One year ago today this blog was born as a place where I and my friends could ramble about issues of life and faith.
It has been a crazy year for me. In May my house was one of hundreds (thousands?) across the state of Tennessee to be damaged in the flooding. I've been kind of consumed with recovering from that ever since. When I started this blog I was still a member of a Methodist Mega-Church (MMC for short) and I was struggling with the decision of "do I stay or do I go"...the flooding brought me, unexpectedly, the answer to that question. The response of the congregation and pastoral staff at FBC Memphis to a family who were "just visitors" brought into startling contrast the way things were done at the big MMC. By Memorial Day, four weeks post flood, we had moved our membership and we have spent the last several months making our home at FBC. It was the right decision for so very many reasons. I am thankful for this community every day. It has created a safe space to BE an Unconventional Christian unlike my experience in the MMC.
I am blessed to have such an awesome group of co-authors. I gain insight each time one of them posts and I'm glad that the rest of the blogosphere gets to share that experience with me. I am hoping to add a couple of new co-authors in year two so stay tuned! Thanks for joining us this year and Happy Blog-iversary!
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Let's Talk About Growing Up Bullied
This is not an easy post for me to write but I am inspired by Dan's courage over at Single Dad Laughing and I am accepting his challenge to use our voices and tell our stories. I'm hoping my co-authors here will do so as well. I know parts of the story of at least one of them and I know he has something very valuable to offer to the conversation.
I tend to minimize what happened to me as a child, I think most of us who were bullied do this in order to survive, but I have come to believe that we are doing our children a disservice by continuing to edit our stories now that we have made it through to the other side.
I was SIX when it started. I look at photographs of that little girl and I realize now that the words that were thrown at her had no bearing in reality. But when you're six and your peers are telling you that you're fat, you're going to believe them. And I did. I remember vividly being taunted and I recall at least one physical assault, the other girl grabbing me by the collar and skirttail of my brownie uniform and throwing me bodily across the playground.
I am fairly sure that was when I came home and told my mother I wanted to do weight watchers for the first time. I was SIX. I remember choking down a required weekly meal of liver and trying desperately not to throw it back up, so badly did I want to be "normal". I was SIX. Decades of yo-yo dieting and disordered eating find their origins in that year. I was SIX. Six year old should not be counting slices of bread and servings of fruit for anything other than math problems.
It ebbed and flowed, getting better some years and far worse others. I had a bit of a reprieve with a change of schools in 4th through 6th grade but in seventh grade in our small rural county all the elementary schools merged into the single middle school and my old tormentors were right there waiting for me to arrive. I remember laughing to keep from crying when my nicknames in band included such things as "Two Ton Terri with the No Ton Tits" (nothing like being both overweight AND flat chested) which mercifully was often shortened to the initials TTTwiththeNTT so at least my peers outside the bandroom didn't know what that meant. Until now.
I am done laughing. Those words hurt more than any of the boys who spoke them will ever know. Or perhaps they will. Some of them are on my friends list on facebook. If you find your way here know that even as I tell the world what you did to me, I forgive you. This is not about you. This is about speaking my truth to the world and hoping that it will prevent some other young girl from hating herself, some other young boy from deciding life is just not worth the pain.
It is hard to write this. Harder still to know that some of the worst, most hurtful things, took place at church. Yes even God's house was no escape. I will be forever grateful to Pastor James Lee who found me crying in the stairwell that day and who had the courage to share with me his own story of being a bullied child. Who told me I was beautiful and who held out the confident hope that somewhere out in my future there was a boy growing up to manhood who would see that beauty. Who told me that it did get better and who did so from a position of authority as one who had been there and survived to tell the tale.
To those of you who are in the trenches being bullied...it gets better. Life is NOT high school. Thank God! It gets better and life is worth hanging on for. Living well truly IS the best revenge.
I love my life. I love who I have become. I did find that man Jim Lee told me was out here waiting for me and he does find me beautiful. Yet even without that, I find me beautiful. I love me just the way a I am. I am a person of worth and value and I know that about myself now, despite the best efforts of the bullies in my life to convince me otherwise.
