09 Jan

FAITH BINGO: THE REDEMPTION EDITION

So, my faith experience as a youth is one that I believe a fair number of people can relate to. Allow me the brevity of this journey as I equate it to the game of Bingo.

As a young Christian, my faith scorecard was laid out with the wonderful gifts of being part of a long-legacy Christian family and faith community. I placed many chips on my scorecard. I was baptized, I regularly attended “Sunday School” (I was not raised in the Adventist faith), I regularly fulfilled my youth church duties, and I declared giving my life to Jesus at 12 in front of the whole congregation.

I even had some extraordinary squares I could put a chip on … During five summers, I spent a week each aiding the underserved communities on the American West’s Indian reservations with my church youth group. These service ministries were my first recollection of feeling God’s presence, solidifying that he abounds even now and was not just a historical figure from the Bible.

I also put a chip on the square of experiencing the Holy Spirit during a near-fatal car accident at the age of 16. But that is a longer testimony for another time.

So many chips on my faith scorecard that I could have probably “won the game” thrice over … but I couldn’t even see one B-I-N-G-O.

Much of my very blessed childhood was spent being very bitter for all of the things the world said I didn’t have. While my family was never in want, I was markedly “poorer” than the majority of my school peers. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see the beauty of God’s creation but just a horribly gawky, frail little body. I was not class president, nor the varsity hero.

And I had plenty of affirmation from the world that I was not enough by its’ standards. To my hurting little self, I was in the shadows beyond God’s light and grace. I wondered why he would create such a pitiful, odd little creature to suffer.

But if there was one gift God gave me, it was a plucky spirit.

Let’s rewind a little to my near-fatal car accident as a teen. After spending my life until then loathing my existence in God’s creation, I vowed that I was not going to waste His gift of more time in a “pity party” any longer. I wasn’t going to let the have-nots weigh heavy on me anymore, and I was going to go out and live the full human experience. Do everything I didn’t do or was too afraid to do or thought I couldn’t do.

Sounds empowering, doesn’t it!

And it was. So empowering, I thought I could go it alone. After all, what “good” had it done me when I was a simple, humble little Christian girl. And not to mention growing up in time when news of the evils and abuse within faith communities was starting to flood the mainstream media, how could you, with good consciousness, follow these wolves in shepherds’ clothing. So, alone I went.

Well, the good, the bad, and, unfortunately, the ugly ensued.

I attended two universities in two countries and design school. I had interesting employment in which I gained a multitude of skills and experiences. I traveled the world, meeting people of all walks of life and seeing the vast diversity of the world God created. I found love. And I was blessed to become a mother. The good.

I participated in worldly fun, and self-satisfaction was the goal. The bad.

I “self-medicated” rather than turning to the true healer, Jesus Christ, for help when things in life got difficult, as it always does. I stopped praying. I stopped putting Jesus in the center of my focus. The ugly.

Two decades after celebrating God’s gift of time, I felt, once again, a pitiful creature left to suffer. Countless high and low points and I felt hollow, each next high point not finally providing satisfaction.

So, I wish I could say that I ran with arms wide open back to Jesus. Alas, it was more a slow shameful wade into the healing waters. And it started with a simple postcard advertisement.

My sons were approaching school age, and we received a postcard from a local Christian school. It reminded my husband and I that we really needed to evaluate our faith and surround our children with the love of Christ through a Christian community. We stepped back into the waters with the registration process.

That ordinary parental act of school registration was the push into regrowing our relationship with Jesus and set us on a trajectory to keep going forward into the pool.

Feeling the joy from the love and support of our new church school community led to our search for a new church home. Ready to shed our childhood church “baggage,” which I can only praise the Holy Spirit for, we happened by a local Adventist church.

Now, my husband was raised in the Adventist Church, but I was not. I had had little exposure to the Adventist community, and I struggled with the misinformation I had read about our denomination. But I wanted to honor my husband’s request to return to his roots. While we had intended to visit a few Adventist churches to find the right community fit for us, we found what we had been yearning for at the first stop. The church was going through the struggles of revolving pastors, but the church community remained strong and loyal through the trials. That kept us engaged until two new pastors arrived that profoundly impacted my journey.

They were loving and supportive as I transitioned into my new faith community and made me feel very comfortable and welcome through the process. This journey was also supported by many others in the church that were genuine and vulnerable with their walk with Christ. The conversations around Biblical truths and Christ’s love stimulated not just my heart but my intellect. My faith became living and not just a tepid historical lesson. I had found a group of Christians that held my hand and walked forward with me into full submersion in the waters with Christ.

While I wish I could look back with pride at all aspects of my life, I cannot. Who is to know, other than God Himself, the effect of the intricacies of every event He has woven in all of our stories, from a willingness to be open to a postcard ad to a church Google search. But I can now undoubtedly look at my faith scorecard filled with chips as an Adventist and shout a resounding BINGO!

Liz Kirkland is the RMC communication assistant. Email her at: [email protected]

23 Oct

MEMOIRS OF A SANDWICH

I am a sandwich.

