OCTOBER 2010 a Letter from Chatter

OCTOBER 2010 a letter from Chatter Mmm. Breathe in the air. Halloween wasn’t just for the kids in our house, my mom would get into the spirit of costuming by combing our rooms every year for laundry left on the Smells like fall doesn’t it? I love the way fall smells like orange. floor, which she would then pin to her wool sweater and tease her hair to be- come “static cling.” (I’m still pretty sure this was just a ploy to get my sister and That’s right. Orange. Not the citrus orange; the color orange. As in the color of me to clean our rooms before going Trick-or-Treating.) pumpkin spice candles, crisp fallen leaves and the wrappers of the best Hallow- een candy ever: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups! While I loved creating my own costumes, there were times I would have given anything to buy a costume; especially the year Christine Thrasher bought a This time of year the air is filled with traces of orange. shimmery, green M&M costume with glittery, white tights … I was so jealous. There’s just something magical about this season for me. Maybe it’s the fact It was times like that when my mom would morph from “repurposing mom” that I love wearing costumes, or maybe I’m simply captivated by the way nature into “Sunday school director mom.” She’d sit me down on a stool in the kitchen, makes room for the new by repurposing the old (ex: fallen leaves turning into where aromas of simmering chili filled the air, to tell me about how Jesus was protective blankets for winter chills). the ultimate repurposer; how he came into my life and took the old me and not only gave me new life, but he also gave me a completely new purpose in my life. I’ve always been a fan of repurposing. I’m pretty sure I gleaned that skill from “God is in the business of repurposing,” she would say. my mom. Growing up, she was many things — hairdresser, Sunday school director, chauffeur, super mom, etc. — but most of all she was a master of giving old It may seem like a stretch — even for a mom lesson — but it always did the trick things new life. Especially when it came to Halloween. for me. I would proudly wear my inventive creations, knowing I was a walk- ing example of the transformation that could only come from my savior. It also Leftover meat and beans became our traditional “Spooky Chili,” old sheets changed the entire holiday for me. I began to look at Halloween as a time when and fence posts became ghostly yard decorations and anything around the God reveals his ability to transform his creations into anything he desires. house was up for grabs to make one-of-a-kind costumes. See, my mom was an adamant “make your own costume” kind of mom. It wasn’t that we couldn’t It’s been a lesson that has always stuck with me; which is partly why I continue afford store-bought costumes; we just came from a long line of “Most Original creating my own costumes, dragging my amazing, easy-going husband into the Costume” contest winners. We had a reputation to maintain. obsession with me. While other kids strutted around in their fresh-from-the-package princess or All this to say, when the kid with the coffee grounds stuck to her face comes Spiderman costumes, my sister and I could be seen sporting costumes like the to your door this year on Halloween, toss in an extra Reese’s Peanut Butter monkeys from Wizard of Oz, made from an old fuzzy blankets and blue Jell-O to Cup in remembrance of the ultimate repurposer. Even if that kid is a twenty- hold our hair up straight; Stephan Spielberg, complete with a beard made from something editor of Chatter looking to get some free candy while on vacation in coffee grounds held in place with cold cream; Aunt Jemima, probably my most Dallas. unintentionally offensive costume ever; and, my personal favorite, “lady with a You’re never too old to Trick-or-Treat … right? tutu underneath her dress,” also not my finest moment, but my mom got a huge kick out of making me shake my tulle-stuffed fanny at every doorstep before grabbing any candy. Stand-in Editor Extraordinaire Kristy Alpert Art Direction, Design & Goodness Josh Wiese & Dennis Cheatham Photography Visit Chatter online at chattermag.com. Trey Hill (Bible Commnities Update) Contact Chatter at [email protected]. The Big Cheese Chatter is a publication of Irving Bible Church | 2435 Kinwest Pkwy, Irving, TX 75063 Bill Buchanan (972) 560-4600 | irvingbible.org Bible Communities By the Numbers 20 Years Bible communities have been around 18–89 Range of ages represented in Bible communities 12 Number of communities offered at IBC 15–60 People in an average Bible community The Box is also the name of a 2009 thriller starring Cameron Diaz, In 2009 the average age to get James Marsden and Frank Langella. It was based on the 1970 short married in the United States was story “Button, Button” by Richard Matheson, which was previously 25 for women and 27 for men. Chatter | 4 adapted into an episode of the 1980s incarnation of The Twilight Zone. A steady rain was beginning to fall, but that is not the reason we pulled the The saddest part of our week long marriage intensive is that most of what we car over onto the side of the road just outside of Austin that unusually warm would encounter could have been dealt with prior to our marriage. Why didn’t October. Cheryl, who had been driving, was now staring into my eyes waiting anyone ask these tough questions of us before we tied the knot? Where was for me to speak. I was shaking as I held the fine crafted wood box in my hand. the accountability of older more mature couples speaking in to our lives? We Could I really give her this gift? Was I insane? The thing I now held, so close to were certainly open and ready those fourteen years ago, but no one stepped handing over to her, would either be the end of our marriage or the beginning of forward: not our church, nor friends. It was as if everyone we knew carried something we had never experienced before. the philosophy that marriage is easily figured out. Experience is the only way to get through the complication of a lifelong commitment. Why do we spend We married young. I had just graduated college and we were both green to the four to ten years preparing for our careers in complicated educational systems ways of the world, let alone marriage. We were children of broken homes and no yet spend virtually no time preparing for marriage? And that marriage will, in one we knew had insisted we enter into any sort of pre-marriage counseling. As all probability, have infinitely greater consequences on us and others than our most people at our age, we were young and stupid enough to believe love alone careers. We realized something in the system was broken. If the church is a would carry the marriage for the next fifty years. Children came quickly and so community, preparing couples for marriage should be of primary concern. did my religious vocation. By the age of twenty-two I was the youth minister at a very unhealthy and destructive church of 8000. By thirty, I was let go from We spent the next five days in hours of intense sessions with three other my second dysfunctional church. In ten years of marriage we scarcely survived couples we did not know. A plethora of questions, discussions, time alone three life-threatening car accidents, two damaging churches, three miscar- with Cheryl, group therapy and play time. Our barriers fell quickly as we both riages, near poverty, unemployment and the pain that comes from two lifetimes realized that at this point we had nothing to lose. The most arresting detail of of unresolved hurts. our week was that we hardly spent any time talking about marriage. In fact, we never tried to “fix” anything. The week addressed how we were raised as Now in the third year of leading a start-up nonprofit, Wonder Voyage Missions, children, the way we communicated, our interpersonal hang-ups and a variety our long stagnant and unsettled issues burst to the surface. I came from a fam- of other issues that helped form us into the humans we grew up to be. As we ily who dealt with conflict by pretending all was well. It was a deadly unrealistic confronted our inner demons and the factors that led to our emotional and optimism. (If we pretend there are no problems they will eventually fade away.) spiritual make-up, we started to find a path to healing. Christ dealt with us as Cheryl’s family used volatile anger to deal with conflict. The first few years of individuals and we began to find a path of wholeness through his grace, provi- Wonder Voyage brought no money, odd jobs, a plethora of problems and a thin sion and transformation. As we became healthier, the potential for a healthy slice of hope. It is no wonder the stress of this new endeavor caused the mar- marriage grew exponentially. riage to eventually detonate. By the final hour of the week, most of the couples were engaged in a different By the fall of 2002, Cheryl and I had decided to separate.

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