I'm no longer a huge fan of CCM but Hold Fast by Mercy Me is one of those songs that speaks to me. It reminds me of the reality that there IS HOPE. It Gets Better.
I'm inviting my readers and my co-authors to share their stories here. It is important that we speak our truth. It is critical that our children know that it DOES get better. Please. Your story may be the one that a hurting child needs to come across and identify with to gather the courage to face one more day.
If you have stumbled across this blog and you're living the hell of being bullied and are wondering if its worth it...there is help. Organizations like Cindy Lauper's True Colors Project and groups like the Trevor Project focus on GLBT youth while To Write Love On Her Arms exist to help anyone who is struggling with suicidal thoughts, addictions, cutting and so on.
You are a unique and unrepeatable miracle of God. Don't let the bullies convince you otherwise. There is life on the other side and it is worth it.
I tend to minimize what happened to me as a child, I think most of us who were bullied do this in order to survive, but I have come to believe that we are doing our children a disservice by continuing to edit our stories now that we have made it through to the other side.
I was SIX when it started. I look at photographs of that little girl and I realize now that the words that were thrown at her had no bearing in reality. But when you're six and your peers are telling you that you're fat, you're going to believe them. And I did. I remember vividly being taunted and I recall at least one physical assault, the other girl grabbing me by the collar and skirttail of my brownie uniform and throwing me bodily across the playground.
I am fairly sure that was when I came home and told my mother I wanted to do weight watchers for the first time. I was SIX. I remember choking down a required weekly meal of liver and trying desperately not to throw it back up, so badly did I want to be "normal". I was SIX. Decades of yo-yo dieting and disordered eating find their origins in that year. I was SIX. Six year old should not be counting slices of bread and servings of fruit for anything other than math problems.
It ebbed and flowed, getting better some years and far worse others. I had a bit of a reprieve with a change of schools in 4th through 6th grade but in seventh grade in our small rural county all the elementary schools merged into the single middle school and my old tormentors were right there waiting for me to arrive. I remember laughing to keep from crying when my nicknames in band included such things as "Two Ton Terri with the No Ton Tits" (nothing like being both overweight AND flat chested) which mercifully was often shortened to the initials TTTwiththeNTT so at least my peers outside the bandroom didn't know what that meant. Until now.
I am done laughing. Those words hurt more than any of the boys who spoke them will ever know. Or perhaps they will. Some of them are on my friends list on facebook. If you find your way here know that even as I tell the world what you did to me, I forgive you. This is not about you. This is about speaking my truth to the world and hoping that it will prevent some other young girl from hating herself, some other young boy from deciding life is just not worth the pain.
It is hard to write this. Harder still to know that some of the worst, most hurtful things, took place at church. Yes even God's house was no escape. I will be forever grateful to Pastor James Lee who found me crying in the stairwell that day and who had the courage to share with me his own story of being a bullied child. Who told me I was beautiful and who held out the confident hope that somewhere out in my future there was a boy growing up to manhood who would see that beauty. Who told me that it did get better and who did so from a position of authority as one who had been there and survived to tell the tale.
To those of you who are in the trenches being bullied...it gets better. Life is NOT high school. Thank God! It gets better and life is worth hanging on for. Living well truly IS the best revenge.
I love my life. I love who I have become. I did find that man Jim Lee told me was out here waiting for me and he does find me beautiful. Yet even without that, I find me beautiful. I love me just the way a I am. I am a person of worth and value and I know that about myself now, despite the best efforts of the bullies in my life to convince me otherwise.
I'm no longer a huge fan of CCM but Hold Fast by Mercy Me is one of those songs that speaks to me. It reminds me of the reality that there IS HOPE. It Gets Better.
I'm inviting my readers and my co-authors to share their stories here. It is important that we speak our truth. It is critical that our children know that it DOES get better. Please. Your story may be the one that a hurting child needs to come across and identify with to gather the courage to face one more day.
If you have stumbled across this blog and you're living the hell of being bullied and are wondering if its worth it...there is help. Organizations like Cindy Lauper's True Colors Project and groups like the Trevor Project focus on GLBT youth while To Write Love On Her Arms exist to help anyone who is struggling with suicidal thoughts, addictions, cutting and so on.