Well, metaphorically …

I guess I could more accurately say that I am a member of the “sandwich generation,” a loose term for the segment of the population who are simultaneously caring for their aging parents and supporting their own children, even if only financially. And I am in good company with about a quarter of the U.S. adult population joining me in this passage.1

To continue with the taxonomy, I also lie within the largest group of this segment deemed “middle-aged” with around 70% of this group between the ages of 40 and 59.2  Within the North American Division (NAD) of Seventh-day Adventists, we comprised almost half of the membership as of 2022.3

So, what is important about this classification other than comprising a significant number of the Adventist population? We were also “sandwiched” between two worlds: analog and digital.

Many of my peers and I remember the days when every electronic had a tether or a dial. As children, we had the role of being the human TV remote, physically going to the TV to change the channel. There was no such thing as auto dial, and you painfully watched the rotary dial on phone slowly track its way back to set before whirling it to the next number in the sequence. And one of our most valued possessions was our bicycle and the freedom and adventure it brought.

Then suddenly, in retrospect, the proverbial technology roller coaster completed the slow clackety climb to the analog apex of the track’s big drop and into the fast-paced digital world we rushed. The familiar “schwack” and “ding” of the typewriter was replaced by the jarring sound of the dial-up modem. Telephones became mobile and were no longer terra-firma bound. You could write to people all over the world and transfer knowledge in a split second rather than with costly phone plans and slow mail service.

So, you take this constantly changing physical and technological world of our youth and the constantly changing requirements of our adulthood, and I am not sure if my counterparts and I have ever really known “normal.”

So here is the rub … for us, everything is “normal.”

We were familiar with times of being relatively “unplugged.” We were also young and adaptable and growing along with this fledgling digital technology. We were certainly a sizable number of early engineers and are a large portion of the continued producers of what we are experiencing now in this period being labeled “Postnormal Times,” or PNT for short.

This concept of PNT was popularized by Ziauddin Sardar, a British-Pakistani scholar, writer, and cultural critic. It is identified as a departure from society’s previous social and governing structures and is characterized as a period of interconnected systems, unpredictability, instability, and contradictory values, beliefs, and realities.

If I were to be honest, I feel as though the twentieth century was one big postnormal time, from the roaring 20s to the female workforce during WWII to the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s to the punk rock subculture emerging in the mid-1970s. And the twenty-first century has certainly followed suit with the growth of social media, COVID, and now the integration of AI in our daily lives.

So, what has this all meant for my fellow Adventist sandwiches? My sandwich peers are half of the Adventist population and are “in line” and currently taking the leadership reins from the previous generation in the Church. Unfortunately, in a 2011 global survey of former Adventist church members commissioned by the General Conference (GC) Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research, found that around 35% of middle-aged members leave the church.4 These departures are for a multitude of reasons but included losing touch with the Adventist Church, feeling shame to not being able to live up to perceived standards, anger over treatment from the church, and more.5

So how does the Church address these problems in these continued unstable times and keep this group engaged and supported, and, ultimately, retained in the Church?

My fellow sandwiches all face some similar challenges to varying degrees. Probably one of the most basic struggles is the financial burden of supporting essentially three generations. The Church may not be able to address this issue with each individual’s circumstances, but there are benefits to being part of a supportive community in terms of hearing of employment opportunities, caregiving assistance, financial gifts from church members for significant needs, and an eager prayer community.

There is also trying to balance career responsibilities and caregiving duties that weigh on sandwiches. The stress of caregiving can take a toll on the mental and physical health of this generation. Many benefit from access to mental health services, respite care, and support groups to manage stress and avoid burnout.

Building and maintaining strong social support networks is essential. What better place to encourage from and build upon a positive support network than the Church. These networks can provide emotional support, practical assistance, and a sense of community, helping to alleviate some of the pressures of caregiving.6 What can be more Christ-like than that!

And since sandwiches manage three plus generations in their spiritual and church lives, ease of accessibility to the community is crucial. While the Adventist denomination may have initially been slow to adopt the new digital advances, it certainly has its presence on them now, from live-streamed Sabbath services to online publications and most churches and related clubs on social media.

While we can mostly agree that being present and in-person in our Church community provides the greatest spiritual and personal gains, a more hybrid approach in the Church can give those with demanding schedules greater ability to be active and engaged in the community, rather than just having to “opt out” until their lives allow for more mental, emotional, and physical space to participate. Flexibility for sandwiches is key.

So, while we wait for His second coming to eliminate the struggles and stresses of all, putting focus on all-encompassing access and tailored support to the Church community is paramount to continuing our commission in the name of Jesus and continuing to build a supportive, thriving Christian community in these ever-changing times.

Liz Kirkland is the RMC communication assistant. Email her at: [email protected]

 


1  Blazina, C. (2022, April 8). More than half of Americans in their 40s are ‘sandwiched’ between an aging parent and their own children. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/08/more-than-half-of-americans-in-their-40s-are-sandwiched-between-an-aging-parent-and-their-own-children/

2  Parker, K., & Parker, K. (2013, January 30). The sandwich generation. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/01/30/the-sandwich-generation/

3  Coppockm. (2023, April 12). Age Statistics in the Adventist Church – Adventist Research. Adventist Research. https://www.adventistresearch.info/age-statistics-in-the-adventist-hurch/#:~:text=In%20essence%2C%20while%20there%20are,80)%20comprise%20only%2012%25

4  Trim, D. (2011). Foundational Research. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://www.adventistresearch.info/wp-content/uploads/NR2017TED_2.pdf

Ibid.

6  Cohen, S. (2004). Social relationships and health. American Psychologist, 59(8), 676–684. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.59.8.676