Erin Moniz
11 min read ⭑
“I want to see people have healthy, sustainable, intimate relationships. But instead of starting with behaviors (though important), the driving narratives underneath how we behave in relationships are really about our sense of self, our worth and our identity.”
As a trained conciliator, ordained deacon in the Anglican Church of North America and college chaplain with over 20 years of experience in student ministry, Rev. Erin F. Moniz is passionate about helping emerging adults grow into healthy, gospel-centered relationships. As such, she’s spent years studying the theology of intimacy and relationships, leading to her doctoral thesis as well as her debut book, “Knowing and Being Known: Hope for All Our Intimate Relationships.” Because she firmly believes in the shaping power of the gospel, Erin has spent much of her career studying — and now speaking and writing on — gender theology, racial healing and social justice, interpersonal and communal reconciliation and interfaith cooperation.
Today, she’s getting honest about how the health of our relationships hinges on our understanding of our identity in Christ and how we walk it out. She’s also offering an insider’s look at her favorite breakfast café in Waco, Texas, her personal struggles with loneliness and vulnerability, and the books that have shaped her faith over the years.
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
The meals we enjoy are about so much more than the food we eat. So, how does a “go-to” meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind your web bio?
My husband and I are new to Texas, and Waco is a small enough town for folks to have strong opinions about food. We are on a quest to sample as many taco trucks and BBQ joints as possible.
But I feel lucky to have been introduced to a small café in a culturally rich part of town that serves breakfast all day on Saturdays. Moving to a Southern city without a Wafflehouse was a jolt for me. I love a good greasy spoon diner, and the three words that unlock the door to my heart are “breakfast all day.”
So now, every Saturday morning, I ride my bike to the World Cup Café and sit at the counter. This diner is connected to a large, multifaceted charitable group in town called Mission Waco. I love that the staff are often those who have, in some way, empowered themselves through the services of Mission Waco. They are my Saturday family, and I feel blessed to have been adopted by this group that shares their lives and stories with me over breakfast food and coffee. This is the perfect place for a newcomer to learn about their town. The staff at the World Cup Café will be the first to call out both the broken and the beautiful in Waco. When the café is busy, I either read a book or write. I love having memories of writing and editing my book while sitting at that counter on Saturday mornings.
Markus Spiske; Unsplash
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activity do you love engaging in that also helps you find essential spiritual renewal?
Two new activities that began in my young adult years were a surprise to me but have become anchors in my mental, emotional and spiritual health: gardening and poetry.
I didn’t grow up gardening, but when we moved to a food desert in our 20s and lived below the poverty line like most of our neighbors, I gave it a try. I figured that a seed packet for 25 cents was a better investment than the high-priced fresh produce we could never afford. The first time I ate a carrot that grew in my garden, I was hooked. It was like I had never had a real carrot before. I built a greenhouse out of scrap materials and ended up turning our whole backyard into a massive garden. Besides the education in food justice that came with this season, I could hardly believe how healing it was for my troubled faith. The garden has become another seminary. I have learned more (and better!) theology working in my garden than I have from any book or lecture.
Similarly, a daily diet of poetry has healed my ruptures with God in incalculable ways. I now tell my students: “Whatever you’re going through, I guarantee that you need more poetry in your life.” I now memorize a line a day. It is beautifully disruptive and forces my brain to take a short but meaningful detour. It recalibrates and grounds me every time.
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness; every human too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re all broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you confront its power head-on?
Vulnerability has been supremely difficult for me for as long as I can remember. But starting in high school and then in college, I was blessed by a few key friendships that rewrote that chapter for me. For the first time, I enjoyed real friendships and felt safe being known. But as many 20-, 30- and 40-somethings know, friendship gets more difficult as years go on, and loneliness is a big issue. For me, it came as a surprise in my 30s. The combination of moving to a new city, struggling to find a church and becoming an ordained chaplain all collided as a recipe for isolation and loneliness. I’d come to expect reciprocal adult friendships. I was unprepared for the occupational hazard of becoming everyone’s chaplain.
