Why I quit my Church as a teen.

Someone asked, so here it is!

Both of my parents grew up in hard core Baptist churches. My mother didn’t like them so she decided not to go as an adult. Not sure why she never looked for a different kind of church but she didn’t. When I was little she sent my sister and me to a Baptist church with my cousins because we started asking questions and she thought it would be good for us to learn what she learned in Sunday bible school. I went with them for a while, but hated the hustle and bustle of Sundays because we would ALWAYS be stuck with my cousins family ALL day long (Looking back this is probably the reason I drove everywhere as a teen and refused to carpool, I hate feeling stuck when I am ready to go!) So I didn’t start back to church untill I was a teen. I made friends with a few girls in my freshman art class that went to the same Weds night teen church, so I started going with them. Went every Wednesday and some Sundays. I didn’t like Sundays as much (early, by myself etc..) But I would go, especially during events.

I started going in 9th grade then into 10th grade when we moved to Loganville (about a 40 min drive in traffic away from my new house) My mom would take me to Sundays but not Weds when we moved because she wouldn’t get home in time to pick me up take me all the way out to Lucerne Baptist Church which is almost in Stone Mountain. Dad would take me some Weds but that required WAY to much begging.

I got a car (FINALLY) in fall of 11th, and took myself. In Dec that year I had jaw surgery, I have 4 screws in my jaw, and couldn’t chew for 6 months. But I still wanted to go on the winter retreat (my first church retreat ever) the first weekend of Jan, even though I couldn’t ski. We got to North Carolina and ate in the mess hall and headed up to our cabins. Only one of my girl friends went, but all 4 of our guy friends came. Our cabins were all separated boys/girls, there were a lot of younger girls that I didn’t really know and 3 moms for our girl cabin. The boys cabin was far away and they weren’t allowed to come near ours (I know DUH but it plays into the story later)

Our cabins were literally almost a mile from the mess hall if you were walking.
That night at about 4am I woke up sick. I started throwing up. The girls woke up at 6ish, there were only two bathrooms for about 16 girls in this cabin. All they did was complain that I kept taking up a bathroom because I was sick, because "they were going to be late to the ski slopes" The moms asked me how I felt, I answered the obvious, they said they would come back after breakfast and check on me and bring me pepto bismal (SP).

THEY NEVER CAME BACK.

Not until ONE OCLOCK IN THE MORNING. No I am not kidding, I never stopped throwing up. I was drinking water out of the sink so I would stop dry heaving and have something to throw up. There wasn’t even any food in the cabin to eat. I didn’t have a cell phone, I couldn’t call anyone, and I didn’t want to OR think I could physically walk the mile to the mess hall to use the pay phone.

One of my close guy friends (I found out some of this later from him and the other 3 guys) kept asking the youth leader and the moms about me. They said "Oh so and so was going to check on her" he kept asking around in a circle till he got fed up around midnight and walked that mile to the cabin from the gym where they were doing a Weds like singing service. The mom's and youth leader ONLY came back to the cabins because they noticed that he was missing and figured he went to see me. So he was breaking the rules, they thought we must have been doing something naughty. They passed us on that walk. He was literally carrying me down to the mess hall to call my parents.

My parents showed up a few hours later. I refused to go back to the cabin with the women. They were really mad about that, and my guy friend refused to go back to his cabin and sat there with me at the mess hall with a trash can and took care of me. My mother could have literally killed them when she got there. I think she tried to keep her language clean, lol, but I doubt she did. I was her baby. I hope to make Joee feel as protected from everything and everyone the way that my mother made me feel. She reamed them for not checking on me, and pointed out that the 16 year old boy had more maturity then the adults she had entrusted with her daughter.

I could have died.

I ended up in the hospital with an IV because I was too dehydrated.

Even if my mother wouldn’t have forbid me to go back to that church I wouldn’t have went.
They lost more than just me that day. My friend left too, we both demanded a refund which the church hesitantly gave to me and him.

I tried MANY churches in Loganville after my wounds healed. Loganville 1st Baptist, Victory Baptist, Sharon Church (I think that’s its name I can’t remember), I decided I didn’t like Baptists churches lol.

Max and I HATED that cult of a church Oasis. However I liked the church Max went to Snellville Christian, but I am not sure why we/I decided we didn’t want to go there. (we will talk about this later now that I have thought about it) I say we/I because Max is so easy going sometimes its hard to figure out what he does only because he picked up hints that its what I want to do.


In conclusion, shame on you LBC! Thank god for my friend Chris, and my wonderful Parents. Who might not have always been “perfect” and might not have always raised me the cookie cutter politically correct way that outsiders expect. But they have been the best parents a girl could have asked for. They taught me more about life, love, compassion, right/wrong, family, and faith by just being my parents then going to LBC ever did.