You are a unique and unrepeatable miracle of God. Don't let the bullies convince you otherwise. There is life on the other side and it is worth it.
Friday, October 1, 2010
How Many Before We Say "ENOUGH! "?
This week the news has been buzzing with accounts of the completed suicides of four gay or gay perceived teens. How many more of our children have to die like this before we stand up to our own prejudices and say ENOUGH!? The suicide rate among GLBT teens has long been known to be at least four times the rate among their straight counterparts but this fact has been not only dismissed but twisted by those with a right wing agenda to illustrate their belief that being suicidal is part and parcel of being GLBT. It is not. This is one place in the GLBT world where straight allies can make such a huge difference. Be supportive. Be willing to stand up when others use hateful, hurtful words and to step in when violence is being committed against ANYONE. Be willing to confront the bigotry and ignorance and in doing so bear the burdens of our GLBT brothers and sisters as Christ would have us to do.
And another thing...stop holding up the myth that being bullied builds character. I have heard this countless times in regards to homeschooling my daughter...that by doing so I am sheltering her from having to deal with the reality of bullies. Newsflash! Bullies exist outside the walls of brick and mortar schools. The mythology that surviving bullying is somehow uniquely character building is part of what enables this nonsense to continue. It completely negates the negative impact, the long term scars, that even "survivors" bear. It totally marginalizes the experience of these kids that are telling us, with their last desperate acts, that YES WORDS CAN HURT ME!
Bullying is NEVER ok. It is never a positive thing. That it has been allowed to be spun as such makes it particularly insidious when trying to have it taken seriously as a problem. Asher Brown's parents tried in vain to get help for their son. Seth Walsh transferred into independent study to escape it but the damage had been done. Billy Lucas was actually told by his bullies to "go hang himself" and was suspended for fighting back. The hate and hurtful words actually followed him beyond the grave when a memorial page set up in his memory was bombardedwith homophobic messages. These children and others like them who are being bullied about their weight, or their looks, or their IQ, or whatever their "differences" may be are suffering. They may be suffering in silence or their pleas for help may be falling on deaf ears that believe that bullying is just a normal childhood rite of passage and "kids will be kids". We MUST listen. We must hear what is being said and what is NOT being said and we MUST teach our children better than this.
We must start with our own beliefs and biases. We must make, in the words of AA, a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and be sure that the words our children a hurling at each other are not the ones they are hearing from their parents and their religious or political leaders. We must open our mouths when those role models say something horrific and not let that stand.
We must stop this.
Our CHILDREN are DYING.
ENOUGH!
And another thing...stop holding up the myth that being bullied builds character. I have heard this countless times in regards to homeschooling my daughter...that by doing so I am sheltering her from having to deal with the reality of bullies. Newsflash! Bullies exist outside the walls of brick and mortar schools. The mythology that surviving bullying is somehow uniquely character building is part of what enables this nonsense to continue. It completely negates the negative impact, the long term scars, that even "survivors" bear. It totally marginalizes the experience of these kids that are telling us, with their last desperate acts, that YES WORDS CAN HURT ME!
Bullying is NEVER ok. It is never a positive thing. That it has been allowed to be spun as such makes it particularly insidious when trying to have it taken seriously as a problem. Asher Brown's parents tried in vain to get help for their son. Seth Walsh transferred into independent study to escape it but the damage had been done. Billy Lucas was actually told by his bullies to "go hang himself" and was suspended for fighting back. The hate and hurtful words actually followed him beyond the grave when a memorial page set up in his memory was bombardedwith homophobic messages. These children and others like them who are being bullied about their weight, or their looks, or their IQ, or whatever their "differences" may be are suffering. They may be suffering in silence or their pleas for help may be falling on deaf ears that believe that bullying is just a normal childhood rite of passage and "kids will be kids". We MUST listen. We must hear what is being said and what is NOT being said and we MUST teach our children better than this.
We must start with our own beliefs and biases. We must make, in the words of AA, a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and be sure that the words our children a hurling at each other are not the ones they are hearing from their parents and their religious or political leaders. We must open our mouths when those role models say something horrific and not let that stand.
We must stop this.
Our CHILDREN are DYING.
