Fresh Start

It was time to start looking for another church. I liked  Calvary Chapel well enough, but it seemed like I was trying to making myself fit where I wasn't supposed to be. I tried going back to a few other churches that we had been to previously. For some churches, one visit was enough. We went back to Olive Branch. We had liked the teaching and the music, but we also knew some people who were attending from the old Nazarene church. I thought to myself, "Here we go again. Time to but the question mark back. " I was actually dreading going to church. There were a few Sundays were I just couldn't go. I don't know what it was. There was just something wrong with me. I started going because Nick seemed to like it. After awhile I started seeing more faces that I recognized. Faces from the Nazarene church. Faces from Calvary Chapel. It helped me to know that others were in transition as well. People dropped little hints. "Wouldn't be cool to see you up there with the worship team playing bass." "The youth pastor really has his hands full with all those teens. You should at least go and check it out." The more people hinted (which actually felt like pushing), the more I regretted coming to a church with familiar faces. They meant well enough, but I really wanted to be left alone. It became a struggle to leave the house on Sundays. Maybe this sounds a little selfish, but this is how I was feeling.
I took the membership class and became a full fledged member, but still was not willing to sign up for anything. We were supposed to list our past ministerial experiences and then meet with Buzz, an associate pastor, to find out where to get "plugged in". I talked to him and told him that I couldn't serve anywhere at the moment. We had a nice long talk. He said that was fine and to let him know when things might change and to let him know if there was anything he or the church could do in the meantime.
I remember meeting with Justin, the small groups pastor. He heard that I was part of a small group that met at Bill and Marla's home. He had also heard that I was teaching it. We met one day at the local Starbucks and discussed a class that the church offered. It was called Starting Point. He thought it might be worth my checking out. Well it turned out to be a pretty good class. It was more of a discussion group than a bible study. The leaders were very nice and informative. Well one thing led to another and I found myself co-leading the group. It has been very good. It's nice to see that adults struggle with alot of the same questions that my teens did. Same root issues, but just different settings. Things like does God care? Why is there so much bad stuff in the world? And so on. Well I guess I finally committed myself to something once again. It feels nice.

A new start, sort of..., but not really

Nick and I started attending Calvary Chapel Corona pretty regularly. We liked the teaching and it was nice to just relax and be feed. I didn't want to get involved with anything. I knew I wasn't ready. Jen was still not feeling up to going to church. She stayed home at watched Charles Stanley. At first, I didn't say anything about where we were other than to mention that "we went to the Nazarene church down the road for a few years and thought it was time to try something else". People were nice enough. They said hi and bye and that was it. They fellow-shipped with their friends, but at least they were cordial.
I did meet the pastor and youth pastor in the parking lot one day. I shared with them what had happened. The pastor said that I should take as much time as I need. He told me not to rush into anything, but when I was ready they would find a place for me to serve if that is what I would like to do. I was so glad to hear that. I joined the men's Saturday group. I was able to bring my bass out again and start playing again. I learn a lot of new songs and revisited some old ones. I was happy and felt like I could belong somewhere once again.
A short time later, the church was asking for volunteers to help out with Children's Ministries. I wasn't going to sign up. I prayed about it and signed up the following week. There was a long questionnaire to fill out. They asked all the right questions and asked for experience. I later found myself meeting with the Junior High pastor and the guy over Children's Ministries. They both thought that I should be working with teens again. After much prayer and consideration, I started helping with Awanas. Calvary Chapel had an Awanas program that went into High School. I was the new teacher. We would meet Sunday nights. First, we played worship songs. I got to play bass again! YES! Then we divided into the Junior High and Senior High groups. All of the teaching materials were already done up. I just needed to talk a little and then have them run through their memory verses. This was going all right. The teens and I hit off really well. I did run through some the material a little fast and added personal stories where they might fit in. The group was almost all home schoolers and had grown up in church. I shared a little bit of my pre Christ life. The teens were amazed.  The moms who were in the room got very wide eyed. I stressed the importance of really knowing and believing what the Bible says. I shared with them that they might meet someone who isn't a Christian and will ask them many questions. I wanted them to really know.
Things were going pretty well, but I still felt like I would never truly fit in. I still felt like I was carrying the scarlet question mark. I went through a funk and left during the summer break.