The painful irony is that my research and ministry are built around a theology of intimacy, where I write and teach on how to find and sustain healthy relationships. I believe indelibly in what I teach, but as a minister who already has trouble being vulnerable, I have spent the past several years in a trench of suffocating loneliness. I’m grateful for therapy and a new church in a new town that keeps the door cracked on hope, but my ability to project the illusion of intimacy without really being vulnerable makes the already difficult possibility of adult friendships even less plausible. I try to leverage this wound in hopes that I can be a space where others are seen and known. I hope to do for others what is still a work in progress for me.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?
I have never found a shortage of people ready to talk about their intimate relationships. Whether it is friendships, family, singleness or romance, everyone has something they are navigating and have questions about.
As a minister, I am in these conversations every day. And like anyone who is holding someone’s stories and fielding their questions, I want to be helpful and not harmful. I want to see people have healthy, sustainable, intimate relationships. But instead of starting with behaviors (though important), the driving narratives underneath how we behave in relationships are really about our sense of self, our worth and our identity.
I began asking different questions and digging into what is shaping our identities and relationships. What I found changed everything. So now, my pastoral approach to topics of and around intimate relationships has been reshaped by what I found. And I’ve been speaking and writing in hopes of inviting others into this conversation.
I didn’t set out to write a book. I wasn’t convinced that another Christian book about relationships was what we needed. So I wrote a book about intimacy, identity, shame, hope and the gospel. “Knowing and Being Known: Hope for All Our Intimate Relationships” is a foundation and recalibration for the work I do every day in journeying with emerging adults toward healthy, flourishing relationships with messy, broken people. I hope people will read it and contribute to the conversation.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Cashiers, CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?
As I walk with others through their relationship questions and as I experience my own, there is a constant, glaring reality of failure. I can know and believe all the things that ensure healthy, godly, meaningful connections with others, but all of the good knowledge in the world cannot eliminate my regular failure to live up to those ideals. I guess the Holy Spirit shifted from being a theological idea that I affirmed to the life-giving oxygen of my day when I tried to reconcile my brokenness with my hope.
I’m not saying that best practices, spiritual disciplines or being a life-long learner are insignificant. But the power to transcend my selfishness, shame, pettiness and sin, especially when I weaponize them against people I love, comes from a Person whose gift is to dwell with and in me. Healthy relationships are built on fundamentals of a gospel that asks us to admit our brokenness, take responsibility, be grace-givers and grace-receivers and image Christ in how we forgive and repair.
The only redeeming hope for my failures as a minister, friend, daughter, wife and person is that the Holy Spirit is working in me so that I can learn from my shortcomings, change for the better and not be devastated by the destructive potential of my failures. And this experience of grace works on me so that I am becoming a more gracious person to others.
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you in this season?
Something helpful for me is not simply focusing on the spiritual disciplines that I practice but why. Along the way, I realized that my faith is oriented toward four parts of how I experience the gospel: 1) learning the story of God so that I can 2) know who God is (his character, mission, attributes, etc.) so that I can 3) know who I am because of Christ and then 4) live out of that identity.
I noticed I would fall back into sin or functional atheism because of lies I’d absorbed (often about who I am). I would forget that I am beloved, full, free, adopted and all the things that Scripture says are true about me because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. This false narrative was always connected to caricatures or distortions I held about God or the gospel. Going back to Scripture and reengaging the meta-narrative of creation, fall, redemption and consummation in every story and page was key to healing my false ideas about God. This, in turn, gifts me my identity so that I can know who I am — so that I can come full and free to my life each day.
So even as I rotate through different disciplines to practice, they all are intentional in that I am doing them to engage any one or all of these four foundations. Payer, worship, meditation, celebration, study — the “why” is what shapes my practices in each season and gives them meaning.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed reality and your heart?
There are two books I re-read every year because they were beautiful disruptions that came at critical moments in my life: “The Ragamuffin Gospel” by Brennan Manning and “Orthodoxy” by G.K. Chesterton.