ENOUGH!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Different Books, Common Word
Today I attended an event that I am sure I will be pondering for a long time to come. My new church, First Baptist Church - Memphis, hosted a screening of the documentary Different Books, Common Word followed by a panel discussion between our pastor and a Baptist laywoman who has lived 14 years in the Middle East and two local Imams. It was powerful. 250 Muslims and Christians gathered together in one room to explore our common beliefs and to try and begin to understand our differences. So many things about this event blew my paradigm to pieces.
I find myself pondering how much of my own ignorance about Islam is a result of an American patriotism that makes exploring/studying their holy scriptures somehow seem disloyal. After all I have read, without fear, The Book of Mormon, the Jewish scriptures in my own Bible (and some of the Talmud), the writings of Confucius, even bits of The Satanic Bible (authored by Anton LaVey) so what has kept me from exploring the Qur'an for myself if not a misplaced sense of American patriotism?
For most of my adulthood "the enemy" has been defined for me as "Islamic Terrorists" just as for most of my childhood "the enemy" was defined as "the Communists" and just as I did not explore the writings of Marx and Lenin until I was an adult and they were no longer the "script" for the things I had been taught to fear so I have not explored the Qur'an to see for myself what it says. I know a lot of things I have been told are in the Qur'an. I know a lot of things I have been lead to believe about Islam and the supposed desire of all devoted Muslims to see me convert or die. I don't know, for myself, whether any of what I have been told or taught is true.
One of the statements today that struck me and prompted this line of thinking was when one of the Imams in the video remarked something to the effect of he would not disrespect Christianity by attempting to speak to what the Bible says because it is not his holy book yet Christians feel free to speak what they believe the Qur'an to say even though it is not our holy book. I'm probably butchering the quote but the concept was that we feel very free to make claims about what Islam believes and teaches when we are not students of Islam and do not study the Qur'an...a book that even Muslims often have a tough time understanding.
Another comment that was made was about the rush to judgment that occurs when a terrorist attack happens. The example used was the Oklahoma City bombings where within moments of the attack a so called expert on terrorism made the claim on national television that it had all the hallmarks of "Islamic Terrorism"...and where the perpetrator was ultimately found to be a White American veteran who had received the Bronze Star during the first gulf war. A man who, prior to the bombings, would have been rightly regarded as "an American Hero".
I am sure that there will be more I will be processing here as I view the DVD again (I purchased it and would love to screen it with my churchkids over the Christmas break) for now though I am on a mission to read the Qur'an for myself and to find out what it really says and where our Different Books offer that Common Word.
I find myself pondering how much of my own ignorance about Islam is a result of an American patriotism that makes exploring/studying their holy scriptures somehow seem disloyal. After all I have read, without fear, The Book of Mormon, the Jewish scriptures in my own Bible (and some of the Talmud), the writings of Confucius, even bits of The Satanic Bible (authored by Anton LaVey) so what has kept me from exploring the Qur'an for myself if not a misplaced sense of American patriotism?
For most of my adulthood "the enemy" has been defined for me as "Islamic Terrorists" just as for most of my childhood "the enemy" was defined as "the Communists" and just as I did not explore the writings of Marx and Lenin until I was an adult and they were no longer the "script" for the things I had been taught to fear so I have not explored the Qur'an to see for myself what it says. I know a lot of things I have been told are in the Qur'an. I know a lot of things I have been lead to believe about Islam and the supposed desire of all devoted Muslims to see me convert or die. I don't know, for myself, whether any of what I have been told or taught is true.
One of the statements today that struck me and prompted this line of thinking was when one of the Imams in the video remarked something to the effect of he would not disrespect Christianity by attempting to speak to what the Bible says because it is not his holy book yet Christians feel free to speak what they believe the Qur'an to say even though it is not our holy book. I'm probably butchering the quote but the concept was that we feel very free to make claims about what Islam believes and teaches when we are not students of Islam and do not study the Qur'an...a book that even Muslims often have a tough time understanding.
Another comment that was made was about the rush to judgment that occurs when a terrorist attack happens. The example used was the Oklahoma City bombings where within moments of the attack a so called expert on terrorism made the claim on national television that it had all the hallmarks of "Islamic Terrorism"...and where the perpetrator was ultimately found to be a White American veteran who had received the Bronze Star during the first gulf war. A man who, prior to the bombings, would have been rightly regarded as "an American Hero".
