What Can the Church do for Me?

This Saturday while I was doing my duty of attending our denominational conference meeting, I had the privilege of sitting with an amazing group of women during our lunch break and the conversation become one that had me laughing with joy, in tears of grief, and contemplating over and over in my head what is going on in our world today.

I was blessed to sit with a 15 year old, a 17 year old, and two women whom for my sake will not be revealing their age but are wise, and happen to lead the youth program at the girls church. We started our conversation because the younger of the girls was concerned with the ever growing violence she is witnessing in her community. They all were wondering how the church could help curb the violence that was going on amidst the young children in their community. As we talked through this one of the ladies asked, "What do I say to these kids, and young adults, who ask what can the church do for me, why should I come to the church?"

I'm sure many of you have heard these questions before, I'm sure many of you have asked yourself the same question. Well I think I finally have the answer. The church can remind us what it means to be in community with one another. What community looks like. That there is more important things in this world then "me". We live in a world were we are more concerned about ourselves then anyone or anything else. We live in a world where when, we want it, we want it now, and exactly how we want it.

Here's the catch though, and I hope you're listening. My ministry friends keep and open mind...

The catch is that we (as church leaders and ministry workers) have to stop worrying about butts in the pews, and numbers on a page. The catch is we have to stop worrying about growing the church. I know this is scary. I've worked in a church for 12 years. I know what I'm saying can scare many of you. But it is time for us to be more concerned about what is killing our communities, we have to be more concerned about what is happening to our kids in our communities to our adults who are allowing our young people in distress to slip through the cracks.

The church, ladies and gentlemen is not about physical growth!!!!!!!!!! It is not about putting butts in the seats!!!!!

The church, is about religious and spiritual growth, it is about bringing all of us into community with God and with Christ. And we are failing!

That is why the church is dying!!

We are more concerned about putting butts in the seats, then we are with fixing our broken communities.

Through out my life I've had experience with restorative justice, I'm currently learning more about it in a class I'm taking along with divine justice. I believe that divine justice has a lot to do with restorative justice. God wants us to be in community to restore and heal our communities.

On the backs of our 87th school shooting in a year in half we sit and wonder why are our kids killing each other. Our young white males are shooting up the schools, our young black males our killing each other in the streets. Our young females are bullying each other the extant that most have contemplated suicide and some have even taking their own lives. Our young females are getting pregnant or getting in relationships that are abusive and detrimental to their health. We sit and wonder what happened to our kids? Well we have forgotten about restoring our communities. We are so concerned with our selves and seeing whose church is bigger that we have forgotten how to be in community, and because of this we are loosing an entire generation of kids. Kids who are raising themselves and maybe if they are lucky with the help of a few courageous men and women who are trying to make a difference. But we all know that while they may help one or two they can't do it on their own.

The church as we know it is changing!! And thats ok! We as a church have to remember what Christ called us to do. Jesus didn't care about potluck dinners (though I'm sure he loved eating them), Jesus wasn't counting the crowd to see how much attendance had grown in the past 3 months. Jesus and his disciples were eating with prostitutes, tax collectors, and lepers. He tried to heal a very broken community.

Our community is very broken!!! It is time we remind people what the church can do for them, and that is remind them of the community they are trying desperately to have and they don't even know it.

Kids These Days

       So I was at Panera today trying to get some work done. Our internet and network are down at work and I had a meeting before I could go home so I thought why not Panera. When I get there and sit down with my Coffee Crumble Cake and drink I notice these three young men sitting at the table across from me. Two of them had computers and headphones in their ears and the other one had the cell phone in their hand. They sat like this for about 45 minutes before, I guess it was pick up time; when they put their computers away and got out their phones until someone came to get them. Normally I would keep my mouth shut and not say anything about nothing but its becoming more and more alarming to me the rate at which teens, kids, and even myself and other adults have embedded technology into their lives. I sit here at Panera writing this because a virus has held our office at a stand still, and I wonder back to the days when technology was a luxury and not a necessity. I'm 30 now so I'm allowed to use, "when I was a kid", so here goes when I was a kid children behaved in restaurants without technology, teenagers socialized at malls and restaurants by talking to each other.
   