Sunday Church and Work

I have been a waitress since 2002. I got my first waitressing job when I was 17, and have stayed with the same store since then (minus a small break during college when I worked at an eye glass store).

I was a teenager so I got the dirt hours (in my opinion) I worked at least 5 days a week usually 5pm-12am even when I was in high school. I still made decent grades, good enough to get HOPE for college. I saved and saved, and splurged and splurged (mostly on Vans and Hollister clothes) I paid for just about all my friends outings since they were all lame and didn't have jobs or couldn't hold on to their money.

I have gotten a little off topic.

Point is I ALWAYS have worked Sundays.

When I started my freshman year of college I moved about 40 mins away, but they let me still come back and work Fri night, and Saturday and Sunday both lunch and dinner. So I still logged about 27 hours a weekend. Which was more than enough money for my college needs. I ended up paying for friend there too lol for bowling etc. Mainly I did this because I wanted to have fun with these friends, and nothing is fun by yourself, so I didn't really care about the money.

The next four years of college I had to work to pay for my apartment and such. So I lived closer to work and whatever days I wasn't at school I was working. I hardly missed days. I was seriously scheduled (day shift now) every day to do something. If school was M W F , I was working Tues, Thurs, Sat, Sun, and even some of those school nights. I made decent grades in college too.

Now that you realize my crazy work ethic, let me get to my point.

Sundays have always been a day of work for me. As a waitress they are one of the money days. So I hardly ever go to Church. Its partly to blame with my experience with the church that I went to through out high school treating me poorly and me turning my back on Church's, NOT GOD or JESUS, Churches. I really haven't found a church that I like, or that has immediately made me feel comfortable and welcome since then. (I'll tell you that story later)

But EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY that I worked I was confronted with the same question from customer after customer.

"Do you go to Church"

Here they are all dolled up in their church attire sitting at my table. They just got out of church. They are arguing with their families (which is the most common day for family problems at a restraunt in my experience) And they are asking me if I go to church. Um, would I be here this early if I had just gotten out of church?

Never the less, I say blankly.

"No I do not go to church." and move on to doing my job.

Then I become their cause, table after table every weekend.

"Oh then you should come to our church and be a christian" "why don't you go to church" "Can't you just take Sundays off"

My answers are "I am a Christian, but I don't want to go to your church. I don't go to church because I need to work to make money to keep food on my table and a roof over my head. " I also add in my head "Oh what church do you go to? I'll make sure never to attend service there"

My point is this...

If you are a Christian and you go out to eat on Sundays. Do NOT harass your waitress about your religion. Restaurants are only open on Sundays because all the church goers go out to eat. You Sunday Eat Outers are to blame for the staff not having Sunday off. Don't get me wrong I go out to eat on Sunday's sometimes with my in laws family. But I have never once seen any of them harass a server, and if they did I would probably say something because I can. ( lol I can't at work)

I have always wanted to respond with

"Do you go out to eat every Sunday?"

"Do you realize you are the reason that we are here?"

"If Christians as a community would decide to not eat out or shop after church then a lot more people would be off of work and go to church. But in till Mondays are as profitable as Sundays (usually at least a 50 dollar difference in tips) then people like me are going to not go to church and choose to work on Sundays.

I got to thinking about this again the other day because my mother-in-law and I were talking about how Mormons (this is what she says, not sure if it is fact.) don't go out to eat at all on Sundays. They don't even stop to get gas. So that they are not fueling the system.

I might also add other Sunday observations that I think are ironic:

• Sundays we make money by volume not by good tipping. No one likes to tip well on Sundays, not sure why my two theories are 1. They think the people that work on Sundays aren't as worthy cause they didn't go to church and 2. They just gave all their money to their church.
• A LOT of people are mad and angry on Sundays. I have witnessed more couples/family meltdowns on that day then all the other days combined.
• One Sunday when I was 7 months pregnant an old man (60's) slapped me so hard on my arm when I was walking by that he left whelps then a bruise. He wanted a to go box, and he was in a hurry and I wasn't paying attention to him. He wasn't even my table. Oh, and my manager did absolutely nothing to the man. I was mortified.
• People are constantly leaving those little pamphlets "Are you Saved" Or "Here is a TIP" which is religious paraphernalia as my actual tip instead of money.

Since mid-January I stopped working on Sundays so that I could have a day with my daughter AND my husband. Money wise it has been an adjustment. We still aren't going to church yet though. We have discussed it several times, but I don't want to put Joee in the church daycare while we are there, and I am not sure she will behave that long. I don't want her to be in there because she isn't around kids yet, so she isn't getting sick all the time, and I don't know these people. Like I said it would be a new church. I think soon we might go fishing for a church. I'll let you know what we turn up with. I am very picky. I think I am because I am headstrong and have a set idea of what I want to get out of a church.

Honestly I would rather go to a church that teaches, instead of preaches. Max said he thinks I mean bible study, which I guess is true.