Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Studies Blog

Segregating by age or status.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this post

I read a comment on a post at InternetMonk, and was immediately struck by the need to say a public thank you.

First, the comment, by Aliasmoi:

A single - never married - woman is a pariah in a traditional church. After I crossed my 30th birthday people started thinking (and sometimes saying) there must be something wrong with me that I haven’t caught a husband yet. They started praying out loud - in church - for me to get a husband. But, I couldn’t get within ten feet of a man without the whole church having to stop and take notice of the fact. I really started to feel like I would have been less of an object of curiosity/pity/outright derision if I had been married and gotten divorced.

I want to thank the people of my home church for making me feel necessary. Normal. OK. Valuable. Treasured. For wanting me with them and enjoying things with them. Not making me feel like an outsider or extra or some kind of burden to have bear with. Letting me pal around and talk and laugh with the ladies and be involved in the group discussions and hang out with the couples and talk with everyone of all ages...I just never felt unwelcome or outside. I want to thank them, essentially, for not segregating the church based on age or status. For not shuffling me off to the side because of my status.

When we were in the process of getting a new pastor recently, we had the opportunity, after a meal following service, to speak up about the possibility of a person who had been in church for many years being our pastor. Many things were said, most moving and good. I spoke up and tried to say, without crying (I did not succeed), a kind of thank you for the extreme friendship -- beyond that, even -- and how it made me feel valuable. How I wanted to stay at this church even when I didn't "feel" like it or when it didn't meet my "needs" simply because of the relationship of the people and what they were to me as the body of Christ.

Truly, they are Christ with skin on. For me.

I think, in a post where I touched on the idea of age segregation, the greatest sadness that settles in when I see it happening is that we are shortchanging everyone involved for the sake of convenience and logistics. It seems to benefit us, but in reality, hurts and robs us all. I can't imagine being stripped of all the interaction I've grown to expect with different people of different ages and status.

Frankly, age segregation is not Biblical. It is not OK to be pulling out kids and youth and separating everyone out by age or status. It is not OK to train them to think that they must be only with their own kind and should not be expected to be with the older Christians in church. Barnabas mentored Paul. Paul mentored Timothy. The older women are told to mentor the young. Why cheat each other out of Job 12:12? No, some barely matured youth minister aping the culture up front doesn't always qualify as that mentor; he is likely in need of his own mentor, too. There is also a need for everyone to experience the joy (and difficulty) of being such a mentor.

It is easier, I will admit, to be with people in your own situation and generation. You speak the same language, have similar angst, and understand your particular culture. I treasure my friends of that sameness because we can connect over the similarities. But at the same time, I have so come to value the advice and support and companionship of older women, married women, widowed women, single women -- my mother -- and have grown to love the chance to be that for the younger women coming up.

Because my home church is so small, we often find ourselves with one Sunday school class in the basement. It may consist of the older generation, some Boomers, me (the token Gen X'er), and some teens (Gen Y'ers). There are married and single and divorced people there. The discussion is rich and brings both the wisdom of age and the freshness of new eyes.

What a pity when we pull that apart by something age-based. There is no separate-but-equal in the body of Christ.

Labels: christianity, relationships, women, youth

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Fat heads.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

No, I'm not talking about those stupid giant-sized sports figure cut-outs that people put on their wall. I'm talking about fat brains in an time of knowledge gluttony.

An old post over at the Harris' twins well-known Rebelution blog* (at least, among Christian teens it is well-known) caught my eye. The phrase that is used -- "mental obesity" -- had not occurred to me before. I generally thought of the concept in about 500 more words which, ironically, would be a form of some kind of verbal obesity.

Just as it is ridiculous to think that a constant intake of food will benefit our bodies, it is also ridiculous to think that a constant torrent of information will improve our minds. Like food, information must be carefully selected and properly digested to fulfill its God-given purpose.

[...]

We're constantly feeding our minds mental snacks but never allowing for quiet reflection or thoughtful meditation. Worse still, we're feeding ourselves "junk food" thoughts -- high entertainment value, all sugar, and no nutrition.

