{"id":407,"date":"2006-08-08T16:45:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-08T23:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/x.jimanddoni.com\/?p=407"},"modified":"2006-08-08T16:58:47","modified_gmt":"2006-08-08T23:58:47","slug":"second-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/?p=407","title":{"rendered":"Second Chance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night Jim and I rented the movie “Second Chance” with Michael W. Smith and produced by Steve Taylor. Ordinarily, I, being one of many spoiled big production movie-goers, hesitate to watch what I believe will be low budget flicks. However, I do want to be diligent in supporting movie’s with character so I try to rent all Christian produced movies that make it to blockbuster (ie. End of Spear, Left Behind, The Visitation etc.). I have also on occasion committed an act of treason against my party by renting movies that I know to be left wing propaganda (ie. V for Vendetta, Clooney’s Syriana…., and yes, even the infamous Farenheit 911). I guess I am a glutton for punishment at times and curiosity gets the best of me. I suppose an explanation of the Farenheit 911 movie is in order though. A girlfriend of mine suggested I watch it so that I was “fairly” educated on the Bush\/War issue. I accepted the challenged. Watched it, took notes, AND purchased Farenhype 911 (the rebuttal) and laughed my head off. We have since invited people to watch these programs back to back for the comedic enjoyment of the experience. No one has taken us up on it to date. I think I am going to have to buy a garage sale version of Farenheight 911 just so that I have both DVDs available if anyone ever wants to eat junk food, and laugh til they cry with me. But alas….the Michael Moore hype is also wearing out – even from the liberals so I guess this isn’t as interesting anymore. (Side Note: People have emailed me in the past threatening to quit reading my blogs if I keep writing expositores on politics and religion. I think I was suppose to feel quite chagrined over that. I didn’t \ud83d\ude42 ).<\/em><\/p>\n

While I didn’t turn on this DVD with great expectations, I was pleasantly surprised by it. I liked the storyline, and the acting wasn’t half bad either, and I definitely enjoyed the music (though surprisingly there wasn’t a whole lot of it). <\/p>\n

Towards the last half of the movie though my heart was sinking and the finale left me crying a river. It was an all too familiar story to me. While my life experiences in the church had (technically) very little or nothing to do with this story line, there were parallels everywhere for me.<\/p>\n

The story is about a Pastor who grows a mega church from an inner city church and then attempts to support the inner city church as essentially a missions project. The problem? The mega church wants to throw money at the inner city church…not people. The black pastor in the inner city church is tired and discouraged and desperate for help – real help. <\/p>\n

Here is why the story tugged at tender heart strings.<\/p>\n

I was born in LA, CA in 1973. At the time, my father was in seminary. He and my mom were looking for a church that needed him. They didn’t seek out the church that could serve them. They sought the church were they could serve. They found an inner city church in LA that desperately need a Youth Pastor. Dad took the job. After a time, Dad and Mom moved back to Apple Valley, CA (where they both had grown up) and Dad accepted the position as Assistant Pastor at their home church. When I was four years old, Dad candidated at a small church in Phoenix, AZ. He became the senior pastor and has been preaching at this church since 1977 – celebrating 30 years next year.<\/p>\n

When we first came to minister as a family to this church, it was located on the northern most boundary of Phoenix. The majority of the members were middle aged or older. Things have changed a lot since then. This area is now classified as part of central Phoenix and is quickly becoming an inner city neighborhood. It was strange to me how well I could relate to the struggles of the inner city church portrayed in the movie. No, we aren’t regularly involved in rescuing gang members from the streets and helping prostitutes find a new way of life but we do struggle with issues primarily inner city churches struggle with. Here is a short list:<\/p>\n

* Dad became proficient at removing graffitti from solid rock. We even made it to the news for the extensive graffiti damage a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n

* The church is no longer a safe place for women at night. Two years ago, while trying to protect a group of teenagers, my sister in love Jodi, and my unborn niece Karsyn, I had to remove a homeless person from a youth bible study while the man was yelling at me and telling me he was going to shove something down my throat (all the while reaching for his mysterious black back-pack…yikes).<\/p>\n

* We have been robbed several times and have had our cars robbed during church services.<\/p>\n

* Recently we were harassed by the community for our chipping paint. Side Note: Our paint was chipping because we are in the process of removing it and re-painting – which was obvious. We all just stared at each other when the warning from the city arrived wondering how in the world anyone failed to notice the obvious remodeling? Even the city was sympathetic to that one.<\/em><\/p>\n

