Q & R: Guidance? Dating? Discipleship?

Here’s the Q:

Hi! My name is YYY and I am a 25 year-old, who has avoided the church experience of my childhood (church of Christ), which never felt congruent with what my spirit intuitively knew as truth and love. Through volunteering with a mission team abroad I came in contact with one of your books and a couple who was tentatively sharing their reimagining of faith and God as a part of their journey. Then, I recently moved to a metro area where I visited a church and for the first time in my entire life, heard a sermon that was truly a fulfillment of speaking the truth in love.
In that sermon, the pastor spoke about deconstructing the beliefs we hold as one might deconstruct a wall, and inspect each piece. But my question is, after doing that, how is it built back? What does being a modern disciple really look like? I truly feel like such an infant in this, but have no idea where to look for guidance other than books by you and other leaders like you.
To compound this, I am dating someone who is also searching, but from an even different perspective than me. Do you have a recommendation of a book or a study we could work through together?
I realize there are some loaded questions here, but I thought I’d try to ask you because I don’t know who else to ask. Thanks for being the kind of person that I feel I can ask!

Here’s the R:
Thanks for writing. I’m so glad you’re finding some “light at the end of the tunnel.” As the pastor you heard recently said, there is an important deconstruction process that many of us – especially those from more fundamentalist/absolutist backgrounds – must go through. Some end up with fragments and don’t ask the important question you are asking – how do we rebuild?
If I could recommend three of my books that focus on that reconstruction, here’s what I’d recommend:
1. We Make the Road by Walking – I especially think you and the person you’re dating would enjoy reading and talking about this together. It’s set up for a whole year of weekly meetings, but of course you could discuss it all at once, over four dates, whatever.
2. The Secret Message of Jesus – This book focuses on the center of Christian faith, not a doctrine or system or “wall” of beliefs, but a person.
3. Naked Spirituality – This is a book about postures of the heart, and the heart is so important in this sometimes overly-heady process.
You’re on a good path! Keep moving forward.