I am sure that there will be more I will be processing here as I view the DVD again (I purchased it and would love to screen it with my churchkids over the Christmas break) for now though I am on a mission to read the Qur'an for myself and to find out what it really says and where our Different Books offer that Common Word.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Mere Churchianity
If you've ever contemplated leaving the churchthis bookis one you need to read. The late Michael Spencer author of the amazing blog internet monk wrote it just before he found out he had the cancer that took him from this life. There is an excerpt here that I hope will whet your appetite for more. The first chapter, titled the Dairy Queen Incident will resonate with any number of us who have done youth ministry or have been one of those youth ministry kids.
I remain within the institutional church for reasons even I don't fully understand. The church has been the source of both the greatest pain in my life and of the greatest healing and hope in my life. Like a dysfunctional family we bumble along hurting the ones we love the most. Sometimes I think the safest thing to do would be to opt out altogether. I know that my closest friends, at least those that aren't themselves enmeshed in the institutional church, have wondered at times why I stayed. Why I stay. The highest compliment my best friend could pay to a church is the one he paid to the one I am currently attending, when he told me "they can keep you." This after several years of begging me to leave my abusive previous church. And my current church gets much more of it "right" than my previous church did but I know all to well, being the religious mutt that I am, that no church is ever going to have it all right. I've been kicked out of or fled from a pretty good cross section of the mainline protestant ones. In my 42 years on this earth I've been Southern Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ, back to Southern Baptist (different church), back to Methodist (same church as the first run through Methodism), and now Baptist (progressive not Southern) again. I've also worshiped with the Pentacostal church, the Catholic church, the Episcopal church, the Presbyterian church and several flavors of non-denominational churches none of which I elected to actually place membership with.
That's an interesting process that whole placing membership thing. Sometimes when I check my mailbox I feel like a religious bigamist. Apparently it is far easier to join a church than it is to LEAVE a church. I find myself simultaneously, despite notifying each one as I moved on, a member of four churches all of which send me mail. Actually the Church of Christ sends their mail addressed not to me but rather to my husband and daughter, I apparently was excommunicated at some point after her birth and despite their insistence on baptism in THEIR denomination for membership she seems to have been made a member in my place. Its quite amusing if it weren't so annoying. The Baptist Megachurch that we were members of after leaving that Church of Christ seems not to know that we left and indeed we probably confuse them by the fact that we make use of their homeschool ministry offering for enrichment classes for my daughter and we use their wonderful health club, excuse me recreation ministry, when the mood strikes us. The Methodist church that we were most recently members of has persisted in keeping me on their mailing lists since I originally joined there in 1989, through our family tenure in both the Church of Christ and the Baptist Megachurch. I guess those membership vows are like wedding vows but who do I contact to let the church know that I want a divorce? For now we rest among an amazing congregation of progressive Baptists. We are learning who our new family members are and going through the honeymoon stage of a new church relationship. Like an abused wife in a subsequent marriage I still wait for the veil to fall away and the dark side to show itself. Thus far though they have been amazing.
All that to say I see the flaws in the institutional church but I choose to be there anyway. When I was struggling my hardest, having left the church without actually LEAVING the church, I found Internet Monk and Michael Spencer. It was like water in the desert. I wasn't crazy. I wasn't alone in seeing that the emperor had no clothes. I wasn't by myself in my frustration with how different the church looked, particularly the large mega churches I moved within, from the Jesus I saw in the bible. I wasn't the only one who couldn't understand how we could care so much about who was sleeping with whom and so little about who was sleeping on the streets because they were homeless. I wasn't the only one who wondered how a quarter of a million dollars in new carpet for the sanctuary held priority over helping a fledgling church inside communist China. If you're one of those people who is bothered by this sort of thing Mere Churchianity is one you need to read. And when you do, come tell us about your reaction to it. I'll be writing more on the subject I'm sure.