Scarlet Question Mark

Were you ever assigned to read, "The Scarlet Letter"? I remember having to read it in elementary school. Not sure of what grade, but I know it was before Junior High. In the story, a lady has an affair and becomes pregnant. She is forced to wear a scarlet letter on her clothing. She wears an "A" for adultery. Every place she goes, she wears this big red A. After I left the church, friends asked me to come and visit where they were going to church. A few of them were in positions of ministry and thought the best thing for me would be to jump right back in and serve with more fervor. I received pity rather than understanding. The other churches I attended were okay until the friend introduced me to the pastor or someone in leadership. "This is my friend, Dave". I'd shake hands with whoever and tell them it was nice to meet them. Then the unavoidable would happen. "Oh, yeah. He used to be a youth pastor." I felt like my friend had just pinned a scarlet question mark to my chest. The typical response was either a "really" or "why aren't you any more?". I could see the gears turning. "What did this guy do? Did he leave or was he removed? Why is he here at my church? What does he want?" I would usually explain Jen's condition and tell them that it was too much to do. They acted like there was more to my story, but said something like, "Well its nice to have you visiting with us today." Other places were wanting to jump right in and start serving that day. It was hard to find a place to go and not have to give an answer for something you didn't do. Nick and I started church shopping. Trying out churches where we could hide. Hopefully one that provided good, solid biblical teaching. Some did. Others failed. We tried the bigger churches in the area as well as some not so big. It took a while to find one that we could return to more than one Sunday in a row.

Canyon Community Church Part#3 - leaving

Things were going incredibly well and we were excited. I was working Graveyard at the steel company, going to school part time, and serving in the ministry part time. Ministry is never part time. It was a full time deal, but I needed to support me and my family. The busier I got, the more people wanted me to do. I was expected to do bigger and better things. Parents had ideas of how I should be doing things better. Never had anyone actually come in and saw what we were doing, but lots of people thought we should be doing things their way. About this time, Jen had gotten really sick. She had brain surgery for her Arnold-Chiari Malformation and it took A LOT out of her. Please read the link and you'll get an idea of what she was and still goes through. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold%E2%80%93Chiari_malformation 

She wasn't able to be involved as she was. She needed me more than ever. She wasn't able to come to church except for a few occasions. When she did, she felt guilty for not being more involved but also unwelcome.  I felt more pressure from the church to do more "activities", was being told that I should teach so much kids just want to have fun, constantly reminded too bad you'll never be full time like all the other churches. I felt like I was failing and letting everybody down. I was becoming just this guy doing this job. My passion was left dying by the side of the road. Worst of all, I was having to leave my wife at home when I did all this "fun" teen stuff. Life was sucking. No easier way to put it. I asked some of the ladies at church to reach out to my wife. I shared how she was really down and it was hard for to come to church both physically and emotionally. The response I received caused my jaw to hit the floor. "Its hard to get to know someone when they're never here." This combined with my inner struggles of trying to keep the plates spinning faster and faster caused me to make a hard decision. I pulled the plug on the ministry. I quit taking classes, I announced my resignation, and did what I had to do. Nobody really asked me to reconsider. The only time someone said anything is the day I cleared my things off the platform. I was asked if I was really taking my guitars too.  A lady who heard I resigned asked me if I was still going to attend church there. She was surprised and saddened when I told her no, I was leaving. A couple of people tried to get me to stay. "Who's gonna take care of the teens? Don't you care? You can't just give up. Do you really think that is what God wants you to do?" The teens were mad at me. They told me that I sucked and that they hated me. Even months later, when I'm out at a store, they'll go out of there way to avoid me. I was getting calls from an individual who wanted to fight me because he heard how I was talking trash on people at the church. Every single time, I had to explain why I left and how talking trash on anybody  wasn't going to benefit me in anyway, so why would I bother. Each of the phone calls ended with, "cool brother. Let me know if you need anything. Lets hang out sometime". I don't know why, but I called my dad and told him that I had just quit the ministry. "Great glad to hear it. Uh, I gotta go. Call me sometime." Thanks, Dad for always being there. I stopped going to church for a while. Any church. I spent a lot of time trying to think about what had taken place. Not just the last couple of months I was there, but the whole time Jen and I had been working with teens. Did we fail somehow? Did I waste my time and their time? I need some time to think. 

