People have asked me, “Why Half Holy & Half Hood?”
The name might make you smile. It might make you curious. It might even make you a little uncomfortable.
Good.
Because Half Holy & Half Hood was never meant to represent perfect Christians. It was created for real people with real stories, real scars, real mistakes, and a very real need for Jesus.
And for me, the meaning behind the name started a long time ago.
The “Perfect Church Girl”
I grew up in church.
I knew the songs. I knew the Bible stories. I knew how to behave. I knew what was expected of me.
For a long time, I was the “perfect church girl.”
Or at least, that was the pedestal people had placed me on.
Then one day, something seemingly small changed everything.
I disagreed with a youth minister about Christian rock music.
I was told, essentially, “You can't worship to that.”
And I disagreed.
I believed worship wasn't limited to one sound, one style, or one way of expressing your love for God. If the message pointed you toward Jesus, why couldn't it be worship?
Apparently, disagreeing was enough.
From that moment on, I felt like people who had once seen me as the “good church girl” suddenly looked at me differently. I went from being someone they were proud of to someone they seemed to consider a lost cause.
And the fall from that pedestal was a long one.
If You Think I'm Bad, Maybe I'll Be Bad
I was angry.
Not just a little angry. I was hurt angry.
How dare they treat me like I was suddenly bad because I questioned something?
How dare they decide who I was because I didn't agree with them?
Eventually, that hurt turned into rebellion.
Somewhere inside me, I developed this attitude:
If you're going to accuse me of being bad anyway, why shouldn't I be?
And so I started becoming the person they had already decided I was.
What began as hurt grew into anger, rebellion, and a deep distrust of hypocrisy—especially when it came wrapped in religion and self-righteousness.
The people who were supposed to represent God's love had made me feel rejected.
And for a while, I made a mistake that I think a lot of people make:
I confused the people who hurt me with the God they claimed to represent.
Then My Mom Said Something I Needed to Hear
My rebellion eventually reached a point where my mom had to sit me down.
That was when I finally broke.
I told her what had happened. I told her why I was angry. I told her how I had been treated and how much it had hurt me.
And my mom reminded me of something incredibly simple:
The person who mistreated you wasn't God. So why are you taking your hurt out on Him?
Well...
Duh.
They weren't God.
It sounds obvious now, but at that moment, I needed someone to say it.
God hadn't rejected me.
God hadn't decided I was a lost cause.
God hadn't stopped loving me because I liked Christian rock music or because I asked questions.
People had hurt me. God hadn't.
That realization woke something up inside me.
It allowed me to begin separating God from the hurt caused by people.
And slowly, I found my way back to Him.
I Never Wanted to Become What Hurt Me
That experience stayed with me.
It also left me with a lasting distrust of people who become so clothed in their own sense of righteousness that they forget the very people Jesus came for.
As I got older, I realized something else:
I never wanted to become that.
I never wanted to become so focused on looking like the perfect Christian that I forgot what Christianity was supposed to be about.
I didn't want to spend my life pretending I had everything together.
Because I don't.
I never have.
And chances are, I never will.
I'm still learning.
I'm still growing.
I'm still making mistakes.
I'm still asking God for forgiveness.
I'm still becoming the person He created me to be.
And that's where Half Holy & Half Hood comes from.
What “Half Holy & Half Hood” Means to Me
It doesn't mean I'm only halfway committed to God.
Quite the opposite.
It means I've stopped pretending that following Jesus requires me to pretend I'm perfect.
I strive for holy, but I remember where I came from.
The “Holy” represents who I'm pursuing—Jesus.
The “Hood” represents the real, imperfect, sometimes messy person doing the pursuing.
It's the scars.
The mistakes.
The attitude.
The lessons learned the hard way.
The parts of my story that don't fit neatly into somebody else's picture of what a Christian is “supposed” to look like.
I've embraced the fact that although I strive to be holy...
I'll probably always be a little Hood too.
And I'm okay with that.
Because God isn't waiting for some polished, perfect version of me before He decides I'm worthy of His love.
There Are No Pedestals Here
That's also what I want Half Holy & Half Hood to represent.
No pedestals.
No pretending.
No deciding somebody isn't “Christian enough” because they don't look like you, dress like you, worship like you, talk like you, or have a past you're comfortable with.
This is a place for the person who has loved Jesus their entire life.
It's also a place for the person who just met Him at rock bottom.
It's for the person sitting in the front pew on Sunday morning.
And it's for the person who hasn't worked up the courage to walk through the church doors yet.
It's for people with testimonies they proudly tell—and people with chapters they still don't like talking about.
Because nothing in your past disqualifies you from becoming who God is calling you to be.
Your mistakes don't get the final word.
Your scars don't get the final word.
The opinions people formed about you don't get the final word.
That label somebody put on you years ago doesn't get the final word.
God does.
And you are still wanted.
Still loved.
Still chosen.
Still a Child of God.
More Than a Name
So, why did we call the store Half Holy & Half Hood?
Because I wanted a name that felt like the truth.
A name for imperfect people pursuing a perfect Savior.
A name that says you don't have to clean up your entire story before you're welcome here.
A name that leaves room for the church girl, the rebel, the person who walked away, the person finding their way back, and the person meeting Jesus for the very first time.
A name that reminds us that Christianity isn't a competition to see who can look the most righteous.
It's a relationship with the One who already knows every ugly, complicated, messy part of our story...
and wants us anyway.
That's Half Holy & Half Hood.
We strive for Holy.
We don't hide the Hood.
And there's room here for you, too.
Half Holy & Half Hood
Messages That Matter. More Than a Brand. A Mission.
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