Church Search

     Being new to a city brings a lot of details to work out.  Living arrangements, new jobs, doctors, where to shop, etc.  We have worked on all of that leading up to, and since our move to Albuquerque in early August.  God has really provided for our needs, and put us at a good place.  One thing has been difficult, though, and that is finding a church family to join.

     Some know (some do not) that I have struggled with anxiety since 1992, and more extremely since 1996.  It is something God has really given me a lot of victory in, but it has never completely gone away, and probably won't as long as I'm in this body of flesh.  It's a cross I take up daily and follow Jesus, surrendering it to Him for His help.  If you are unfamiliar with anxiety, it is similar to asthma.  An anxiety attack renders the person unable to get in air.  The difference is, it isn't a physical problem, but an emotional one that affects the physical.  Sometimes, it feels like the room in shrinking, and the person can feel dizzy.  There is a feeling of impending doom.  There are different things different people experience.  My worst years of anxiety were from 1996-2005.  In 2005, I went to a sixteen-week counseling at my cousin's church in Riverside, and it helped me develop some biblical habits that really helped me.  Then in 2014, I got involved in Celebrate Recovery, in Yucaipa, CA.  Through my friends and sponsor there, I got even greater healing.  It is a very biblical program for anyone with hurts, habits or hangups (so basically the whole human race).  It had been years since I had had a full-on anxiety attack.

     Having said all of that, we had visited a church here in Albuquerque that is large.  We are told it is the largest in the state of New Mexico, and one of the largest in the United States.  Simply because of the size, I wasn't totally gung-ho to attend.  I prefer a smaller church to plug into.  But I wanted to give it a fair try.  My husband really likes the pastor (he had him as a teaching in his School of Ministry years ago).  We visited it our second week here, and again this past Sunday and Wednesday night (We visited some others in-between).  

     The pastor is extremely biblical in his teaching.  I want to be clear on that.  I also want to be clear that the people we talked to there after services were extremely kind, showing Christ to us.  

     Beyond these positives, though, this church made us very uncomfortable.  I expected very modern worship, maybe songs I haven't heard before.  I expected people to be dressed very casually.  But what I hadn't counted on was the smoke and lights.  Multicolored lights shined all over the room, moving in no particular order, changing up now and then.  Smoke wafted all over, catching the lights at different places.  I had never seen this before.  I didn't even know this existed in churches.  On top of this, the music was at a very loud volume (the music wasn't my preference, but wasn't a deal-breaker in and of itself).  There was too much stimuli for me.  I felt totally consumed and pulled along against my will.  I felt manipulated by it.  I am not saying that this was the goal of anyone involved.  I have no idea what is in their hearts, but I want to assume that they were genuinely worshiping the Lord.  But, from my true heart, I couldn't find Jesus in this, and truly see no biblical or spiritual purpose in this.  To me, it just seems like trying to be "cool", but as I said, I don't know their motives, so I won't try to speculate.  

     Communion was also done very differently than I am accustomed to.  Very fast, no scriptures read, very little explanation of the elements.  In fact, the elements were in little plastic containers that looked like coffee creamers. I couldn't figure out how to open the thing, and communion had passed me by before I figured it out.  I was so frustrated.  Not in the right spirit for communion.  

     All this overwhelmed frustration threw me into a panic attack.  My lungs wouldn't take in air.  The room was shrinking.  The world was spinning.  I wasn't safe.  I was going to die.  Nothing made sense.  I was wrong.  Everyone who had ever hurt me was right.  

     A lot of this was a call-back to other times in my life when I have felt manipulated in church.  Those bad feelings came back over me as well.  It was darkness.  

     My husband was wonderful.  He spent the whole day with me.  He took me up to Santa Fe, and we had a wonderful time.  We prayed a lot.  He had loved the teaching, even though he disliked the crazy externals as much as I did.  He wanted to try their Wednesday evening, and see if it was less overwhelming.  I love my husband so much.  I didn't want my weakness to keep him from the teaching he loves.  He is the head of our family.  I want him to hear the word in a way that ministers to him.  On his part, though, I know he would never force me to go somewhere that hurt me.  I agreed to take it one day at a time.  We tried the Wednesday night.

     Again, the lights and smoke swirled around the room.  I determined I wouldn't have an anxiety attack.  I closed my eyes, but could still see the brightly colored lights through my eyelids.  I put my hands over, and I could still see it!  I didn't let myself panic, but I did feel dizzy and physically nauseous.  