I remain within the institutional church for reasons even I don't fully understand. The church has been the source of both the greatest pain in my life and of the greatest healing and hope in my life. Like a dysfunctional family we bumble along hurting the ones we love the most. Sometimes I think the safest thing to do would be to opt out altogether. I know that my closest friends, at least those that aren't themselves enmeshed in the institutional church, have wondered at times why I stayed. Why I stay. The highest compliment my best friend could pay to a church is the one he paid to the one I am currently attending, when he told me "they can keep you." This after several years of begging me to leave my abusive previous church. And my current church gets much more of it "right" than my previous church did but I know all to well, being the religious mutt that I am, that no church is ever going to have it all right. I've been kicked out of or fled from a pretty good cross section of the mainline protestant ones. In my 42 years on this earth I've been Southern Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ, back to Southern Baptist (different church), back to Methodist (same church as the first run through Methodism), and now Baptist (progressive not Southern) again. I've also worshiped with the Pentacostal church, the Catholic church, the Episcopal church, the Presbyterian church and several flavors of non-denominational churches none of which I elected to actually place membership with.
That's an interesting process that whole placing membership thing. Sometimes when I check my mailbox I feel like a religious bigamist. Apparently it is far easier to join a church than it is to LEAVE a church. I find myself simultaneously, despite notifying each one as I moved on, a member of four churches all of which send me mail. Actually the Church of Christ sends their mail addressed not to me but rather to my husband and daughter, I apparently was excommunicated at some point after her birth and despite their insistence on baptism in THEIR denomination for membership she seems to have been made a member in my place. Its quite amusing if it weren't so annoying. The Baptist Megachurch that we were members of after leaving that Church of Christ seems not to know that we left and indeed we probably confuse them by the fact that we make use of their homeschool ministry offering for enrichment classes for my daughter and we use their wonderful health club, excuse me recreation ministry, when the mood strikes us. The Methodist church that we were most recently members of has persisted in keeping me on their mailing lists since I originally joined there in 1989, through our family tenure in both the Church of Christ and the Baptist Megachurch. I guess those membership vows are like wedding vows but who do I contact to let the church know that I want a divorce? For now we rest among an amazing congregation of progressive Baptists. We are learning who our new family members are and going through the honeymoon stage of a new church relationship. Like an abused wife in a subsequent marriage I still wait for the veil to fall away and the dark side to show itself. Thus far though they have been amazing.
All that to say I see the flaws in the institutional church but I choose to be there anyway. When I was struggling my hardest, having left the church without actually LEAVING the church, I found Internet Monk and Michael Spencer. It was like water in the desert. I wasn't crazy. I wasn't alone in seeing that the emperor had no clothes. I wasn't by myself in my frustration with how different the church looked, particularly the large mega churches I moved within, from the Jesus I saw in the bible. I wasn't the only one who couldn't understand how we could care so much about who was sleeping with whom and so little about who was sleeping on the streets because they were homeless. I wasn't the only one who wondered how a quarter of a million dollars in new carpet for the sanctuary held priority over helping a fledgling church inside communist China. If you're one of those people who is bothered by this sort of thing Mere Churchianity is one you need to read. And when you do, come tell us about your reaction to it. I'll be writing more on the subject I'm sure.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Bitterness?
I read my own posts and I wonder, "Am I becoming bitter"? It is a danger I must guard against because I know from experience it will only end up eating me alive. I believe, at this stage in the grieving/detoxing process that what is driving me to continue to rant about what happened to me and to others at the church we left is not bitterness but frustration at justice denied. Yes, at some point I will have to let it go for my own emotional and spiritual well-being but I suppose right now I still hold out some shred of hope that the right people will hear my lament and will yet insist that justice demands a different response than the one we have seen thus far. Occasionally I ponder what that response would look like.
The person who defamed my character and had it dismissed as a "mis-communication" would be man enough to acknowledge that he handled it poorly and would at least offer an apology. Too little too late? Yes. But there is something to be said for an honest effort at trying to make amends.
The church would acknowledge that their handling of the situation involving the worship band member was inadequate and wrong and would take steps to re-train their administration in POK policy and the rules of mandated reporting. The ban against this person serving in youth work again would be for life. The church would apologize to the victim for the horrible response of their senior pastor at the time to her letter of concern and would provide details of what had been done thus far regarding counseling and disciplinary action rather than hiding behind "confidentiality". They would provide whatever assurances she needed to feel that other young women would be kept safe from his predatory behavior.
