This one is going to hit a bit differently. It won't be without controversy. I even considered not including it in the "Regret" series because it deals with the evolution of faith, standards, convictions, preferences, control, influence and, of course, regret.
I suspect that some or many may disagree with my ultimate conclusions regarding this story but that is okay. I am not afraid of pushback. So, let's go...
I met Marlene Miller in 1978. I believe she was in junior high. I had just started attending Mid-Cities Baptist Temple in Downey, California where my brother, Bill, had recently become the pastor. Despite being just 19 years old, Bill had asked me to be the Youth Director (more commonly referred to as Youth Pastor in today's church vernacular). At age 19, this in itself was probably ill-advised. Too young; too immature; lacking in real life experience. But I digress.
 |
| Marlene at Youth Activity |
The two things that immediately jumped out to everyone she came in contact with was her flaming red hair and her big personality. Not a shy bone in her body. She would boldly strike up a conversation with anyone within the range of her voice. At the risk of sounding like a "Dateline" episode, Marlene would light up a room with her contagious smile and her bold demeanor.
 |
| Marlene |
As I launched the teen ministry at Mid-Cities, Marlene wanted to be involved in every facet. We had youth group on Sunday nights prior to the evening church service, teen Bible study in my office on Wednesday nights and youth activities every month. Marlene never missed anything. She was always early. She seemed to live for membership in this community of teen believers. The model of consistency and faithfulness, Marlene was the face of that youth group.
We were a fundamentalist church with fundamentalist beliefs... plus some additional dogma thrown in for good measure. I know that in today's understanding of church vernacular, "fundamentalist" may have a negative connotation. To some, it describes a wild eyed, controlling, screaming cult member and to be honest, that description fits some in the Baptist Church landscape. However, in my mind, the true definition of a fundamentalist is simply one who holds to the fundamentals of faith such as the inerrancy of scripture, the virgin birth of Jesus and salvation by grace through faith.
As boring as those descriptions may be, I feel it is important to spell out these distinctions in the telling of this story and to better facilitate an accurate chronology of events and the evolution of my belief systems.
The "additional dogma" mentioned above becomes key to this tale and will, no doubt, create some of the controversy I allude to in my opening paragraph.
We had a list of do's and don'ts that we believed and taught. And the longer your list, the more spiritual you were... or so we thought. A few of the big ones:
*Rock music was evil... in fact, ANY secular music was frowned upon.
*Long hair on boys was despicable! How long was "long?" If it touched your ears and/or collar. That's right... mullets were a no go.
*The big one for the girls? No britches! You had to wear a dress or a skirt that was the proper length. We would mandate that girls wore dresses to all activities, regardless of the physicality of the event.
These were issues that we were extremely dogmatic about and raised to the level of their importance that rivaled any other Biblical doctrine.
Back to Marlene...
Marlene was a tomboy. She was rough and tumble. She never shied away from anything physical. Her passion was softball and this would be key to the events that unfolded over the next few years.
I think it was about 1980 and Marlene was just starting high school. Our youth group was thriving but our church, in general, was struggling. Finances were sagging and adult attendance was in a steady decline. The church leadership made the very difficult decision to close up shop and merge with the church in Norwalk that we had originally came from.
In the chaos and confusion of that transition, we seemed to have lost Marlene. Some of the kids from the youth group followed us to the new church but Marlene became a consistent no show. I know there was some communication between us but I never got the full story about why she quit attending... until 30 years later.
Rather than recreate the conversation, I will copy and paste a conversation that Marlene and I had on Facebook Messenger in April of 2010:
Marlene:
On a different
note... I have some things I need to get off my chest.... It is very important
to
me that you
are aware of the impact you had on my life. If I would have been a little older,
I
would have
been able to come to you with question about my faith and the bottom line,
softball and
wearing pants and even worse shorts to play sports. At that time, I thought it
would
disappoint you if I wore a softball uniform to play ball. Running away made
better
sense to me...
(silly teenage girls!) Over the
past 30+ years, I have often thought about
you with love
and respect and appreciation to you and to God for leading you into my life.
Without your impact, where
would I have ended up?? I shudder at the thought.
Me:
To think that I had a part in
pressuring you about wearing a softball uniform... to the point
that you felt you had to make
a choice between church and softball... is just devastating to
me. Marlene, I am so sorry. And I was SO
wrong. I didn't know why you left... or at least I
don't remember. You were the
model of consistency in our youth group and I was so hurt
when you quit coming to
church. But in actuality... it was my own fault. I misled you about a
bogus standard. I can tell you
that I didn't mean to mislead you. It was my own spiritual
immaturity. I wish we could
hit the reset button and do that part over so that you could
enjoy the heck out of playing
high school softball while having great and guilt free worship
in your church.
Marlene:
Remember how
young I was and that I did not have parents involved in the church. I was
afraid to
speak up and ask questions. please don't feel sorry for anything. please don't
over
evaluate what
you did or thought back then with regards to me. I was a confused kid who
took the easy
way out of something I didn't understand. Don't say sorry. I sent you this
message to
lift you up... To tell you you made a difference. If I could go back, I would
have
invited you to
my games to critique my swing and tell me to stay down!!! I love that you
coached your daughters... it lifts ME up. I will feel horrible for the next 30 years if I
think I
made you feel
bad and say sorry to me. I am thrilled to have had you I'm my life when I
needed a God
fearing male role model.
As you can see, Marlene was a gracious as one could be as we discussed this season of our lives but it doesn't erase the regret that I feel today. I thought I was doing the right thing and there was no nefarious motives on my part. I do take solace in the fact that my motives were pure and that regardless of my missteps, that I generally had a positive influence on Marlene and the rest of the teens that I learned to love so deeply.
What did I learn from that situation?
The Difference Between Conviction and Preference.
Don't go cross referencing on me... as these are my personal definitions. I believe that a "conviction" in the realm of faith, is a belief directly tied to specific scripture or scriptural principle. The 10 Commandments are a good example... "thou shall not steal." It is a Biblical 'conviction' that stealing is wrong.
A 'preference,' on the other hand, is something you prefer for YOU but do not have the scriptural authority to foist onto others. It is my preference to match my shirt with my tennis shoes 😄 As much as I'd like to mandate that to everyone, I cannot... because it is a personal preference.
I believe that the pushing of my preference caused Marlene to stumble and thus... my regret.
Also... Marlene still plays softball today at the ripe old age of... okay, never mind... I've done enough damage today already.
God is good.
But...
Regrets... I've had a few