     Walter said softly (and no one could possibly hear him, because the music was so loud it vibrated everything), "This is ridiculous!"  He got up and walked out into the aisle.  I didn't see where he went (no one could see anything with the lights).  I found out he went to the guy in the sound booth an said, "Look, I'm not here to cause trouble, but we need you to turn those lights down a little.  My wife is getting sick."  The guy (in his early 20's) got very rude and defensive, telling Walter he was disturbing people's worship (which couldn't have possibly been true, because it was so loud and bright, no one could possibly have heard them or seen them).  Walter again asked the man if he could tone it down at all.  The guy said that he was only doing what he was told.  Walter, trying to be polite, asked if he could talk to his superior then.  The guy panicked and called for security!  Walter never touched or threatened him!  The security came and kind of roughed Walter up, laying hands on him.  He told them again that he wasn't trying to cause trouble, but that his wife was getting dizzy and sick from the lights.  Their answer to this really offended both of us.

     "We have medical staff on hand, because people have seizures here because of it sometimes."  

     Why in the name of common sense would they continue to do something that has brought about medical problems?  That could make them liable if someone was really hurt or sick (or, God forbid, died). 

     One security guy looked at another and said, "I'll hold him here, you go examine his wife."

     Walter panicked at this point and jumped out of the man's grasp. "You will leave my wife alone!  She doesn't need you!"  

     They told Walter he could return to his seat or leave.  Walter came back to me.  I learned of what had transpired later.  He held me the rest of the service (we really wanted to see the actual study).  

     It was a very hurtful experience.  The whole week had been anxious and hurtful.  We aren't part of a local fellowship yet, and needed support as we got over the trauma of what we had experienced.  Perhaps this wasn't wise, but we both shared our experience on Facebook.  Facebook can be a two-edged sword.  Our privacy settings are such that only our friends can see it.  We felt freedom to share with people we consider our friends.  We needed support from them.  We also viewed it as the same as rating a restaurant or other business online.  People do it all the time.  It gives others an idea of what to expect if they go to that business.  We were not unkind in our assessments.  We didn't condemn the people or the pastor.  We shared our experience and opinions about it.  

     Most people were kind and supportive, but two women (relatives, in fact) were extremely cruel to us.  They said some very mean-spirited and even hateful things to us.  One of our friends completely defended us (that was a means of God's grace).  Unfortunately, this gave them more opportunity to say mean things about us.  They mocked us and then had the gall to accuse us of "judging" (everyone's favorite accusation nowadays that literally means less than nothing anymore).  Our friend was very firm, and told them they were the ones being judgmental.  One of these relatives cut us off.  The other just kept saying mean things.  I can't imagine why they decided we were wrong and that church was right, when they don't even know that church at all, and weren't there to experience it.  Why err on the side of someone you don't even know over someone you're supposed to love?  I didn't even read all their hurtful comments, because I don't deserve that.  I am valuable, and don't deserve abuse like that.  They were out of line, and it prolonged the pain the whole experience gave us.  We cast our pearls before swine in sharing, and we both took our posts down.  Our goal wasn't to make that church look bad.  It was to share our experiences and get very needed support from friends.  

     It has been a hard week, but I am so thankful for God's grace.  I have a wonderful, loving husband who stuck by me, and I stuck by him.  We are even closer as a result of this madness.  I am also thankful for my Christian friends who did support us, especially our friend Steve who defended us against cruel attacks.  I am thankful for a Christian coworker I have.  Her husband is a pastor, and they are actually between churches at the moment.  I was able to confide, and she was extremely loving and supportive, giving a lot of great insight.  I am thankful for my friend Denise, another pastor's wife.  She lives in CA.  She sent me an email about a church near us  that is the same affiliation that her husband pastors.  It is one we will definitely consider trying out.  I am thankful for all else going so well in our lives (work, Walter's school, etc.).  I am thankful for God speaking to me in His word.  I am in First Kings, one of my favorite books of the Old Testament.  I am thankful for Christian music that has ministered to me this week.  God didn't let us down.  We are planning to attend a smaller church tomorrow.  God is in it, and He will lead us to the right church.  

The More the Merrier...Maybe

     I am currently teaching preschool.  In my career over the years, I have worked with students aged two through high school.  Right now, I am dealing with a clique problem in the three-year-old class I teach.  Believe it or not, this is a boy clique.  Three adorable three-year-old boys are excluding a fourth.  One of these boys is the center of the clique.  He controls the other two, and they do his bidding.  On their own, these two are nice.  Yesterday, I had finally had it.  I broke up their little group and sent them all different directions.  The two followers quickly found other children to play with.  The ringleader just walked around, wide-eyed, almost in shock.  He just paced nervously until it was time for the next activity.  Several times, he was encouraged to engage in play with others, but he was in too much shock without his power base.

