Why I love my Chapel

As some of you may know I’ve had a real hurt/hate relationship with the Christian church over the last few years. What a long story that is… and I wont get into that here. It seems though that the winds are changing on that front for me. Not long ago I celebrated a year of working with a church in Akron/Green called “The Chapel.” What a year! For the first time ever (for me) in a church I’ve had people reach out and care for me and my family. The people there have loved on us in ways that I can’t put into words without sobbing like a little girl. The love of Christ has been poured out in such a way that I can’t help but want to pour the same love into other people. It’s been a totally new experience for me to be “working” for a church that doesnt just see me as a product that needs to be wrung out for every penny they’ve “invested.” I’ve had a lot of that in the past, people who keep you around and are kind to you because you have an ability to give them something that they want. And much of my working life was that way. I existed for a number of years where the relationships with the people I worked with and served with and grew with for 10 years consisted simply of them needing me to do things. I didnt realize until I experienced something else that few invested in me or saw value in me as a person. I was a cog in a machine that was oiled with shallow relationships and paid with token praise to get the wheels turning to put out the desired product. As soon as I left work most of those “relationships” disappeared into thin air. My wedding went unnoticed and my son’s first weeks of life were witnessed only by a handful of people. Only Kathy, Christina, Natalie, Jonathan, Georgia, and my family visited us. Only those few out of the many that promised to stay with us and continue to love on us and that loved us and would see us through and other nonsense. Those were heartbreaking times.

I say all of that to set the stage for my state of mind in coming in to the Chapel to work. I was committed to leaving it just at work. No involvement. I didnt even care if the people there thought I wasnt a Christian at all. Anything to keep them at arms length. Just so I didnt have to get my hopes up again. Because I’ll tell ya… it takes time to recover from your community not even noticing you had a baby. Sigh. And I’m not sure when it happened… it was such a slow process they really snuck up on me. At first everyone was just so nice. No one was pushy to find out about me. But they seemed to like having me around. And then the offer came from my boss (Rick) to come early to dinner (free) before rehearsal on Wednesday nights. To start it was just me. I figured I should at least make a showing. But then there were just so many nice people there. And we’d talk about silly things and serious things and all sorts of things. I noticed that the pastors Knute and Paul seemed to really be low on ego. Paul especially is just the most humble person. He always had kind words to say about the work that I did and they were genuine. He took any comments I had about how we could make things better seriously. Kenton too (worship leader) seemed to want my opinion and did everything he could to accommodate making video of the services the best it could be. Even when I told him that his favorite color to wear on stage (black) made him look like a floating head and hands he thanked me for looking out for the way he was presented on video and he has since really gone above and beyond to be aware of those things. The ease of working with them was a blessing. And I started to warm up.

Last summer things really started to change for us. Over and over we’d been invited to play volleyball with the worship team at Boettler Park on Thursday nights. I put it off forever. I didnt want Scott and I to feel like a 5th wheel. I knew (or thought I knew) they were just being nice and didnt want us wrecking their clique. But Emily especially persisted and suddenly we found ourselves having a FABULOUS time playing sand volleyball with a bunch of people we didnt know. And just like that the walls fell down. We got to know Emily better who is just a multifaceted wonder who is always surprising and fun. Maureen who I am convinced is Jesus in human form. She has loved on us by just loving us and expecting no return. I just want to hug her every time I see her (and often do) just because she is so wonderful, so lovable, so talented and beautiful and so full of the Spirit you just want to be around her. She’s just a blessing. And she lobbed boulders at the walls we’d built. Rob and Dan and Glen are becoming “The guys” for Scott. He began prodding me to never miss Thursday nights because they were all just so cool for him to be around. He no longer cared the risk, he saw long before I did that these people were different. Bonnie soon joined and brought a humor that splits my sides. And the team (we really were one by then) moved to a competitive league at the Chapel this fall. I met people at Boettler who were church people without the ick of it. Its hard to feel like people are going to judge and ridicule your sinful mistakes when you meet them covered in sand and sweat hollering and laughing over life and living. So when I saw them again on Sunday mornings it was impossible to shrink away into the background. I just wanted to be around them. And it grew from there.

I was invited to a baby shower for my Boss’ (Aaron) wife Abi. There I got to finally start to get to know Abi (who I’d worked with but that’s different) and Emily and Brenda and others. I realized somewhere in the middle of that shower that I was glad I was there. And that these women (although better makeup’d) were happy I was there and they wanted me to want to be there because they wanted to be friends. None of them knew I could edit their kids’ recital (and if you’re reading this I STILL can’t) but they still thought I was worth being around. That was a new one. And from there it’s only grown. Aaron and I are really enjoying working together, and Abi’s like my online soul mate We can chatter away forever (or until one of our kids needs us) and I’m often wishing she was next door so we could hang out more. I’m finding that I want to reach out and get to know BERTOLLI Emily and so many others. The fear is gone somehow. They seem like fun people, and for some reason they’re different and I want to keep that going. I love it.

For a long time there was only JB, Adam, and Kathy (Julie you’re in there too!). They were the onlys that stuck it through when no one else took the time to love on me. And oh how I love them for it. And oh how I thought they were always going to be it. The onlys. But I’m so happy to say they arent. There’s so many mores. And its been the greatest joy of this year for me to introduce the onlys to the many mores and realize there’s so much more love and happy now than ever before.

As the year winds down I didnt want to miss the opportunity to be thankful for the people the year has brought into our life. New amazing friends, realizing that the distance from here to Florida isnt enough to kill off the old friends (actually it’s just made it all the more wonderful every time I get to talk to them). That Morocco and Jordan can easily be reached online and I never have to loose my favorite friend to hug The knowledge that these friendships are building friendships for Connor too that’s been pretty doggone amazing. Big D, G-Man, Killer B, Smac, Slash, Sandman, the Ringer, quickserve, team Davis, and the rest of the Boettler crue are irreplaceable (and can be seen bi-montly on ESPN 500).

This year. What a blessing.