Kristoffer Sligar Interview Published on: 20, Mar 2026

I had spent a year in therapy, and my doctor had told me that I had a great story and that I needed to write it down, if only for myself. A way to look back on many years of struggle and healing. I spent 7 years writing the book as I faced the prospect of sharing some of the most difficult moments in my life and dealing with the issue of not being good enough for anyone to listen to. I felt it was the right time to release it as there is such a problem with the issue of mental health and faith in this world and I wanted people to know that there is hope to be found.

I have learned over my time as a Pastor and by learning from others throughout my life, that when we share stories, we need to be authentic. I prefer to tell a story like I am having a conversation with someone. I believe that is how Jesus shared truth with people and the same works for me. Theology doesn’t need to be this high and lofty intellectual diatribe, it can be real, simple, and practical so that people can actually learn what it means and how to apply it. It is the practice I use in my preaching and teaching ministry and how I disciple others to be stronger in their faith.

I practice blade smithing. In that process, I heat metal to a high temperature and then I bang on it with a heavy hammer. BY doing so, I shape the metal through introducing stress and difficulty until it is made stronger and in the shape that I will find it useful. The same goes for spiritual growth. If faith is never questioned in a healthy way, then it is empty. I saw so many of the people that I grew up with lose their faith when encountering difficulties because they were never taught to question what they believed. They were told that doubt is the enemy. We should never fear doubt; we should use it to make our faith stronger by asking the questions we have and then trust God for the answers. He is willing to give them to those who ask, even if it is not the answer we want.

I think about the old phrase, “If you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.” We can try to cover up all of our blemishes, but people can see through that. Vulnerability gives us the opportunity to show people who we are, warts and all. Why should someone trust me if I am not real with them? If I come off as the “perfect” Christian, then people will measure themselves using an unhealthy standard and they will never heal. When I grew up, there was always a distance between the pastor and the congregation. Pastors for the most part, seemed like these untouchable men of God and I could never be as good as them. What I found is that pastors are just like every other Christian. They sin. They say bad words. They go over the speed limit. They struggle. They need friends.

When I am vulnerable with people, it shows them that I am nothing special. I am just another man trying to follow God the best I can and that I fail just like everybody else. This makes the truth that I share more real and obtainable. If I can do it, then anyone can.

We need to stop making mental health issues seem like failure. Is it failure when a Christian has cancer? No, they are celebrated for their strong faith in carrying on through the treatments and the pain. Mental health issues are the same. People of faith need to approach these issues with a desire to understand them better. I am not saying that they need to become experts, but people fear what they do not understand and that fear leads to making outcasts of the people that are suffering. Mental health struggles are not always due to particular sins or a lack of faith. It is not always the result of making bad choices. We need to get rid of the stigma surrounding mental health and be compassionate like Jesus. People of faith need to walk alongside those that struggle with compassion, grace, and simply try to understand. If you cannot understand, then simply be an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on. Don’t try to fix the person, try to love them.

We follow Christ as the Great Physician and then count the healing He provides as wrong. The healing process is holy. Holy means to be set apart. Healing in mental health is a holy thing. The healing comes from God through doctors, counseling, medication, support, encouragement, and accountability. Too many faith leaders in the past and today consider healing to be a one and done thing but we know that it is a long process. I am still healing today from these issues and will spend the est of my life healing. I think to many people equate healing with salvation. Salvation was accomplished by Christ on the cross once and for all time. Healing goes on and on and comes in stages. We need to trust the process that God has created until He returns and removes all pain and suffering from us or until we return to Him in glory.

The way that I approach this is by trying to present the truth of Scripture with the mindset of it being beneficial for the person rather than a set of rules to follow. God’s truth is what is best for us, and we do better when we follow it. If we present Scripture as a set of rules to follow, we concentrate on failure rather than peace. There is a measure of accountability to be had for sure, but to speak the truth in love, we must be looking out for what is best for the person we are speaking to and not just tell them what to do.