I really don't think that is too much to ask. Is it?
The person who defamed my character and had it dismissed as a "mis-communication" would be man enough to acknowledge that he handled it poorly and would at least offer an apology. Too little too late? Yes. But there is something to be said for an honest effort at trying to make amends.
The church would acknowledge that their handling of the situation involving the worship band member was inadequate and wrong and would take steps to re-train their administration in POK policy and the rules of mandated reporting. The ban against this person serving in youth work again would be for life. The church would apologize to the victim for the horrible response of their senior pastor at the time to her letter of concern and would provide details of what had been done thus far regarding counseling and disciplinary action rather than hiding behind "confidentiality". They would provide whatever assurances she needed to feel that other young women would be kept safe from his predatory behavior.
I really don't think that is too much to ask. Is it?
Thursday, August 12, 2010
The Church's Response to Criticism and Why We Won't Police Ourselves
I had a blog comment of mine deleted by the administrator of the blog, not a problem that's his right I moderate comments here myself but I strongly suspect due to the nature of the comment and the fact that his blog is linked to the website of the church through which he is employed that my comment was deleted because it was critical of the way that church does things. It got me to thinking about how the Church responds to criticism and how that ties into our seeming inability to police ourselves as an organization. When people like Anne Rice (and others, myself included most days) feel the need to distance themselves from the title Christian in order to avoid being associated with the abuses and excesses of the institutional church perhaps there is a call being sounded to the Church that it is time to take an objective look at itself and evaluate the message it is sending to the world by the things it seems to value. And by how it handles, or avoids handling, criticism.
In the specific case I am thinking of the issue is one of the role/purpose of "worship" (which in this case is defined as music/media/technical production) and I commented on the danger of viewing worship as performance. I will freely admit that my views are colored by a decade of watching the worship in this particular church devolve from something led of the spirit and participatory into a slick, over produced performance that chewed up and spit out anyone who wasn't sufficiently perfect in the execution of their gifts of service. At least one of my co-authors here is intimately aware of what a refer to, although she never experienced it before it became theater rather than worship. I brought the point to the table that worship is harmed by a performance mentality and I gave specific examples, including the habit of certain children's choir directors to instruct the children to "perform well for mom and dad" rather than to exhort them that they were being given the task of helping lead the congregation into worship. I also mentioned the destruction of the technical support ministry and its impact on the youth who were involved. Very few of whom attend church anywhere anymore largely because of that very situation. The response? Delete the comment and pretend it wasn't said. Typical.
This is how the church too often responds to criticism. By ignoring it. It is actually somewhat preferable to the other way the church to often responds to criticism which is by going on the attack. Both responses are unhealthy and un-Biblical. In this case the impact of this lack of healthy responses is minor. The damage has already been done and if performance based worship is what they are trying to achieve then they need different people in place to make that happen. People who don't believe that worship isn't theater. The bigger problem comes in the fact that this is how all issues seem to be dealt with inside this particular organization. Ignore it and maybe it will go away.
When the issue is inappropriate behavior with a minor that is a completely unacceptable tactic to take. Yet I witnessed it happen. I believe it is the emphasis of this church on the performance that enabled them to put the perpetrator back into leadership in the worship band after just six weeks of counseling. They needed him for the performance to be as polished as the audience had come to expect. When excellence in performance becomes the standard it is easy to overlook all kinds of things. I recall a long time soloist in that same congregation that everyone knew was living with a man she was not married to but who was called upon anyway every time they needed her voice. It can be argued what behaviors constitute serious enough issues to preclude someone for leading in worship but I think we all have to agree that both open adultery and inappropriate behavior with a minor would be on the list somewhere. At least all of us who live in the real world can.
The church that refuses to hear criticism removes itself from any obligation to deal with the wolves in sheep's clothing that lurk wherever any flock of believers gather. This church is a mild example of the phenomenon that produces things like Ted Haggard and the Catholic Priest scandals. I cannot believe that there was not someone who was seeing what was happening. Someone who was crying out the warning and being dismissed or ignored. We are so concerned about not "tarnishing the image of the church" that we completely ignore and discount the pain of the victims of the things we sweep under the rug.
