This situation isn't even my own, but I feel frazzled by my reaction to it.
To everyone else, it's a very positive change in the life of our mutual friend. For as long as we can recall, in our college church group, our brother ( Let's call him W) has been single (not bad on its own) but has desperately been desiring / hoping for a wife in his future. He will be turning 27 later this year.
I've prayed for him for the last couple years since returning to the student ministry; both for his continuing development in character and that God would someday grant him a wife. Every time he and I would talk, catch up, he made it very clear that he felt very limited by his age. He always told me that he was looking for someone his age, but it's always been either that no one among the women in our church (his age and single) either had interest in him or he had no interest in pursuing a relationship deeper than friendship with them. Most of all, he always made it clear that he would never date an immature Christian. He had always seemed very firm in his expectations / principles / whatever you would call these.
I think that a large part of my unhappiness about the news is because of my past with this group of people.
In the last two years he led our bible study group, and we've honestly gone through periods of bullheadedness as a group. We've (women) historically had trouble organizing small groups in such a way that people felt like their friendships with people weren't staunched or became "cliquey." The men in our group always seemed to have a much easier time finding a common language... but with women it has always been a major point of tension. It always seemed to turn out like this: We would have 2 or 3 people leading small groups, those small groups would never interact with other small groups, and eventually the people became overly loyal to those 2 or 3 people or to eachother.... so when those 2 or 3 people started having issues (usually older people in the group) and either grew apathetic to eachother because of busy schedules or personal, unresolved slights... things just fell apart. Things would already, by sheer value, be broken just by how people regarded these groups... but after that point, things would just be total war.
I'd be lying if I said that I haven't been emotionally scarred by this. My first year I joined a small group where all of the girls were graduating that year... so no one wanted to actually teach anyone about Jesus or the Christian walk or actually help any of the younger women who just joined the church on figuring out how to build a faith independent of their family. I ended up leaving the church because I couldn't stand how awful the older girls were treating one another and lying to the men about everything being okay (but expecting them to somehow fix everything none-the-less).
The second year, we were just in one large group. Someone would facilitate discussion of a bible passage we were supposed to read that week, and we would discuss it. We had some time for pastoral care, but overall we didn't have enough opportunities to delve into our personal lives too deeply. In some ways it was a welcome reprieve to the earlier situation I had with the past small group. No one could form deep enough or meaningful enough friendships from that method, but no one had any real reason to expect some deep friendship or deep love from one another to demand more from anyone and cause drama. It was still not ideal; it still didn't represent the way we, as fellow believers, should treat each other... but at least it could not have become total war again.
The following year, our bible study group split into two so that we could change the set up into smaller accountability groups. I was supposed to lead one, but neither of the girls wanted to cooperate, really. I wasn't trained for it. No one told me anything about what the group was supposed to look like. There was another small group leader in our bible study, but she never answered any of my messages or phone calls about it either, although she was being trained by someone higher in the church to be a bible study leader later. [face palm] I had no idea what I was doing. In the end, one of the girls left the church (nothing that I did, she just had residual stress / anxiety over the major blow up from two years back as well). The other girl I was trying to study with ultimately flaked out -- never tried to make time to meet, and all my attempts were diverted. [sigh]
It's irrelevant, but here's the plan / vision I had for the small group back then:
I floundered for a bit, surprised that I was expected to lead the group because no one had told me until much later in the semester. Ultimately I decided to try and take the best out of the two approaches I've seen so far while part of the church -- I tried to take the fellowship and accountability from my first experiences with small groups. We would share about what was going on in our lives, pray for one another, and if the situation called for it -- confess our sins to one another and ask for support in our decision to change those lifestyles / habits / etc through prayer or accountability (calling / following up / etc ). I tried also to take the bible study from the second experience. I liked how each week's passage would come with its own opportunity to... well... teach us things that have nothing to do with our trials and just give us the opportunity to meditate over scriptures together, sharing our thoughts and answering eachother's questions. Reflecting privately (or not) on ourselves through it.
Those are the things I tried by getting the two girls to make goals for themselves in their walk. Asked them to prepare to discuss certain passages (or just read through a book in the bible by a vote). We'd share how our weeks went since our last meeting, and we'd pray.
After my first leadership experience blew up, I almost felt like just throwing it down and accepting failure. What was the use of trying to be a leader when no one was willing to follow, even in something as simple as a small group? (Which truly doesnt NEED a leader except for organizational stuff... if everyone wants to talk and contribute, that's pretty amazing but rarely does it happen).
That year the girl who apprenticed to lead bible study began to lead it for a while -- and had issues with not being able to actually lead anything with our brother W in charge... the same one who I mentioned earlier in this post. Apparently it's been a continuing issue where he felt like she shouldnt have the authority to teach scripture, so he would very rarely encourage her on it or allow for opportunities where she could cast a vision to the group or lead them through a bible study discussion. Over time, her mentor must have had a talk with him, and she was allowed to lead... but from my observations he just became colder, more withdrawn, and overall petulant. She'd seek out his praise or appreciation or a "good job", and he'd seem to just shut her down.
