About Us

Our Founders:

John is a native Long Islander. He enjoys playing guitar, listening to music, reading seafaring novels, and especially the outdoors. Caryn is a native of Chicago and spent her teen years in Phoenix. She enjoys spending time with family and friends, having fun and meaningful conversation over a good meal, restoring vintage furniture, and anything chocolate. Married since 1986, they have three adult sons. After raising their family in Arizona, they now reside in the New York City area. Together they enjoy bird watching, walking on our beautiful beaches, and visiting wineries.

John has been a church planter and pastor his entire career and feels passionate about caring for people and helping them to thrive. He holds a Doctor of Ministry from Palmer Seminary of Eastern University in Philadelphia. His dissertation was on Open Communion, demonstrating the benefits of welcoming all people to the table.

Caryn is a therapist and holds a Master of Science in Mental Health Counseling from Queens College. Working primarily with those who are struggling with childhood or religious trauma, depression, anxiety, grief, and interpersonal conflict, she is passionate about walking alongside her clients through all of life’s challenges. She believes that each client is unique, possessing thoughts and feelings that deserve to be heard.

Our Story

John's and Caryn spent their careers as Evangelical church planters and missionaries. We fully embraced the culture and raised our boys in the church.

Caryn’s deconstruction journey began during a time when she was experiencing the painful effects of past abuse, although at the time, she did not recognize it as such. Following her church’s teaching, she considered her struggles with anger, loneliness, and discouragement to be primarily spiritual problems. Being taught to distrust therapy because it was “secular psychology,” and “not biblically based,” Caryn went to her church for help. They practiced “biblical counseling,” applying only the Bible to Caryn’s symptoms. For months, her counselors encouraged her to confess sin, memorize scripture, and forgive.

Despite doing these things, Caryn continued to struggle, which increased her feelings of shame and inadequacy. Since the “spiritual” tools were no longer helping, she knew she needed to seek support elsewhere. So, in desperation, she went against her church’s teaching and called a licensed therapist who specialized in trauma recovery. Taking a wholistic approach that integrated her physical body, emotions, thoughts, and spiritual life, recognizing them as inextricably linked, Caryn’s therapist helped her to connect her symptoms to effects of past trauma, and to begin a journey of healing and freedom. Now, as a therapist, Caryn integrates scientific clinical theory with Christian faith in her practice, where she helps many other abuse survivors find healing.

John’s journey began one Arizona Sunday morning when he said in a sermon that we must allow Jesus’ call to care for the poor to inform our politics, and that our personal freedoms and liberties should be set aside to uplift the less fortunate. A few people came up to John afterward to thank him for saying those words. By the time he got home for lunch, however, John was greeted by phone calls and emails from angry people accusing John of becoming a “liberal” and preaching error, insisting that America is a “Christian nation” and denying the existence of systemic sin. After a painful season of meetings, and people leaving the church, the elders exhorted John to talk to them first before he planned to say anything else that’s “controversial.” John recognized then taking seriously the teachings of Jesus regarding marginalized people may be incompatible with leading an American Evangelical church.

Since these events, the Amandolas left Arizona for the NYC area. There, they planted a multi-ethnic church of mostly twenty-somethings and learned much about the needs and concerns of the next generation and people of color. There they formed many meaningful, lifelong, transformative friendships. Then, in the late twenty-teens, a mass exodus of young people began to leave American Evangelicalism. Many evangelical leaders placed the blame on the young people, accusing them of wanting to be free of accountability and of deconstructing because it’s “sexy.” But rather than blame deconstructing people, John and Caryn listened to their stories. Having experienced many of the same hurts, they learned that most “exvangelicals” were instead injured and disillusioned. They needed to leave the evangelical church but did not necessarily want to leave Jesus. They were spiritually homeless and needed a safe community.

So, we began to meet in our homes and online to explore the answers to many difficult questions. We sought healing together. We worked to undo toxic theology from Evangelicalism. We learned to reframe our beliefs to be centered around Jesus. No Harbor was borne out of these many conversations with a group of courageous travelers. The questions we explored formed the basis of John’s book, No Harbor: Course Corrections to Help You Find Jesus on Your Journey of Deconstruction.