     This has reminded me of my long-standing commitment to making any class I teach a safe place for every student.  I don't mean that in the way many people mean "safe" nowadays. I don't mean everyone is entitled to be agreed with or catered to.  But what I do mean is that everyone should come in, be acknowledged for who they are, be encouraged for what they contribute, and treated respectfully by others, given the chance to make lasting friendships (whether they do or not is their responsibility).

     The biggest threat to this safe environment is cliques.  Just to clarify, a clique is not the same as a group of friends with similar interests.  Cliques are controlling and insecure, usually held together for the purposes of power.  Hurting and excluding others is a major thing for cliques.  They are more common with girls, but exist with boys too (as evidenced by the little boy clique in our classroom right now).  

     I just had a valuable discussion with two others on Facebook about cliques.  One person agreed with me about how damaging they are, and the need to separate them.  The other person said that, rather than be split up, they need reminders to include others.  As the discussion went on, though, it turned out this person was really using the term "clique" to just mean a group of close friends within a larger group.  By that definition, I agree with him.  Groups of friends may need an occasional reminder to include others, but they aren't usually attempting to exclude.  They are held together by mutual respect and common interests, as opposed to cliques being held together by power and insecurity.  Friendship is completely natural and to be expected.  I have people I'm closer with than others at work, church, etc.  Jesus had his twelve closest friends, and within that, he had his three he was even closer with.  They certainly weren't a clique.  When I talk about cliques, I'm talking about mean cliques, not simply close groups of friends.  Just so we're clear on what I mean...

     I feel that God has given me this passion to eradicate cliques wherever I encounter them.  We all have a calling, and I feel this is mine.  It isn't just best for other people the clique is hurting.  It is best for the members of the clique.  They're heading down a damaging road, and taking their power away can put them at the place where they're able to make needed changes in their lives.  

     I believe this is a spiritual battle.  It is met with resistance at times.  A while back, I was a junior high teacher.  I taught a Bible class for a group of home-schooled kids.  I did this for a few years.  They were mostly very sweet kids.  One girl in the group, though, was a problem.  I'll call her Amanda (not her real name).  Amanda would act embarrassingly shy.  The first day of class, I had everyone go around the room and introduce themselves.  This went well until it got to Amanda.  She just covered her face.  Her mother happened to be there, and she exclaimed.  "My poor shy little girl!" and hugged her, adding to the awkward situation.  Several of the kids who hadn't known Amanda before looked confused and embarrassed.  What Amanda did was a lot more attention-getting than simply saying her name and letting us move on.  She basically hijacked the class for several minutes.  She was way too old for this, and her mother totally fed into it.  Most shy students I have encountered are quiet when I first meet them, then slowly warm up over time.  They generally don't say or do things to bring attention to themselves.  Amanda did not fit any other experience I had of "shy".  She was playing a game to get attention.  

     Amanda had a friend in the group.  I'll call her Susan.  Susan was actually a very sweet girl, but more of a follower.  Not a pushover, but just not a control freak.  Amanda latched onto her, and Susan didn't seem to know how to deal with it.  Susan was a bit of an introvert herself, and Amanda's mom thought this was wonderful.  She would always tell me how the two girls were exactly the same.  As I got to know them, I found that I disagreed.  Susan didn't act shy in ways that brought awkward attention.  She was simply "go with the flow".  I'll return to this.

     We had two students in that class who really stood out to me.  They were twins, a brother and sister.  I'll call them Mark and Becky.  They were kind, smart, and friendly to everyone.  They had a confidence in who they were, and didn't need other people to make them happy.  Like all of us, though, they wanted friendships.  I personally bonded with these two, and loved the way they reached out to everyone, treating everyone in the group as a friend.  Everyone liked them...except Amanda.

     Amanda retreated from Becky.  When Becky would reach out and talk to her, she wouldn't answer.  She clung more tightly than ever to Susan, and got Susan away from Becky.  Susan was never rude to Becky, but she didn't seem to know how to break free of Amanda.  My heart went out to Becky.  Here was this sweet girl who had it all going for her, being put at the bottom of the pecking order.  So not happening!  I don't do pecking orders in my class!