      I know I'm a hypocrite as I sit here typing this, I am in front of my computer with headphones in my ears blocking out the world around me, and I have to ask the question when did this become ok? Why does a five year old need an iPhone? Why are parents so worried about getting their two year old their own iPad or laptop? I had one parent friend of mine tell me they were grateful for the iPad because other wise they could never take their 2 and 4 year old out to dinner. Really???????? Am I insane? Is it because I don't have kids of my own that I can't understand why its ok to give their one year old their phone because they are screaming? I sit and here and know that when the day comes that I have children of my own I will be in a heap of trouble because I too am addicted to my phone and iPad and computer and TV. Please know that I'm not saying I'm perfect in fact, I know I'm part of the problem. But I have to ask how is this truly affecting the next generation? Will they know how to truly develop relationships, will they be able to have good meaningful conversations with each with out emoticons? I know how I sound, believe it or not I work with kids on a weekly basis, I plan events and activities for them on a daily basis, I'm in their world, I'm not some old crotchety 30 year old and I love technology, I think for the most part it is a wonderful and useful tool to stay connected to the wider world but when does it become to much? When do we finally say a child will be fine if they don't have access to major electronics until they are old enough to read or need them for school?

A Daughter's Redemption

Prologue

I’m torn from my sleep I can’t catch my breath; my screams muffled by my pillow; I wipe the tears from eyes. The sweat has soaked through the sheets. “It was just a dream”, I tell myself, “just a bad dream”. I can’t believe it. I’m 18 years old and still having nightmares that have me screaming for my mommy. This is getting old. This is the 3^rd time this week. I seriously need to get a grip. As I wipe the sweat and tears from my face something keeps nagging at me. “It was just a dream, wasn’t it?” A little voice telling me it wasn’t just a dream came to life in my head, I shake the thought away, “of course it was just a dream”. I try to go back to sleep but I can’t, not until I’m sure. I slowly crawl out of my bed open the door and make my way down the hall to their bedroom. This seems familiar too, have I done this before? I repeat my mantra over and over again, “it was just a dream, just a dream…” As I open the door a rush of relief comes over me there’s my mom she’s asleep and there’s my… “Wait, where is he?” “It was suppose to be a dream, why isn’t he here”? As I stumble back to my room the memories of the last 18 years floods my mind like a tidal wave destroying everything in its path, all the hope gone. I remember now, it wasn’t just a dream. It’s real. This is my life. He’s gone, he’s gone and he’s never coming back. All the pain, all of the heartache comes rushing back as well. As I collapse on my bed I realize this isn’t the first time my sub conscience has played this evil trick on me and it won’t be the last. I cringe with that thought. When will it end? When will the pain finally go away? I’m cold all of a sudden; as I crawl back under the covers I close my eyes and begin to dream again.

Chapter 1

7 Years Later:

            I still relive those days over and over again in my dreams. Seven years later, and I can still see my father laying dead in a hospice bed only half the man he used to be. A full white beard, and because of steroids and dialysis he is bloated to the point he kind of resembled Santa Claus. Only there was no joy in his eyes, only death. I awake from these dreams crying, crying because they always end the same, he dies and I can never tell him the truth. I continue to run away ashamed of who he is, of who I am, my dreams mimicking reality. I’ve heard it said that dreams are away your subconscious speaks to you about your deepest desires or about an unresolved issue that you are struggling with. Dreams are a funny thing. You can day dream, dream while you’re asleep, and worst of all, you can have nightmares. For me my day dreams often have me longing for a life you only see on television dreaming of a better life with a “normal” family where everything works out just the way I want it to. I am different he is different. My dreams during sleep are often so weird one could only guess at their meaning. But my nightmares, whether during sleep or wide-awake my nightmares need no translation they are always the same. There is that feeling of dread, of being completely alone in a sea of people, of him lying there never knowing the truth. I left him alone abandon him at his time of need and now I’m reaping that which I have sowed.

******

I loved and hated my father for most of my life, but I guess that’s normal for fathers and daughters, that love-hate relationship. But we weren’t what most would call you’re typical father daughter pair. I would love nothing more than to sit here and tell you that I was daddy’s little girl, his princess, and his angel. But then that would be a lie and this would then be a work of fiction. I wish I could tell you that the good memories out weighed the bad, and maybe on a good day that would be true. To sit here and say that my father was a saint would be beyond the untruth it would be bordering on science fiction. But he was my father and for that reason alone I loved him with all my heart. It was that reason and that reason alone that I often tried and failed to write something different to make our relationship be something it wasn’t. So for a brief moment if only to be true to myself I will tell you about me, and my family, but mostly my dad; a man that changed my life more in his death then he could have ever thought of in life.