Canyon Community Church of the Nazarene, part #2

Things started going really, really good with the youth group. As I said we started small and then we started to grow. I don't like focusing on numbers, but it was nice to see growth. Not numeric so much as spiritual growth. People wanting to be at church, bringing their Bibles, asking questions, engaging as a group. 

We started doing more stuff. In addition to the "regular" times, the teens would hang out after church and we'd get some lunch. At first it was a once a month thing, or at least thats kind of what I planned, but it turned into a week thing. We'd all walk over as a group to one of the local fast food joints and order our food to take with us back to the church. We'd eat in the library and everyone one would talk about school and home stuff. I tried to encourage parents to follow our example and do lunch together, but most tried it as "free babysitting" and got some errands done.

We also did "Allnighters". To kick things off with our first Allnighter, I wanted to make a Mega-Allnighter. From 8:00pm Friday until 5:00pm Saturday. It was brutal. I planned a high energy night followed by a beach trip the next day with NO sleep in between. Everyone had a good time. Lunch time on Saturday was a little different. We didnt make it to the beach. Instead we went swimming in Pastor Art's pool. Nobody was swimming. It was more like teen zombies standing in water. I asked if anybody was hungry. People just answered with grunts. I put a hotdog in this girls hand and she just started at it. I told her,"Its a hot..dog. You can ...eat it. Its okay. She stared at it some more and then started eating it. Like I said , it was brutal. A big mistake, but everyone survived. At first, we planned on doing one or two a year. The longer we were at the church ,it seemed like it was once every two or three months. A typical Allnighter would start on Friday around 9:00pm and end around 7:00am on the following Saturday. We would plan different things to be done at the church and a couple of other places. We always had a few extra visitors. We usually started off with a get to know everybody game. You know the usual stuff like Chubby Bunny, Trainwreck, and other fast paced games. Then a pizza feast. We followed it up with Cosmic Bowling. The biggest adventure of the night was transportation. This was always a problem. I am thankful to the many people who drove when we did the midnight Cosmic Bowling. Usually it was me driving my Corolla and a parent driving a minivan. First, we go from Corona to the bowling alley in Norco and drop off an adult to stay with the first wave of teens. We also left an adult( usually Jen) at the church until the last wave. After much shuttling, we'd get everybody there. This usually started around 10:30pm and bowling started at midnight and the final group would get back to the church around 1:00am. Bowling was always great fun. Some of the teens were so go at bowling, they used two balls at time! Others like to use the "softball method". This is lobbing the ball underhand like a softball down the lane until gravity pulled it back down to earth or in this case the freshly waxed hardwood lane. Another highlight of Cosmic Bowling would be the music video time. Most of the teens were bowling and were oblivious to the music and the videos. Every time we went, the bowling alley would show Sir Mix A Lot's "Baby got back". The video is very bad and suggestive, but no one really noticed until an adult helper got upset and started yelling. "DO YOU SEE THAT?!?!" she said to me and Jen pointing at the very large screens hanging from the ceiling. "DON'T THEY KNOW WE'RE A CHURCH GROUP. DO YOU SEE WHAT THEY'RE SHOWING?" At this point, ALL my boys stopped bowling and were transfixed on what was in front of them. The lady walked up to the counter and gave the man an earful which the whole bowling alley could hear. I just told everybody to get back to bowling and ignore the screens. They went back to bowling.

When we got back to the church, we usually played sardines, did more wacky games, and other stuff. EVERYBODY had a great time. Later, we stopped going bowling and just did stuff at the church. It was cheaper and in some ways a lot more fun. In the middle of the activities, we had a wind down time. I usually taught a very short and brief devotional. Visitors always expressed that they never knew church could be fun.

We kept everyone going and going the whole time. A few people would crash out around 4am, but it was more like a nap. Good times. Other than the time a girl got a black eye playing steal the bacon and a couple of minor mishaps, it was good times. We were building memories. 