Witness the response of the church in dealing with predators in their midst. In my experience the first priority is cover it up. If that is unsuccessful then send the predator off to counseling (or set him up in an accountability group) but do nothing for the victim. Do nothing that could imply that the church is liable in any way. When confronted by the victim hide behind confidentiality rules. When questioned by the victim about his brief "treatment" and lack of real consequences blow her off and/or guilt her into believing she is being "unforgiving". Then wonder why the world looks at the church and sees nothing worth wanting to be a part of, nothing worth desiring to emulate.
The church needs to wake up and HEAR the voices, from within and from without, that are crying for justice and for reform. The habit of dismissing critics or worse going on the offensive is serving no one. Least of all the church herself.
In the specific case I am thinking of the issue is one of the role/purpose of "worship" (which in this case is defined as music/media/technical production) and I commented on the danger of viewing worship as performance. I will freely admit that my views are colored by a decade of watching the worship in this particular church devolve from something led of the spirit and participatory into a slick, over produced performance that chewed up and spit out anyone who wasn't sufficiently perfect in the execution of their gifts of service. At least one of my co-authors here is intimately aware of what a refer to, although she never experienced it before it became theater rather than worship. I brought the point to the table that worship is harmed by a performance mentality and I gave specific examples, including the habit of certain children's choir directors to instruct the children to "perform well for mom and dad" rather than to exhort them that they were being given the task of helping lead the congregation into worship. I also mentioned the destruction of the technical support ministry and its impact on the youth who were involved. Very few of whom attend church anywhere anymore largely because of that very situation. The response? Delete the comment and pretend it wasn't said. Typical.
This is how the church too often responds to criticism. By ignoring it. It is actually somewhat preferable to the other way the church to often responds to criticism which is by going on the attack. Both responses are unhealthy and un-Biblical. In this case the impact of this lack of healthy responses is minor. The damage has already been done and if performance based worship is what they are trying to achieve then they need different people in place to make that happen. People who don't believe that worship isn't theater. The bigger problem comes in the fact that this is how all issues seem to be dealt with inside this particular organization. Ignore it and maybe it will go away.
When the issue is inappropriate behavior with a minor that is a completely unacceptable tactic to take. Yet I witnessed it happen. I believe it is the emphasis of this church on the performance that enabled them to put the perpetrator back into leadership in the worship band after just six weeks of counseling. They needed him for the performance to be as polished as the audience had come to expect. When excellence in performance becomes the standard it is easy to overlook all kinds of things. I recall a long time soloist in that same congregation that everyone knew was living with a man she was not married to but who was called upon anyway every time they needed her voice. It can be argued what behaviors constitute serious enough issues to preclude someone for leading in worship but I think we all have to agree that both open adultery and inappropriate behavior with a minor would be on the list somewhere. At least all of us who live in the real world can.
The church that refuses to hear criticism removes itself from any obligation to deal with the wolves in sheep's clothing that lurk wherever any flock of believers gather. This church is a mild example of the phenomenon that produces things like Ted Haggard and the Catholic Priest scandals. I cannot believe that there was not someone who was seeing what was happening. Someone who was crying out the warning and being dismissed or ignored. We are so concerned about not "tarnishing the image of the church" that we completely ignore and discount the pain of the victims of the things we sweep under the rug.
Witness the response of the church in dealing with predators in their midst. In my experience the first priority is cover it up. If that is unsuccessful then send the predator off to counseling (or set him up in an accountability group) but do nothing for the victim. Do nothing that could imply that the church is liable in any way. When confronted by the victim hide behind confidentiality rules. When questioned by the victim about his brief "treatment" and lack of real consequences blow her off and/or guilt her into believing she is being "unforgiving". Then wonder why the world looks at the church and sees nothing worth wanting to be a part of, nothing worth desiring to emulate.
The church needs to wake up and HEAR the voices, from within and from without, that are crying for justice and for reform. The habit of dismissing critics or worse going on the offensive is serving no one. Least of all the church herself.
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