I honestly couldn't stand watching it happen, because it was vile... especially from someone who I felt I should have looked up to. It was also worrying because I wanted to volunteer to lead the bible study at some point... but I felt apprehension in leading it with him only to receive the same harsh treatment (and it's not in my character to quietly wait and back down and tolerate it like this girl did).
I pointed this out before to the guys I'm co-leading with now; they were apprenticed/trained by our brother and when beginning to lead I wanted to set the ground rules I guess. That I would like to / expect to be treated with more respect than what I've seen happen to that girl (my friend). They seemed confused / indignant that I would say that our brother had somehow mistreated her or marginalized her role -- entirely convinced that she just didn't put enough effort into wanting to lead anything.
I talked with her about it and she basically told me that I had it right in one. That the reason why she stepped down from leading was actually because she felt she couldn't do anything with our brother being an a** to her like that. [face palm] I have the same mentor as she did back then, and when i brought up tensions between me and this brother of ours in the church she expressed that these weren't the first similar complaints she had received about him. I'm not coleading with him, but for a while before leading bible study i was basically in charge of all of the small groups for a while... I've done my best to lead them and shape them into some form of consistency that the rest of the church follows, and I've received nothing but flak from this brother and disrespect during bible study times where he seemed to try to discredit my interpretation of scriptures or try to humiliate me in other ways.
I've forgiven him for all of that, and before going into leadership officially... we talked and sorted out our differences privately. The other option, since i was not the only one who received this kind of treatment from him and it seemed to be patterned to women, was to bring this up to the pastor and have it discussed that way... but I dont think that could have ended quite as well.
Bringing this up to the present...
I'm currently coleading with two of my other brothers in the church, and our relationships are working out really well. We all balance eachother out. The girls that I've spent all of my time trying to mentor / teach / build into all of last semester have grown and are now contributing a lot more to discussions, volunteering to pray, have great enthusiasm for personal time spent with God, and a passion for studying the word. The girl who earlier was the leader and left... had now come back to the church and I've asked her to lead a small group with one of the girls I couldn't meet with before -- she had only come to bible study, never to church, and overall seemed disinterested last semester in building any kind of meaningful relationships with people. This semester she seemed to have changed, though, and I'm glad for it. Let's call her R. Our church's newest staff couple joined our bible study, and I've asked her (the wife, clearly) to lead the small group for the eldest girls in our group because one of them is getting married / is engaged and the other has finished her schooling but is staying town for a job... so they're entirely in the next stage of life that I don't feel qualified to mentor them on or equipped to help/support them on.
[face palm] It's just... I've put so much effort and so much thought into this. Finally, in all these years, the women in our group have it together. There's no bickering, everyone is closer in understanding and friendship than I've ever before witnessed, and most importantly there is such an overwhelming difference in the ratio of women in our group that are sincerely passionate and excited about God and scripture and making it into a serious part of their life. They're growing, and with two more women to help lead the explosion of people that began showing up regularly and recently joined.... it's finally manageable and I've been able to organize it into a more or less logical tree that can be / will be self sustainable.
Since I'm being mentored by someone on staff, I meet with the other two small group leaders that -- although experienced -- are still adjusting to having just joined back with the church. We have our own small group where we check in on how each of our groups are doing, ask eachother if we need any help, talk about our personal struggles / days / trials and pray for one another... we pray for the girls we're building into... and we're trying to form a friendship centered in Christ. At least that's my goal -- I desperately don't want it to devolve into surface level pettiness or responsibility.
Each of us are leading / training up people who could then (next fall semester when more freshman will likely join) can take people alongside for a small group bible study and teach them what they've learned. At least that's the case for the girls I've been mentoring for a while now....
The two older girls will likely move on and leave the church after marriage / due to job changes, so my greatest hope for them is that they continue to grow while they're here and are equipped with ways that they can continue to study scripture meaningfully and share to others about their faith (and to be able to explain it well).
And R.... I've paired her off with our last bible study female leader. She's very quiet; clearly follows a formulaic prayer and is new/immature in her faith. She has trouble focusing, and after talking with her for a while I've found that she has weaknesses in understanding basic things in Christian beliefs. Like... I asked her to explain what the gospel is and she couldn't. I asked her to pray, and she seemed like she was putting it off or trying to divert attention away from it by stalling or talking about nonsense.
R is very sweet, and these recollections I'm sharing are from December. She volunteers to make dinner for our bible study group sometimes, and she has been getting more interested in contributing to discussion. For the longest time though, it seemed that despite her wanting to do nice things... she spiritually just... wasn't getting it. In discussions she either has nothing to contribute, she doesn't understand what she read, cannot focus on prayer or does not desire to pray, and... just.... My initial impression, and my current impression, are just that she's very fresh I guess. It's not a bad thing, just really obvious that she needs actual personal bible study with someone who feels comfortable doing those things -- just like how everyone else started out.
