Here we go again. Sure it's been 4 weeks since I last updated but I am committed to this series, just had a few weeks of grad school. (Which is going great by the way. Its an roller coaster of intensity but as the semester winds down I am finding I learned a lot this past year. And am now ready to go forward into a new career.)
If you missed Part 5 its here. The series begins with Part 1 here.
Its been a crazy last few weeks with tons of school work but I must finish this blog series....
I left off with me in the air on the trip back to America from France. By the time I arrived back in America I was ready for some good food and a nap. Our plane was late so I missed my connecting flight, luckily some of the passengers who I met on the previous flight also were had missed the flight so I was able to talk with them and soon our new flight was landing in Orlando.
A few days after arriving back I my friend called me, she had previously asked me to be in her wedding, and asked if I could let another one of her friends crash at my house till the wedding. I said sure and the next day drove up to Orlando to meet her friend. I pulled up outside of the Disney college program housing complex and Davey walked out. By the time we arrived back at my place after our short 45mins I knew I would be friend with this new person! The next week and half I let this stranger stay with me and by the time we headed to Michigan for the wedding we were close friends. The road trip up and back was fun, as always I made sure to stop at all the random road side attractions that make any trip unique. Davey stayed in Michigan and I drove back alone. The trip was good but the best part was the end of the trip where I finally was able to see Maggie again. It was so good to see her. We spent my birthday at the Aquarium Restaurant in Nashville with a friend who was staying with Maggie. Afterwords we followed each other back to Florida, rounding up a few other friends along the way. By the time we arrived back to Florida there was 5 of us altogether in the caravan of vehicles filled with supplies for the coming school year.
Soon we were back at college. My roommate Will and I were getting along great, Maggie and I taking some of the same classes. All of us ready to graduate and move on with our lives. That fall went back fast and all my thoughts circle around Maggie.
The spring semester went by almost as fast, the only focus outside of school and Maggie being my attempt to find a place to do my required internship. Luckily my roommate had been trying out a church in Tampa and recommended me meeting with the college program pastor. Around 10:30am on a Thursday morning I met him at a local Starbucks, by the end of the meeting I was in at the church.
Maggie was also looking for a place to do her internship as well. I talked to Bobby, the guy I met with, and soon Maggie had a meeting with the children's ministry director at the church.
We both began our internships the end of May. Both Maggie and I had experience volunteering in church before but this time we got a behind the scenes raw look at the inner workings of one of Tampa's largest mega-churches.
I was working with the youth and young adult ministries, Maggie was working with the children's ministry. Each day we met each other and drove from Lakeland to Tampa to our internships.
That summer I helped design stage sets, making videos, leading a small group, and even spoke to the middle school group. For the first and maybe only time in my life I went shopping with a no limits exclusive credit card, of course I had a very strict shopping list but still it was a blast popping out that card everywhere I went. Its always fun to spend other peoples money.
As the summer transitioned into fall the internship came to an end. I took a job at the church doing housekeeping and Maggie got one doing childcare during counseling classes and church services. By the end of the first few weeks we had both admitted that we were tired of church and ready to go on with our lives.
The church we were working at was in the midst of some major transitions itself, transitioning from a traditional Baptist church to a more charismatic independent church though to my knowledge it still to this day is recognized as a Baptist church. The staff at the church was in flux even as we did our internships, many of the 70 or so staff we started with had left by the mid-October. I was burnt out on church and seeing the mega-church politics didn't help any.
One day while cleaning the freshly remodeled lobby a homeless person came in and asked if we offered any services to help him. Sadly the church didn't, most of its assistance in such programs had been cut even as the church embarked on huge remodels that included new flat screen televisions in every class room, huge new stage sets, and a lobby that looked to be inspiried by Cheesecake Factory.
I was hoping to find that all the rumors about working at a church had been inflatted instead I found them all to be true. Overworked staff, unapprciative congergation, poor focus on essentials and leadership that seemed to be chasing all the wrong dreams.
By October I had stopped going to the services, sitting in during the worship and skipping out on the messages. Most of them were just canned messages the church had bought from other more famous mega-churches, so most of the messaes I had already heard since I subscribed to the podcasts of the other mega-churches.
One day while cleaning a office I looked in the trash can I picked it up. I saw a note from a leader in the church that read "Here are the points of my message. Can you find Bible verses that go along with them?" It was that note that pushed me over the edge. The next week I put in my notice.
By November I was looking for a new job but with graduation a month away I had the whole world in front of me. The contract on my apartment in Lakeland was up. I searched for an apartment in Tampa and after no luck my father bought a trailer for me in an great location just off I-4.
A friend and I moved into it on Thanksgiving weekend. Two weeks till graduation, but I wasn't even thinking about graduating, I had another even bigger event planned.
That will all have to wait till Part 7 which will hopefully not take nearly as long to write as this one did. Thanks for reading.
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