******

 My dad was 44 when I was born; I was his fifth and last child and his only daughter. His hopes and dreams for the legacy he would leave behind rested on my shoulders. He figured having screwed up so badly with my brothers, that I was his one last shot to do a good job. No pressure though, right? I felt the weight of his fears with every lash of the belt and every word he yelled. But being my father’s daughter I didn’t just sit down and take it. I would yell back twice as loud as he would, see I was blessed with two parents with very big mouths so mine was twice the size of theirs. Our matches would often end with me screaming go to hell or I wish you were dead, or I hate you! Words I wish now never left my mouth. But this defined our relationship for many years. My mother often the referee trying to get us to stop, say sorry, but me being the stubborn apple that fell from the preverbal stubborn tree was not easily done, she often found herself on the receiving end of my fits of rage, receiving the words of hatred that where aimed at my father but she would step in between us, having them land like fist on her heart. She would try to conceal her hurt but I saw it written all over her face; the fight in her eyes holding back the tears. I knew when to stop with my mom I knew my words affected her, my dad on the hand never flinched. When my words of hatred rolled from my lips I could never tell if he heard them or if he went deaf when I spoke. Maybe that’s why I felt the need to yell louder make him feel something. Love or hate as long as he would acknowledge me. But often times he just looked at me as if I was saying blah, blah, blah.

As hard as my father was for me to understand my mother was the complete opposite. I could read her like a book; she wore her emotions on her sleeves, this I often used to my advantage. I knew if I wanted to end a fight without getting in too much trouble all I had to do was threaten to run a way. This of course was an empty threat but it turned my mother’s fear into a possibility. I knew it would immediately turn her frustration away from me and on to my father. Her fear was that I would leave that I wouldn’t want a relationship with my parents that my father was going to push me so far away that she would lose me forever. I can recall hearing them fight over this problem. And when it was over my mother peaking her head in my room, “Twila, honey your father has something he wants to tell you, when you feel like coming out, come to the living room, ok I love you” As she would leave a smile would come across my face I was off the hook, I had won! I know this is horrible but I was a kid, what do you expect. It’s only now that I realize what my mom was really doing. She wanted us to stop fighting so we could see each other, love each other, have that relationship that we both craved but our hard heads would not allow this to happen.

For the most part I lived what most people saw as a fairly normal life. They saw the fact that I had a mother and father who loved me, a roof over my head, and nice clothes on my back, and said I was a lucky kid. And you know they are right relatively speaking I did have it good. But to me my life was far from normal, I would go as far as to say that there were times when I would even be willing to trade lives with my brothers, at least they had each other. Dad got to see them become men; he got to see their kids. They got a chance at redemption, where as for me I sit longing to make things right but knowing that I would never have that chance.  

From the time I could remember my father was always sick or always to tired to do anything but watch the news or sports, and I would long for him to play with me, take me to the park, or to pay attention to me some how. I myself would spend hours in front of the TV alone in my room with the door shut and sometimes even locked and being an only child of two older parents I was often befriended by these virtual friends inside this little box. It was there that I would see what I considered the model for truth. I would see these TV fathers and their relationship with their children and I would ache for that relationship; all the while missing opportune moments that I could have spent with my dad. Had I had the insight then that I do now about the reality of the television world maybe just maybe I would have spent more time with my Father creating our own special moments.

As bad as things were we did have our moments where things seemed right. My mind still wonders with the cool smell of fall. My parents and I lived across the river from a coffee factory and when the wind was right in the fall you could almost taste the coffee on your lips. And when I was little we would open the windows on cool days and let this wonderful air fill the house. On Sunday afternoons I would sometimes go in the living room being tired of a one way relationship with my virtual friends, I would come out and sit on the couch pretending even for a moment to be interested in whatever it was that my dad was watching on the TV. In the fall you can only guess what would be on then. That’s right “Are you ready for some Football”. It was there where I tried to learn the ends and outs of the game but it was there that I would more times then not fall asleep listening to the announcers and my father yelling at the top of his lungs trying to coach the team from the “home field” thinking that if he yelled loud enough that the team may actually hear him.