By now I think it's obvious in the story that R and W are dating. I found out about it through facebook [facepalm], and they apparently made it "facebook official" the monday before I got a really bad cold with a fever and had to lead discussion for bible study that day anyway. There was some PDA going on that was slight -- that I tried to interpret as just friendship even though is seemed out of place -- because with how awful I physically felt at the time I couldn't be arsed to divide my attention and focus on anything other than getting through leading the discussion and making sure we didnt forget any announcements.
.... It's been a week, and I found out about it from a friend today who showed the post to me on his phone. Just... argh. The overwhelming annoyance and irritation that I felt.
I should be happy that he found a girl that liked him back (and that he likes), but it bothers me that it looks like it's going against every single standard he seemed so vehement about for YEARS.
I'm angry that my immediate thought is that he had been bullshitting us (and me) for years about wanting a "mature Christian woman" and how he wants a very short courtship period before skipping right into marriage.
I'm angry that he, a 27 year old, is dating someone that barely stepped one foot into university (she's a sophomore) and seems to have the personal maturity of someone still in their teens. It's perfectly fine and perfectly normal for her; she SHOULD still be developing and maturing into her own person... just why the hell is he dating someone who -- despite the birth date attached to them -- is still a child?
We currently have a couple that has a similar age gap, 5 years, but at the very least the man had the decency to wait until later into her junior year to even begin to think of dating her. When she had a clear, realistic picture of what she wanted to do with her life. When she was finishing her degree and picturing what her next step in education will look like. At that point, the girl he was asking to date, court, and perhaps marry in the future was ready to think about her future with someone with clarity.
I'm angry that she doesn't have the chance now to develop her faith in her own time, in her own needs. [facepalm] I'm afraid that she might not have much time to spend with women older than her who could bond with her and guide her somewhat. Answer her questions. W is very good at theology, but he's also somewhat of a self-assured a**. I'm afraid he'll train her to believe what he believes and what he understands of the bible, and she won't have the experience to find out for herself or the chance to value to insight of others who are less of a pressure.
When you study the bible with other women, you can probably hope to get some different perspectives. When your primary knowledge of it comes from a man who is prideful in thinking that he's always right and you have an emotional attachment / investment in wanting to keep having him like you... learning form him isn't much of a choice. ... And it's very easy and very common, as I've seen, for women to place their relationships with friends or times of scriptural study aside just for the sake of spending far more time with the guy they have feelings for.
Just... argh. I feel like he's robbing her of a choice. I feel like he's robbing her of a chance to grow up on her own, to figure out what she believes. He already has a very clear plan for what he desires out of his future or expects in a wife / romantic relationship... I think it's too damn soon for them to date.
I'm also annoyed with the fact that I inadvertently planned together a small group between R, the girl who is dating W, and the girl who previously had to work with W together and never quite repaired her friendship with him because he was a total a*****e to her. How can either of them be vulnerable with eachother or share their experiences? How can, let's call her Y, Y share about her experiences as a bible study leader without having to share what a poor coleader W was and why?
And it kills me that I'm just a bystander to this. I'm expected to just be happy for them and pray and hope that it all works out for the best. That Y doesn't feel uncomfortable with having to mentor W's new girlfriend. That R is actually growing rather than learning for the sake of getting closer to understanding God and who she is as a Christian, rather than worrying about constantly being in agreement with W's beliefs.
Just... ********. I'm sorry for my anger, I'm sorry if my description of these people is poor and isn't nice and sweet and leaning toward their best character traits. They do have them, but sadly their good sides are not typically the problem. I'm sorry for my vulgarity in some of my word choices but... this is just ridiculous.
I can't possibly predict what will come of any of this. Maybe I'm overreacting and this will all just end positively... but I can't help but worry for the well being of everyone.
Is W a liar? Had he finally cracked? Is he dating someone clearly so much younger than him and immature / ignorant in their faith for... what? Good, honorable reasons? Maybe he likes her for other reasons and they fit well together in character / personality but.... surely for someone who claimed that spiritual maturity is necessary in their romantic partner (and is biblically supported as one of the most important things guiding a romantic pairing)... this should be at least mentioned? Talked about? Questioned? Treated with at least SOME level of skepticism and worry?
Is R going to get screwed over by this? Dating someone too early in life, even if eventually a relationship between them would have been great later on -- eventually?
Is Y going to be able to do a good job none-the-less? Will it agitate anything? Will W begin disparaging Y's character back when she was leading to cover up his mistakes in being a good brother / mentor to R? Will R then feel awkward or unsure about wanting to be closer to Y? Will Y feel awkward?
Will any of them even have the guts to mention it if things get really bad / intolerable and all of these awkward social issues crop up? W has never approached me about issues, even directly and only dealing with ME, even though I've asked him to. Y is very quiet and tries to tank it personally -- suffering quietly. I have no idea how R handles these things.
I know that ultimately the best thing I can do is make sure that Y still feels comfortable mentoring R, and since we're going to discuss it at our own leader-based small group I can ask her if she feels R is significantly growing in her faith and where she is at.... It's just... [facepalm] I can't believe I'm supposed to find ways to deal with this crap, and it's completely out of left field. None of these circumstances are like anything I would have imagined them to be.