* In small or inner city churches, Pastors are hired for a laundry list quite longer than what they received their education for. They must be able to repair toilets, fix sewers and drainage systems, put in (and take out) sprinkler systems all the while missing electrical and main water lines (Dad missed that class), remove stains from carpet, find the missing toilet paper, paint, resurface, ….it’s actually quite helpful if they have their General Contractors license as well. This is the short list. Get the drift? <\/p>\n

While on this particular topic, I have a mystery I am determined to solve. How is it that, irregardless of our automatic thermostats, our Sunday School class still continues to vacillate between Antarctica and hotter than…..an oven;)? No church should ever have a room that reminds one of the “hot place”;). That just sends a most outdated fire and brimstone message don’t you think? (Getting too punchy now? Oops!) I have been submitting my recommendations for tracking down the problem but to no avail. Here is the crazy thing about this. Some random unnamed person is always cited for messing with the thermostat but only about 5 people would ever have reason to touch the thermostat and they have all been counseled. We even have post it notes hanging from the thermostat warning curious souls with button pushing tendencies to just look and pass right on by. My recommendation? Put a plastic box on the suckers and give the Pastor the only key. I was shot down for that because no one wants only one person to handle that sacred key. So I rebutted. I suggested that we trial this for one month. Pastor could surely keep sole possession for just four weeks couldn’t he? If the temperatures continued to vacillate we would either (a) determine an electronical error or (b) blame the Pastor;). If suddenly we kept to a perfect “keep the parishoners fresh and energized – not shivering and not falling asleep” temp…well then we’d acknowledge that the “Not Me” ghost truly did exist and we just managed to exercise him. (Until we had to give others rights to the key anyhow). Any chance someone reading this has insider information on this phenomena? <\/p>\n

Then there are the issues of how to keep a church running and operational with limited funds and few helpers. This list would quickly grow into a book so I won’t even start it. All right…I take that back….I will but I will limit my self to a short list of three.<\/p>\n

1. We never have enough volunteers or teachers leaving about three people to keep rotating jobs indefinitely.<\/p>\n

2. There are always community programs that we would love to implement, but like they say about wealth…you have to have money to make money…same basic theories apply.<\/p>\n

3. You can’t serve without servants. Here is a classic case in point. The local school wanted to work with us to help feed the homeless and those in the community in need. We wanted to help and we do in fact have a food cabinet that we have shared from for as long as I can remember. A member of the congregation was willing to offer us truck loads of food\/products leftover from a local market so that we could distribute it to the community. I did not receive the popularity vote when this came to my attention and I quickly moved to veto the idea. Does sound harsh I admit. Here were my reasons: (1) In order to run an effective food ministry, you must have an admistrator and volunteers. No one had yet been “called” to that ministry:). (2) You have to have someplace to put the supplies – we didn’t. They were being piled in classrooms. (3) You have to monitor the intake and weed out what is useful for the needy and what isn’t. For example, the Halloween decorations that were donated were less than helpful as was the expired food. Canned goods are nice but we also need to distribute can openers because often the homeless complained they couldn’t open them. And by the way, few people prefer beets in a can. Some things sit in the back of the church food cabinet too \ud83d\ude42 . We needed a system and people and we didn’t have it. So is it terrible to refuse the stock? Maybe so but I think it is even more terrible to accept it and not be able to administrate it. See the problem?<\/p>\n

And the easy answer is always “So get people to help?” I grin when that comes up because generally the person making that suggestion isn’t the one volunteering. Being quite straight forward, I have been known to call that point out on occasion too. <\/p>\n

So I was shaking my head and tears were weaving their way down my face because I understood something that only servants in small\/inner city American churches can relate too – the small family churches are a dying breeding. <\/p>\n

What is causing this slow death? I don’t know but I do have suspicions. Only one of which is the mega church phenomena. Now before anyone gets offended, the purpose of this post is not to write anything inflammatory about large scale churches. They have their place and wonderful things have and are coming from them. I don’t dispute that. I am more concerned about what often draws people to mega churches.<\/p>\n

We live in a society of supply and demand. We are quick to acknowledge what our “needs” are and then we shop til we drop until we find what best satisfies. The mega churches are a quick answer. They have programs galore. They have a variety of service options. You never need to worry about whether an adult Sunday school class exists but which (of the 50 options available) you should choose. Some churches with amphitheater seating even have cup holes for your cokes these days and some even have….can you believe it…STARBUCKS! <\/p>\n