     Amanda even did small, subtle things to keep her hold on Susan and hold Becky at a distance.  We had a birthday tradition in our class.  When it was a student's birthday, I would bring a card for the rest of the class to sign.  On Becky's (and Mark's, as they were twins), Susan had signed her name.  When Amanda saw it, she wrote and Amanda underneath, to include her name with Susan's in the card.  A small gesture, but significant.  She couldn't stand on her own, so she made a show of power by linking herself to Susan.  The message there was "This is my friend, and together, we sign this card, as we do everything else together that you're not a part of."  

     Very quickly, I changed the seating arrangement.  I separated Amanda and Susan.  I wasn't unkind.  I didn't leave Amanda all alone.  I seated Becky beside her.  I moved everyone, so it didn't look like I was singling Amanda out.  I didn't come down on Amanda in any way.  But believe me, I heard all about it from Amanda's mom (who still maintained what a sweet, innocent, perfect child she was).  She told me I "traumatized" her every time I didn't give her her own way.  It almost got to the point where I was afraid to check my email, because Amanda's mom was constantly accusing me of "traumatizing" her baby.  

     Susan did perfectly fine without Amanda.  She bonded with everyone.  She just needed Amanda's stifling grip removed.  I struggled with Amanda and her mother for a few years.  The apple hadn't fallen far from the tree.  Amanda's mother would talk to me (as well as others) in exclusive ways.  For example, she asked one woman (the preschool teacher for the group), "When is your baby due?" when she wasn't pregnant.  It was obvious she wasn't pregnant.  Mrs. Amanda  was just mean, trying to put this other woman down to build herself up.  At the time, I was single, and Mrs. Amanda would say, "I feel so sorry for you!  It must be so awful not to have a wonderful husband like I do."  She was just nasty like that.  

     Every time Mrs. Amanda wanted her point to be taken seriously, she would begin with, "The Holy Spirit told me...".  The set up here is that if we disagree with her, we're disagreeing with God.  That was giving herself a security base.  One time (this made me want to vomit), she said, "My husband's taking me on a cruise to Jamaica, and he wants me to wear a bikini, because he thinks I look sexy that way, so I'm going to be godly and submit to him."  R-i-i-i-i-i-ght!

     She tried to get between other women and myself.  I would be talking to other moms of my students, and Mrs. Amanda had to cut in and invite them over in front of me, but not invite me.  One time, she didn't like something I had said in my class.  Rather than tell me privately, she did it in front of others, and implied that all the moms were mad at me and had come to her.  I felt horrible to have offended so many people, and I went and apologized to all of them...and it turned out they knew nothing about it, and hadn't been offended anyway.  Mrs. Amanda had lied to me to make herself look like the center of the power.  Like the whole community revolved around her.  I confronted her with her lie, and she immediately said, "Satan is using you to attack me!"  Sure he was.  More like the other way around.

     Mrs. Amanda continued trying to find ways to exclude me and be a mediator between me and other moms.  She seemed almost terrified I would talk to or be friends with other women.  When I took her power away and contacted them outside of class hours, when she wasn't around, she couldn't let this go.  She went to the higher ups, and had me dismissed from my position.  She told some ridiculous stories about me.  For whatever reason, she was believed and I was let go.  I was humiliated and hurt...but God redeemed in multiple ways. What she meant for evil, God meant for good. 

     My point in sharing this is to illustrate how the ringleader of a clique operates.  It's about power to cover up insecurity.  They are horrified of losing their power.  Both Amanda and her mom worked this way.  On TV shows, cliques are seen as targeting weak and clueless people, but that isn't reality.  Usually, cliques want the weak and clueless to be part of them.  Its the strong and confident people who are targeted.  They pose a threat to the ringleader.  The ringleader and their lackeys want to remove the threat.  

     Cliques can leave lifelong scars.  One of the people who was a part of this discussion I referred to earlier shared how she still has nightmares because of the mean girls she went to school with.  Personally, I was a target of cliques in junior high.  For many years, I believed something was wrong with me.  I couldn't see how this all worked, that I was somehow a threat.  I thought I was ugly, or unworthy or...fill in the blank.  It didn't help that I was a teenager in the shallow and materialistic 90's (before the days of High School Musical that made people in TV and movie land realize it was okay to be part of other groups).  On 90's TV, you couldn't be both smart and pretty.  Smart was almost a negative thing, and earned the reputation of being a "nerd" (which is now a label worn with pride, thankfully!).  I hated being a teen in the 90's.  I feel more nostalgic for my 80's childhood than my 90's teen years.  Yet even in my idyllic 80's life, there were cliques.  I just had enough nice people around me to ignore them.  By God's grace, one of the mean girls from junior high later wrote me a heartfelt letter, apologizing.  That couldn't have been easy, and I know God was at work.  