Our cohorts provide a place for healthy deconstruction in community. Although most members say that the course corrections were very helpful in reframing their beliefs, it was the community—the connection with others who are going through the same process—that they found to be most helpful and meaningful.

No Harbor FAQs for Our Non-Deconstructing Friends

What does it mean to be “Exvangelical? or “Deconstructing”?

“Exvangelical” simply refers to someone who has left the Evangelical church and some or all of its teachings. Two-thirds of people who grew up Evangelical and are now in their twenties fit into this category. “Deconstructing” refers to undoing long held beliefs that one has ultimately come to understand as harmful. The most important thing to understand that these terms do not necessarily mean “non-Christian.” Nor do they always refer to one who has left the faith. Although sadly, many Exvangelicals do wind up also leaving faith altogether, many others, who go through a healthy process of deconstruction, find themselves ultimately reconstructing a more vibrant relationship with Jesus than ever.

Shouldn't we just be calling deconstructing people to repentance?

This question presupposes that the reason people deconstruct is so that they can be free of accountability and sin all they want. As we have heard the stories of hundreds of deconstructing people, we have found that this is not at all the case. In our experience, most people leave because of hurt or disillusionment, not a desire to sin. In fact, many people leave because they feel that it is actually the church that has not been true to the teachings of Jesus. The great majority of Exvangelicals still earnestly desire to find a way to keep a relationship with Jesus and connect in a meaningful spiritual community. In fact, we hear these two desires from almost every person who joins our cohorts.

Why have so many young people left the church?

There is no one answer to this question. The most common reasons we hear from our cohort members are Christian Nationalism and a political agenda from the pulpit; denial of modern scientific findings; authoritarian leadership that limits their voices, highly programmed environments that make them feel used and valued only for what they can contribute, the church’s lack of openness to doubts and questions, abuse and toleration of abuse, exclusivism, denial of systemic injustices in society, and lack of responsiveness to poor and marginalized peoples.

Why the name “No Harbor”?

In the days of wooden sailing ships, storms would endanger vessels in the harbor, where unseen rocks in shallow water would wreak havoc on the hull. So, the safest course of action, although counterintuitive and perilous, was to forlornly sail out to sea and into the storm. This is analogous to the feeling experienced by so many who have left the Evangelical church: conflicted over the thought of letting go of the familiar and comfortable but feeling like they have no other choice if they are to save themselves. Our logo of a paper boat in a whirlpool captures this feeling of being vulnerable and without moorings. It is our mission to accompany them on their journey in order to help them heal and rediscover Jesus.

Are you “Progressive” Christians?

We would say that "Progressivism," "Liberalism," and "Conservativism" are all labels that mean different things to different people. They are also rather confining in that few people agree or disagree with everything associated with any “ism.” Therefore, we don't see ourselves fitting into any of these categories. What we can say is that we appreciate Progressive Christianity for its emphasis on doing justice and loving one's neighbor. We also appreciate Conservatism’s commitment to taking the Bible seriously. We don't agree, however, with the typical Progressive viewpoint that the Bible lacks inspiration. We also don't agree with the rigid and ultra-literal interpretation of scripture that's usually associated with Conservatism. See chapters four and five in No Harbor: Course Corrections to Help You Find Jesus on Your Journey of Deconstruction for a detailed explanation of our views on the Bible and revelation.

What is your approach to helping deconstructing people?

Our primary vehicle to accomplish our goals is our cohorts. Drawing upon John’s theological training and Caryn’s clinical expertise as a therapist, we have developed a model for the community that accomplishes several objectives. The first is to provide an accepting community where people feel safe to share their thoughts and feelings without having someone attempt to change their minds. We have found it to be very healing for people to be in a community with others who are going through the same experiences. Then, using a curriculum that John wrote, we travel through six theological “course corrections.” We propose that many of the dysfunctions in the church have their roots in theology that has, at some point in history, deviated from orthodoxy and become toxic. For example, Christian Nationalism is rooted in an attempt to bring about the Kingdom of God through human government. This error first emerged during the Roman Empire under Constantine. We work to understand history and reframe beliefs, changing course not to something new but to something ancient and orthodox.