Realizing that probably the majority of those reading this post attend larger scale churches, I want to make it clear that my gripe isn’t against the large scale church. In fact, those working in administrating these positions often face the same frustrations that we do (although they are more likely in a paid position that lessons the gripe LOL). Example, if you run out of toilet paper at a mega church, a staff member calls the third party vendor that is responsible for maintenance. At a hometown church, the person that discovered the outage goes on a TP hunt. When they fail to find it, they look for “Cindy Sue” who was responsible for that stall and find that she was out sick this week. She recommends searching the cleaning pantry. The cleaning pantry is empty because “Jo Ellen” hasn’t been to Walmart. Jo Ellen then say’s “I haven’t bought the TP from Walmart in awhile because it isn’t in the budget but frankly, TP purchasing was never on my list anyhow. Why does everyone always come to me about the TP?” There are two types of victims to this scenario. The first one shrugs their shoulders, wonders how a church that can’t stock the restroom has managed thus far, and is suddenly fascinated that the church up the block actually has a handless towel dispenser. Hmmmm….might need to check them out. The other is the one that heads to Walmart after morning service :). <\/p>\n

But that isn’t my point…my point is that our culture gets attracted to what best services US and not how we can best serve. I admit there are plenty of places to serve in the mega churches and many are doing that (and I am glad – that is the right thing). But on the same token, many abandon the smaller scale churches because they are frankly…a whole lot of work. As a long time member of an inner city church, I see it as a tragedy that little churches struggle so much for survival these days. True, we may not have all the amneties, service options, scrapbooking events, automatic soap dispensers, and mini franchise restaurants in the narthex, but we do have a lot of heart. A place where we raise our families together – know every face, witness lots of tears and much joy, celebrate every baby born and every saint gone home, have memories of which babies kissed who and are now married, giggle at the sometimes “talent-less” shows over the years that a big church would have totally nixed (which later had lasting value to all who saw). <\/p>\n

More than that though, as the daughter to a Pastor of small inner city church, I know for certain that you learn that life is ministry. You learn how to serve and you learn what it really means to be a part of the body of Christ. It is about giving. It’s about meeting someone else’s needs. <\/p>\n

Not long ago my mom and I had a heart to heart. I, feeling very frustrated, told her that I sometimes worried that my kids would miss out on all the spiritual education that a larger scale church could give and I just couldn’t believe that we still hadn’t found a Sunday School teacher for Tanner’s age. I droned on and on about this. She told me that she felt the Lord had called her and my father to serve and that in the end the price was high. She couldn’t give me and my brothers everything that we could have had somewhere else and she was sorry if I bemoaned that but she had an obligation to obey Christ by serving where He had called them. Wow! Took the wind right out of my sails. I think I called her twice apologizing after that and I was miserable that my words had caused any amount of hurt (even knowing that my mother is my closest friend and doesn’t have it in her to truly be angry at me). That conversation made me think a lot about our plight though. That of the church, and that of my home. I determined that irregardless of what I can or can’t give Tanner and Ty in the way of flashy programs and extracurricular activities, I am responsible for teaching them. I have tried to be very dedicated about our nightly bible and prayer time and guess what? Tanner can turn the pages of his children’s bible and recap a majority of the lessons. That’s really what I wanted all along. THAT is the best I have to offer my children. It’s a gift. Teaching about a life of ministry is something precious my parents gave us kids and I hope to give that to my own. I hope they will be able to recognize it as I did one day.<\/p>\n

If you decide to rent the movie, I think you’ll understand why the end moved me to tears. If you are wondering what my point in all this is, I’ll make it easy. What are you doing today to further the cause of Christ? What is your place in the body of believers and how are you serving? If you haven’t found a church, are you looking for a place to be served or to serve? Big church or small, be passionate about what you do to serve. If you are looking for more service options because you don’t want to get up early and get kids ready on Sunday morning, imagine what Christians in Iraq and Iran are going through to attend church. When it becomes too inconvenient to participate in mid week studies, Sunday evening services, and we don’t want to get up for Sunday School….it is only a matter of time before that option doesn’t exist. We have taken one of the most precious gifts a free country has given us and we have squandered it. Do you know how many Christians in third world countries have to hide to worship? No wonder that sometimes the most beautiful revivals break out under extreme persecution. The persecuted understand the gift better than we do and they are more unwilling to give it up. At the end of the movie the young pastor, with tears streaming says’s “The church is not the building the church is the people”. In response to his words, my heart answered “But here is the church and here is the steeple, I look inside and where are the people?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night Jim and I rented the movie “Second Chance” with Michael W. Smith and produced by Steve Taylor. Ordinarily, I, being one of many spoiled big production movie-goers, hesitate to watch what I believe will be low budget flicks. However, I do want to be diligent in supporting movie’s with character so I try […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mamas-diaries"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimanddoni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}