     I have found that this is a battle God has called me to fight.  I want to be that teacher students remember as their advocate.  The one who saw what was happening and did all in my power to stop it.  Removing the clique's power can be intimidating, but it needs to be done.  I refuse to be the teacher who was scared of the clique and let it continue, and even became buddy-buddy with it.  No way!   know that God has already changed lives through my efforts (this is Him, not me).  It's a battle worth fighting.

Watch What You Say

     I just watched an online video that has me wound up (here is the link to the video, if you want to know what I'm referencing: https://www.facebook.com/RantNationCRTV/videos/410543489449887/ ).  I need to interact with it, and pray your indulgence as I do so. This video was of a man sharing his recent experience of a Christian woman telling him she wanted to like him, but couldn't stand to look at him because of his numerous tattoos.  She said they took away from his message.  The rest of the video was a five-minute rant against Christianity.  This video is being shared and agreed with by Christians, and that scares me.

     One of the comments he made early on is that he hates religion and Christianity, although he loves Jesus.  Man-made religion is one thing, but the religion of the Bible, Christianity, is not man-made.  It is from God.  You can't love Jesus and hate His people. First John 4:20 says If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.

     This man self-righteously blasts Christians because this woman made a hurtful remark about his tattoos.  What he doesn't realize is that nobody is required to like his tattoos.  This isn't kindergarten where we have to say "happy words to all our friends."  There is no place for rudeness, but when he got those tattoos, he had to realize that not everyone likes tattoos.  He needs to take responsibility for that.  

     I once had someone who was not Caucasian make a rude remark to me because I have red hair.  It was really shocking.  It was actually a tow truck driver who almost refused to let me ride in his truck because he was so prejudiced against redheads.  I was desperate, and rode with him anyway, and the whole time, I had to listen to him put me down because of my hair, and tell me what a bad temper I supposedly  had, etc.  Now, what if I had made an online video blasting people of this man's race because of what he said to me?  Would that be right?  Would it be justified?  No way!  I would rightly be viewed as a bigot for blaming and disliking all people of this race because of this one tow truck driver.  Yet, that's what this man in the video did.  One Christian person disliked his tattoos and commented as such in an impolite way, and he's acting like a spoiled baby, saying very mean and hateful things against Christians, telling us what we're all thinking and doing.  That's a lot more judgmental than the woman's initial comment.  

     Another concern is the way he talked about the woman.  He didn't demonstrate the love and forgiveness Jesus asks of us (Luke 6:37-38).  He referred to her as "Christian" (air quotes as he said the word Christian).  In other words, he doesn't think she's really a Christian.  Now who's judgmental?  This woman made a rude comment, but nobody can deduce whether or not she's really saved based on that.  Saved people say wrong things sometimes.  We're not perfect yet.  Yet, this man thinks he has the right to determine whether or not she's born again for real.  Christianity isn't how you act.  It's who you know.  If this woman really has repented of her sins and put her faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, she is a Christian, not a "Christian".  The Lord needs to work on her heart.  What she said wasn't right.  Hopefully, the longer we walk with Christ, the less we say hurtful things to others, and the more we exemplify Christ.  But there's another point here...

     It is not judgmental to dislike tattoos.  To assume something about a person because of tattoos may or may not be be judgmental.  It really all depends.  By the same token, it isn't judgmental to dislike red hair.  We all have different things we find attractive and unattractive.  What is wrong is when we voice those things to people, or let it prejudice us against them.  I've said before and I'll say again: Judging is drawing wrong conclusions without having all the facts.  Disliking or disagreeing with something isn't judging.  People need to learn to use the word correctly. As far as God is concerned, we are free to disagree with others (and we should disagree, if it's something that goes against God's word!). I only wish we were free to do so without other humans falsely accusing us of "judging" 

     Not in any way am I defending the woman who made the hurtful comment to this man in the video.  My concern is his bitter, hateful response to all Christians.  That's what Satan wants to see, God's people put down, and even agreeing with it!  There is a trend nowadays with Christians putting Christianity down, and that really scares me.  Jesus gave His life for the church.  We belong to God.  We are not perfect, but are becoming more like Him daily.  We are in the sanctification process, and are hopefully better than we were a year ago.  I hope I am.  

     Matthew 12:36 says: But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. This is sobering, because we have all said things we shouldn't.  We need to watch what we say, especially about God's people.