Emily Parker spoke with author Andrea Lucado about her new book English Lessons, what it was like growing up as a pastor's kid and how to handle doubt.

Also being physically that far from my parents and familiarity and everything I knew about the Southern US and now dropped over into this other side of the world, that alone is going to make you question where you came from and your upbringing, and seeing how other people coming from other places think about things in a different way.

It felt like it was all shuffled up and tossed into the air as soon as I got off the plane.

Emily: Why was finding a church when you got to Oxford so important to you?

Andrea: I didn't know where else to go to make friends. I had always done the church thing, being that it was my family's profession. I knew that I wanted to go to church, but it was more of this robotic, "Okay and now it's Sunday and I'm gonna walk to church, because this is what we do on Sundays."

That ended up being a really good decision. I went to a church called St Aldates. It's a pretty big church in Oxford in the city centre and I met some really great people there and some really great friends. So I felt like this was my comfort zone and I really needed that. I needed a place that felt comfortable while I was spending most of my days and most of my time in an uncomfortable setting.

Emily: You talk in the book about how you made friends with Christians and with non-Christians as well and you ended up visiting the Oxford Atheist Society. What was that like?

Andrea: My friend Ben, we were in classes together. He was an official member of Oxford Atheist Society. This was 2009 and Richard Dawkins' 'God Delusion' had been recently published. Oxford, that year, was kind of the hub for all atheist things, like thinking and leaders and debates, so it was a big place to be if you were an atheist, and even you weren't. There were really cool and important conversations happening in the city of Oxford.

Ben and I, I don't know if we made a pact, or if it was understood that he was going to come to the Christmas Eve service with me at St Aldates and then I was going to go with him to his 'church,' the Atheist Society.

So I went. I was nervous to go because I didn't really know what a group of atheists did when they got together. I was pretty naïve, but it was actually a really fun night. We did a pub quiz and I don't even remember what the lecture was on. Then we all hung out after at a different bar.

I remember I wanted these people to accept me and I wondered if they knew that I was a Christian. If they knew that I was religious, would they still accept me? I wasn't really sure, but they were a really warm and welcoming group. I remember really respecting the leader a lot. This girl was probably in her last year at Oxford and was very confident. I could tell she led the group really well.

It was this funny thing that I grew up going to all these Christian meetings, and now I'm at the opposite of a Christian meeting, but still really enjoying myself in the process.

Emily: Was it a great thing for you, if you were asking questions, that you had the opportunity to talk to people and hear questions that they had that you hadn't heard before?

Andrea: I think I only went to the Oxford Atheist Society once, so most of those conversations have been with friends from class. We would have wine and cheese nights together a lot at one of my friends and her boyfriend's flat. We would sit on the floor and pass around wine and cheese and there would be a certain point where the conversation typically would turn to religion.

I remember someone making the point that he didn't think it was fair for parents to raise their kids with a certain belief system. Maybe he had been raised Catholic, but then later realised this isn't what I believe. He actually said, "I feel like it's a form of child abuse to tell your kids what they believe, because this could not be true. This could totally be a hoax." That's one of those conversations that really stands out, because I never felt like that was abuse. I know as someone who believes in Jesus Christ, to not pass that down to your kids would be a disservice to them and it's something that you would want them to know, because there is so much hope and peace that comes with believing in Him and His divinity and what the Christian faith says about Him.