When covering the issues of my suicide attempts, I really struggled. That is not an easy thing to share. I had to relive those moments in my mind and to present them in an authentic and raw way so that people could see what I was going through at the time and how I had overcome those problems. My first attempt was on my 19th birthday. Every year for many years, I was reminded of that fact by my own mind and relived each year. Then when I sat down to write this book, I hadn’t really thought about it for several years. Now it was fresh in mind again and I felt that pain coming back. Interestingly enough, it was one of the last parts that I wore about because I wasn’t sure how to deal with it. Now it shines as an example of how far someone can go and still not be completely lost.

I am learning so much about myself through this journey. The role of a chaplain is such an important role. People look to chaplains for hope, peace, compassion, and care. I have learned that I must find those things for myself before I can help others find it in God. It has made me realize even more my need for God’s presence and strength in my everyday life. I am just hoping that through that ministry, I can help others find that themselves.

We live in a world that is unjust by its very nature. We want the bad guys to get what’s coming to them and we want the good guys to win. Often, this isn’t the case. Justice for me, as I discovered, meant that God gave me the ability to see how wrong people in my life were about me. I once had a sergeant in the Air Force tell me that I was too stupid to flip burgers at Burger King. That stuck with me for years. I now have 2 degrees and am working on a third. Justice was me discovering that he was wrong about me.

We must look at justice in the way that God does. Often what we want is vengeance. Or justification for our own wrongdoings. Justice is discovering the truth that God gives us and recognizing that He does not see us the way that others do or even how we see ourselves. His justice is pure. He will deal justly with wrong doers, and He has justified us through His Son, Jesus. The more we understand this, the more at peace we will be, both individually and as a community.

I think the biggest thing that I do is to build trust first. I am a very extroverted person. I like to greet people and get to know them. I also enjoy making a person feel welcome. This must be done in a non-threatening manner though. When I counsel people, I try to listen a lot more than I speak. I could have the right answer, but until I listen, I won’t know the problem. People want to be heard not preached at. People want to feel that a person is genuinely concerned for their well-being and has the time to listen. I may not agree with a person in everything, but I can still listen compassionately while they tell me their story and then respond out of a place of trust and compassion.

My prayer is that they will realize that God has not abandoned them. The reason that my faith was shaken and that many people have the same struggle is that I never learned to make it my own. Faith was a system of rules that I grew up with, and I never made it personal. God does not enjoy our pain; He walks with us through it. God is not afraid of our doubts, He seeks to help us understand. When we base our faith on what we have simply been told, then we never have a faith that is proven. We must walk through the doubts and the hurt alongside God to have a faith that is proven like gold. People will fail us; God never will.

West Virginia is a unique place. You are surrounded by people and completely alone at the same time. It takes a long time to earn trust and when you break it, it is almost impossible to earn it again. This makes ministry a marathon rather than a sprint.

The stories in West Virginia are both real and fantastical. It is the home of giants like John Henry and the home of mystery like Moth Man. Hardship and celebration go hand in hand. The beauty is beyond compare and I have been all over this wonderful country. It is a place where you don’t tell people what town you live in but what county you are from. The people are really the measure of what Scripture says when it points out that there is a multitude from all nations praising God.

It is also a place full of people that have been taken advantage of. They have been told that they are somehow less than because of their background. I am able to feel what people have been through and earn trust because my struggles are accepted here and understood. This helps me greatly in my ministry, even if it takes years to earn a modicum of trust.

Several years ago, I lost a dear friend to suicide. He was a Christian and seemed to be strong in the faith. All his life, people told him that he struggled with his mental health because he didn’t pray enough, didn’t read his Bible enough, needed to have more faith. I watched as he slipped slowly into more despair and hopelessness until he felt the only way out was to take his life. I decided then that I needed to share my story so that others would not share the same fate as he did. Suicide is such a painful decision, and it leaves so many questions for people to struggle with. If more people had given this man hope, perhaps he would still be here today. We must break the stigma of mental health in the church and leaders need to do a better job with this. My hope is that people will hear my story and learn from it. No one needs to walk through the valleys alone in darkness.

I’ve had a good experience with AllAuthor. The most helpful aspect has been the featured book tweets. I have a good following on social media that I would not have otherwise due to the service that has been provided. I look forward to connecting with even more readers in the future.