A Conspiracy of Married People
I walked in to the service yesterday from watching some of my SPACE kids talk about the next launch for Light Company (our middle school ministry) over at the Warehouse. D had saved me a seat so I sat down. She pointed to the guy in front of me and asked if I knew him. I said no. She then proceeded to tell me that this guy sat down in a seat the lady next to him was saving for her husband. Not only that, when she told him, he said, basically, 'since he isn't here, he isn't sitting here...' or something to that effect. He also shoved all of her stuff off of the seat. Of course, they went on back and forth for a little bit. Totally rude. Incredible. We just could not get over it. Needless to say, it blew Pastor M's message for us, which makes me pretty irate now that I think about it more and more. D had to leave for a few minutes she was so incensed.
I decided during the message that I was going to say something to him right when it was over. Maybe he was a visitor, maybe he got confused, maybe he's had a rough morning. I thought, I talk about how this is really my church, how we belong here, how I help out with students, that gives me - almost entitles me- to a sense of ownership. What happens here really is important to me. I belong here. Things that happen here affect me and my family.
So right when Pastor M was done, I jumped up, introduced myself, told him I help out with students. I asked him if he was new. Nope, been going here for a few years. What? Anyway, I won't go into the details, but D and I got nowhere with him. The gist was that he felt like he was entitled to a seat. And he was pretty bitter about all the married people saving seats, that married people were so bad and selfish about it, it made it very hard for single people to get a seat when they come early. What? I just don't get it. And I really didn't want to anymore. He was very amicable, just hard headed. In the end we chose to disagree and walked away from it, on a pretty civil tone. Not to mention that he used the word 'bullshit' two times in our conversation. Now, I'm not against using that word, but I wouldn't do it 1- in church, 2- with someone I just met. That's pretty lame. And I think it's pretty indicative of his heart. Shock people, be bitter, live life how you want to live it.
I'm still in shock. And I'm sad that the couple (she by the way left when the message started to stand in the back with her husband who in fact did come in) had to experience something like that at a church that I so believe in.
Let's just say that this guy won't be coming into any contact with my students if I can help it. At a minimum, he needs to clean up his mouth. At the extreme, he needs to work on his heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment