to Drew, only him, and nowhere else. No form ID that lands in a shared inbox. No automatic reply that identifies who you are or what you wrote. He answers when he can, usually within a few days, sometimes sooner, occasionally longer. If you would rather write from a personal email address than a church one, use the personal one. If you would rather not sign your name, do not sign it.
What stays private.
[Drew to supply confidentiality wording, including its safety limits]
What arrives in Drew's inbox is your message, and nothing else. No church name, no location, no tracking. What you send from here does not travel.
One last thing, whichever door you took.
Sunday is coming. You taught people that sentence as a promise about resurrection, and then somewhere along the way it became a deadline about production, and if you are honest, you can feel the difference in your stomach on Saturday night.
Drew wants the first meaning back, for you. Whatever you are carrying, whichever pastor you are, still hidden or already fallen, the tomb business really is finished, the stone moves for men and women like you, and the God you have been performing for has been trying to get you alone this whole time.
Not to fire you. To bless you before the game even starts.
Drew
If you are in immediate crisis or thinking about hurting yourself, please call or text 988. Awake Collective is not an emergency service. What we offer is a slower kind of room, and it can wait for you to be safe first.