I know what you’re thinking how is that a great memory? I’d sleep and he’d yell, but it was one of those things that are just sensory connected. When the weather changes and Sunday comes around and a good wind comes by with the coffee smell attached to it, it takes me back to a time when I wasn’t so worried about what life would hold for me or my parents; a time when all I worried about was, “wondering if in fact he yelled loud enough would the players/coaches actually hear him?” I did however often wondered what my father thought about those times together? Did he enjoy me there or was it just another time that I bothered him? He would always seem agitated or not quite sure what to say to me, like I was interrupting his man time. I know I wasn’t the little girl him or my mother was expecting. I loved climbing in the trees with the other boys in the neighborhood. I loved Nintendo and playing in the dirt. My mom would have to fight me tooth and nail to put a dress on. Maybe that’s why my father and I didn’t get along. He already had four boys, he didn’t need a tomboy he wanted a little princess, and I was a far cry from that. 

Chapter 2

I remember the first time I realized that my dad wasn’t Superman that my father wasn’t going to live forever. It’s something one doesn’t easily forget, no matter how hard you try. I was eight years old and in the third grade. On a soccer field surrounded by a group of friends from church during a get to know you game the pastor asked us all to share our dreams and aspirations. The kids went first and most of the kids wanted to be movie stars, ball players. One boy wasn’t sure what he wanted to do but he knew he would rock doing it. When it came around to me I told the group I wanted to change the world. I wasn’t sure how or even really why I wanted to, I just knew that’s what I wanted. The parents got a turn as well I don’t remember their exact hopes and dreams but I would imagine they were typical for parents and their hopes and dreams for their kids. I was quite bored and really distracted by this time. I was never officially diagnosed but I’m pretty sure I had/have A.D.D. easily distracted by the smallest things; a butterfly flying by or a barking dog. But something drew me back. When my dad started talking I was brought back to reality, as he spoke I remember seeing something in my father that I had never seen before. There was fear and sorrow written all over my dad’s face. As the words came out I understood why. He said, “My dream is to walk Twila down the aisle and give her away at her wedding. To be able to see her children.” I remember the circle was quiet for what seemed like an eternity. As I looked at him I saw the tears beginning to well up in his eyes he bit his lower lip to keep the tears from spilling over. It was at that moment that I realized the likely hood of my father’s dream coming true was slim to none. I firmly believe it was this moment that changed my life; I no longer worried solely about childhood concerns. I was now faced with real adult worries. Like what’s going to happen to him? Is it possible that I could loose both my parents, and if so what would happen to me? It was because of this revelation from my father that caused so much inner turmoil with in me. A part of me wanted more than anything to make him proud do my best be the young lady that he begged me to be. But another part of me just wanted to be a kid. Not needing to worry about what it means because my dad is on having second angioplasty operation. I wanted to be a kid but because of everything that transpired after our time of sharing I was even more compelled to be a little adult to take on the world. It’s funny how things work out my mom used to say when I was an infant and toddler that I didn’t really look like a baby that I looked like a little person. I often wonder if it was my dad’s illness that caused our fights or if it was his illness that in the end brought us closer together.

Life in the Zone

Hi I'm Twila, I've named this Blog Life in the Zone for several reason, the first being as a kid Twilight Zone was often the name kids used to frustrate me and pick on me. I hated my name for the longest time because of it. I wanted desperately to have a "normal" name. As I got older I realized how wonderful having my name was and now celebrate the "Zone". The second reason is because even though my life is relatively boring I am definitely Zoned into a world that allows me to see people in the best and worst of their lives.
I've been working in ministry since I was born. No I'm not a PK but I've grown up in the church for better or worse it has shaped me and made me who I am. I feel that a part of me has always known I'd do something in ministry even though I fought it for quite some time, I thought I wanted to teach but quickly realized that, that was not my passion. I love kids, I've wanted to work with them and help them to make the world better since forever. Now at the age of 30 I've been a Christian Education Director, Children's Ministry director and now a Seminary student.
I would like to us this blog as a way to get my sermons out into the world as well as idea's for Children's ministry, and maybe the occasional rant and ramble on things that are happening out in the world.
I hope you enjoy.

Twila