Saints & Strays

Who this is for

You don't have to have it figured out before you show up.

I built this because I kept meeting people who were hungry for something sacred but didn't know if they were allowed to want it. People who'd left the church but couldn't shake God. People who'd never been religious but found themselves whispering prayers in hospital waiting rooms. People planning weddings who wanted the ceremony to actually mean something, not just check a box.

This is spiritual accompaniment. I walk with you. I ask questions and sit in the silence with you. I don't hand out maps or tell you where you're supposed to end up. I just stay.

Saints and strays are equally welcome here. Honestly, most of us are both on any given Tuesday. That includes LGBTQIA+ folks, people of color, people navigating poverty, people who've been hurt by the church, and anyone else who's ever wondered if there's a seat at the table for them. There is. Specifically for you.

What I offer

Sacred work for the whole of your life

The quiet interior work and the big milestone moments. I show up for all of it.

Interior Life

Spiritual Direction

One-on-one accompaniment for your interior life. No agenda, no pressure to believe anything in particular. We meet regularly, we pay attention to what's alive in you spiritually, and we follow that thread wherever it goes. Hard questions are not just allowed, they're kind of the whole point.

Grief & Growth

Life & Grief Coaching

For the seasons that knock you sideways. Loss, transition, the creeping feeling that your life doesn't fit the way it used to. We don't rush through any of it. We sit in it, do the work in it, and figure out together what wants to come next.

Ceremony

Wedding Officiant

Your wedding ceremony should sound like you, not like something downloaded from a template site at 11pm. I write and officiate for couples who are religious, spiritual-but-not-religious, interfaith, secular, or somewhere in the middle of all of the above.

Ritual & Marking

Special Events & Ceremonies

Memorials. Celebrations of life. House blessings. Milestone moments that deserve more than a printout from the internet. Custom sacred ceremonies built around your specific story, your specific people, your specific moment.

The Craft

Liturgy & Sacred Writing

Words are holy. Custom vows, prayers, liturgies, and rituals written for your story specifically. I take this work seriously because I know what it feels like when words land exactly right, and I know what it feels like when they don't.

Community & Events

Speaking & Retreats

Available for retreats, workshops, panels, and gatherings where faith, doubt, and real life need someone willing to hold the tension without trying to resolve it too quickly. In person in Virginia Beach or virtually.

You might be in the right place if

Something in this sounds like you.

You grew up in a faith tradition, quietly drifted away from it, and something keeps pulling at you even now

You want a wedding ceremony that genuinely reflects who you two are as people

You're in grief and everyone around you seems to think you should be further along by now

You've never had a spiritual practice but there's this hunger you can't quite name or explain

A big moment is coming and you want it marked in a way that actually feels like something

You need someone to walk alongside you, not someone to tell you where you're supposed to end up

Who is welcome here

Not just open. Actively, unapologetically welcoming.

I want to be clear about this, because a lot of religious spaces say "all are welcome" and then make certain people feel like guests at best, problems to be managed at worst. That's not what this is.

LGBTQIA+ individuals and couples are fully welcome here. I will marry you, accompany you, write your liturgy, and sit with you in your grief with the same care and reverence I bring to everyone else. Your love is not a footnote. Your life is not a debate.

Communities of color, people navigating poverty, people who've been wounded by religious institutions, people on the margins of every system that was supposed to hold them — you are not an afterthought here. The church has caused real harm. I know that. I hold that. And I believe sacred accompaniment belongs to everyone, not just the people who've never had a reason to distrust it.

If you've been told you're too much, too sinful, too complicated, or simply too different for God to want you — I'd gently like to push back on that. You can bring all of it here.

LGBTQIA+ affirming BIPOC communities Interfaith & secular Church hurt welcome Sliding scale fees All relationship structures Neurodivergent friendly

Fees & access

Sacred work shouldn't only be available to people who can afford it.

I work on a broad sliding scale. What that means in practice: I set a range, you choose what you can honestly pay, and we trust each other. No proof required. No awkward conversation about your finances. If you can pay more, that contribution helps make space for someone who can't. If you can't, that's what the scale is for.

I'd rather do this work with you at a rate that doesn't keep you up at night than not do it at all.

Community rate

Pay what you can

For those navigating financial hardship, unemployment, or limited income. You belong here regardless.

Standard rate

Sustaining

Covers the cost of the work and helps me stay available to everyone. A fair exchange for both of us.

Supporter rate

Pay it forward

If you have the means, paying above the standard rate directly subsidizes someone who can't. It matters more than you know.

Reach out and we'll figure out what works. I've never turned someone away because of money and I don't intend to start.

The Rev. Nelson Mendoza, Virginia Beach

About Me

The Rev. Nelson Mendoza

Here's the thing nobody tells you about becoming a priest: it doesn't make you holier. It just means you've agreed to show up for people in the moments when everything is too much, or not enough, or both at the same time. I've been doing that for a while now and I'm still not tired of it.

Spiritual direction is my favorite work. It's slow, it's unhurried, it asks a lot of both people in the room. I once described it to someone as "therapy's contemplative older sibling who has read too much Thomas Merton and isn't sorry about it." That tracks. We meet, we pay attention to what's alive in you spiritually, and we follow that thread. No agenda. No destination you're supposed to reach by a certain date. Just the work of actually knowing yourself, which turns out to be both harder and more worthwhile than most people expect.

I grew up navigating spaces that weren't always sure what to do with me. That could have made me cynical about institutions, about faith, about whether any of this matters. It did the opposite. It made me obsessed with building the kind of space I needed when I was younger. Somewhere that doesn't require you to have it together before you walk in.

Saints & Strays exists because not everyone fits neatly into a pew. That was never the point anyway.

I'm also, for better or worse, a writer. I think about words the way some people think about shoes — obsessively, with strong opinions, and with a deep suspicion of anything generic. When I write your vows or your liturgy or the words that will be spoken at someone's memorial, I'm not filling in a template. I'm paying attention to your actual story and finding the language that belongs to it specifically.

I'm based in Virginia Beach — the city with a 34-foot Neptune statue on the oceanfront and dolphin sculptures literally everywhere, which feels about right for someone who does this kind of work. Available virtually for spiritual direction and coaching anywhere in the world. I work on a sliding scale because this work belongs to everyone, full stop.

If you're a saint, welcome. If you're a stray, especially welcome. If you're somewhere in between on a Tuesday afternoon wondering how you got here — honestly, that's my favorite kind of conversation.

Sacred work for the whole of your life

Something in this sounds like you.

Not just open. Actively, unapologetically welcoming.

Sacred work shouldn't only be available to people who can afford it.

The Rev. Nelson Mendoza

Let's start here