Their influence is distinctly different. “Orthodoxy” presented fundamentals of the Christian faith in ways I had never thought of before. It continues to surprise and challenge me. Meanwhile, “The Ragamuffin Gospel” contains no new information but drills down on the astonishing measure of God’s grace and sacrifice that I need to reengage constantly. The powerful simplicity of the gospel takes a chainsaw to the evergreen idols that reemerge in my heart.
The third resource is not a Christian resource at all; it is “The Neverending Story” (the book). Art has its own way of unveiling God’s truths to us. This book is a well of truth and goodness that I drink from often. Embedded in the stories are images of my own life that help me understand the world and illustrate key concepts to those I minister to. I hope you all can find some art that translates your faith and expands your imagination of the wondrous things of God.
We all have things we cling to to survive or even thrive in our fast-paced, techno-driven world. How have you been successful in harnessing technology to aid in your spiritual growth?
I have a few apps that I use to follow liturgies (like Morning or Evening Prayer) or to hear and read Scripture. I rotate through them so that I don’t get robotic in my practice. Right now, I am using simple Lenten liturgies on the Daily Prayer app. This app incorporates a liturgy of prayer, Scripture, worship, confession and intercession, overlaying beautiful scenes that mark the time of day (sunrise for Morning Prayer, etc.). For a moment, I can be present with what I am praying or reading while engaging it for a few minutes throughout the day.
Another app that may not be considered an obvious “spiritual growth” mechanism is Marco Polo. I have fallen in love with this app because it keeps me connected to friends who do not live where I live. Good friendships that are no longer my day-to-day folks can strain under the constant need to catch up before diving into deeper conversation. But we use this app to stay connected on the day-to-day things with short videos we can send on our own time. This app has enriched a key support network that continues to bless my life as we share our small moments as well as requests for prayer or interesting questions. It is a boon to my spiritual health.
QUESTION #8: dream
God’s continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
I’m truly uncertain of the future once my book, “Knowing and Being Known,” is out in the world. I am a first-time author and just riding the ride of this new and unknown adventure called publishing. My day-to-day still allows me to do what I love and minister to emerging adults as a college chaplain and clergy at my church. But if I were to whisper into existence my hope of hopes for what is next, I would love to see a whole network of content unfurl from this first book.
You see, my book is more of a “what” and “why” than a “how.” But I witness the urgent need for more content about how we find and nurture friendships, date well, navigate loneliness, have stronger marriages and deal with our families. I hope this book is a primer for building content that scaffolds a new era where the local church is the epicenter of healthy relationships that sustain and attend to everyone despite age, marital status or circumstances. And I don’t need to be the author of this new content. I would love to contribute, but I want to collaborate with or inspire others who can add to this conversation. I hope to have a wealth of conversations, meet people, hear their stories and grow together in this future. Perhaps you are stirring with contributions to topics orbiting intimacy (and if so, consider this your invitation)! I would love to know you.
Earlier in her interview, Erin said, “The driving narratives underneath how we behave in relationships are really about our sense of self, our worth and our identity.”
This is more true than many people realize. Our ability to communicate effectively, set healthy boundaries, support someone in their trials and be vulnerable enough to let them support us through ours rests largely on our confidence in who we are.
You can find the foundation for this truth in 1 John 4:19, which says, “We love because he first loved us” (ESV). The only reason we can love others confidently — and healthfully — is that Jesus loved us first. He made us holy and beloved, named us brothers and sisters (and co-heirs with him) and gave us the freedom to love others out of that secure identity.
This week, take time to think about your relationships. Where do they reflect the natural outflow of your confidence in your identity in Christ? Where do they reflect old patterns and habits that represent who you were before Jesus?
Rev. Erin F. Moniz (D.Min., Trinity School for Ministry) is a deacon in the Anglican Church in North America and Associate Chaplain and Director for Chapel at Baylor University, where she disciples emerging adults and journeys with them toward healthy, gospel-centered relationships. She is the author of Knowing and Being Known: Hope for All Our Intimate Relationships (IVP, 2025). She lives in Waco, Texas, with her husband, Michael.