The writers of the article point out how often we fill every moment of our lives with something -- TV, music -- just to avoid being alone with our thoughts and never having to worry about falling into deep thinking which may or may not be painful. They tie this in with the concept of multi-tasking, making it a part of a series on their blog.

I don't know about the multi-tasking aspect as being the main culprit, though there is something valid about not celebrating the ability to do lots of things poorly. However, mental obesity, as I'm now coming to think of it, has more to do with the junk and under-work and less to do with over-work. I'm as guilty as the next when it comes to wanting to learn more, more, more. Reading, going, seeing, experiencing.

Not bad, in and of itself, but, like food, deadly in excessive amounts. There's only so much room in my head for muscle, and I fill it up so fast that it turns to fat and fluff and nothing sticks in a way that can be used beyond more distraction and confusion.

That's my take on mental obesity.

Periodically, I find myself either gradually removed from reading certain blogs and web sites (perhaps through boredom or just falling out of habit), or forcefully finished (ugly incidents, specific decision to fight going back and breaking the habit). This plays into it: lots of noise out there, some I need to shut off. Same with magazines, the TV (do I really need to watch another show with the same storyline, different actors?), and books. Classic example: I'm easily caught up in reading books about the Bible (the book) instead of reading the actual Bible. The Bible is tough, but the commentaries and theories about it are much, much easier. Classic path to mental obesity.

It's like the last part of Myst, the part with the water spigots that needed to be turned the correct way in order to complete the challenge and generate power. (The only part I never solved, I might bitterly add.) It's important for me to get the right spigots turned on and off. Too much is not better than too little.

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*I generally read the Rebelution blog with a slight bemusement, not out of mocking, but out of being long gone from the teen years and the age of ever considering myself part of the latest generation that will change the world (for years, I was told that my generation would do that, too, which is part of the weird thing we do to teens -- tell them their generation will change the world until they hit about 23, and then start over with the next generation). The concept of "teen" and the strange subculture that we have allotted to it is best explained by Diana West in her book "Death of the Grown-Up." I appreciate what the Harris' brothers are trying to do, which is to speak to teens as adults and get them to step up and take responsibility instead of sinking into the eventual land of Adult Men and Women Who Act Like Teens Forever.

Labels: christianity, culture, education, life improvement, youth

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Ex vs. In.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 5 comments link this post

Keith Schooley has a great post about far more than what I'm about to pull out of it:

"...evidently only extroverts are real Christians..."

And there, in just six words, did he sum up the entire agony of my teens and early 20's church experience. Endless guilt where I confused being an introvert with sin.

Any introvert knows exactly what Keith is saying. He or she knows the gut-twisting guilt handed out by preachers preaching methods instead of truth, guilt that isn't even valid

Evangelism was always described in ways of extroverted methods. Confrontation! Handing out Chick Tracts (oh my)! Carrying your Bible around to every high school class, even Phy Ed! Praying in the hallway at the drop of the hat! Forcing yourself to be an Outward Christian so that others will see these Exterior Things!

Exterior. Extrovert.

Bible camp and youth convention speakers were always these exuberant, outgoing, extroverted-to-the-point-of-obnoxiousness Christians. My opinion of what passes for youth ministry¹ can be partly summed up as Loud Methods to Keep Extroverted Attention-Needing Individuals Focused. The introverts are seldom heard on this matter because introverts are seldom heard. Period.

That's the point.

Of course, this is because the entire world caters to extroverts. Self-help books and teachers extol the proactive qualities of the extrovert. Extrovert-ism is rewarded in our Western Culture. Extroverts are the ones writing all the self-help books, possibly because they need the most help or they are the least familiar with self. Extroverts enjoy giving introverts advice which can be boiled down to -- no matter how it's packaged -- "be an extrovert."

I wrote a post and linked to an article about introverts and extroverts a couple of years ago. Go read the article. I implore thee.

But regarding what Keith said?

Yeah.

What Keith said.

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¹During his visit, Jim (who has worked in youth ministry) and I talked briefly about youth ministry today, and where it is and isn't going. I sure wish I'd have picked his brains about it more, reluctance or not...

Labels: christianity, culture, youth