Canyon Community Church of the Nazarene, part#1

Jen and I came to Canyon Community Church of the Nazarene in March of 2001. Things got busy very quickly. I begin working on lesson plans, outreach ideas, organizing the teen area to make it more friendlly. I taught through a book of the Bible on Sundays and did topical discussions on Wednesday nights. I also played bass with the worship team. Some mornings, I'd play guitar. I even played drums a couple of Sundays. Not very well, but I managed. 

The first year we helped out with Vacation Bible School. First, I took the clipart and made some flyers. I think about 500. Nick, Michelle, and myself put them on doors and handed them out to everyone in  the neighborhood. A few extra people came that year. I did the Bible story time and that went great. The next year or maybe the year after, I asked if I could do a teen geared program. I explained how we had put together a teen VBS program and that it was successful. I got the board's blessing and we had a special program for the teens. We still met at the beginning and ending of the regular VBS program in the main sanctuary, but the rest of the time was ours. We had games, I taught, everybody had fun. We did this for the last three years we were there. 

For one particular object lesson, we met outside.I had the kids sit with their chairs about eight feet away from me and the table I was setting my things on. I was discussing how we are fine with allowing God to be involved with a very, very small part of our lives. We like the way it makes us feel. To demonstrate this, I dropped a couple of Mentos into an open glass of Dr. Pepper. It foamed and fizzed and spilled over the top of the glass. I went on to say that we are keeping God from doing the really powerful things He wants to do. He wants our lives to be so dynamic that people are affected by our lives. I said we can stay like the glass that just foamed up with warm fuzzy kind of feelings or we can allow God to have all of us and unleash what He wants to do in our lives. At this point, I dropped about 12 - 15 Mentos into a two liter bottle of root beer. Of course, the root beer shot way up into the air. 

You know how what goes up,  always comes back down? Well there was a slight breeze. The root beer shot straight up and form two little rain clouds. They drift a few feet and dropped right onto a new students' leg. I think they got the point of the illustration.

Like I said, we had a lot of fun.

How did I end up in Corona?

After I left the church in Chino, I took some time to regroup. I had some questions. I went and talked to some friends. They were not surprised that I left. They said, "yeah. They are pretty liberal. We thought that might be a problem for you, but we weren't sure." I spent the month reassessing where I had been at both places. What went right, what went wrong, what went in a different direction, etc. At this point, Ontario 1st had hired a new worship leader. Dan was a pretty nice guy. He told me that his father in law really needed someone to help him out. He had heard that I was not with a church and his father in law was trying to do it all himself. I told him that I didnt know, I'd "pray" about it. I said I just want at least a month off. He told me where the church was and to check it out. After about 3 weeks, I went by myself to Canyon Community Church of the Nazarene. It was a very small church right off the 15 freeway, not to far from Ontario. I went to the 9:30 adult Sunday School. They were mentioning somethings in Sunday School that I had just dealt with at UMC Chino. I spoke up and said how some churches are very liberal and brought up a few points. Then I attended the 10:45 service. There was about a 15 minute break between the sunday school and the actual service. I guess it was in those 15 minutes, the pastor knew that I was there. He told me that he knew who I was. He said Dan told him to watch for me. Then he invited me out to breakfast on Tuesday. I was working the graveyard shift at my job and told him when I could meet with him. We met and things went great. Next Sunday, I met with the church board and they hired me. You know how I said that I need at least one month off? It was exactly one month. Right down to the very day.
It was a fresh start. This is what we needed. No preconceived ideas. Freedom to run things the way the LORD was to lead. I didn't have a large group. The first time I met every body, there was 7 kids in the room. Then it dropped to 5 on Sunday and then 2 on Wednesday. For quite a while it was just Michelle and Nick. Occasionally, we'd have a visitor or two. I just really felt like this is where God had called me to be and if I only had two kids in the youth group, then I would teach the two kids. Then we had more people start coming. It was exciting times.
We lived in Ontario for the first two years that I was serving at the Nazarene church in Corona. We eventually moved to Corona to be closer to the church. I was still working for Marmon/ Keystone but the drive wasn't very much further.