For the past few years, our sons that were old enough have attended a Mennonite camp in Kentucky. This started when I was pastoring a Mennonite church here in Ohio, and even after I stepped down and we left the church, we have continued to send our boys to camp.
This past week our oldest, 14-year-old who just finished his freshman year in public school, attended the teen week at camp. What I didn’t know ahead of time was the man who was my overseer when I was a pastor was the speaker at camp for the week.
Midway through the week my former Overseer posted pictures to Facebook, and so I knew he was at the camp. When Tricia went to pick up my son, she saw the Overseer and his wife, and they exchanged pleasantries. They asked why Tricia was there and she said it was to pick up our son—at which point the speaker connected the dots between our son and us.
On the ride home, my son said he had multiple conversations with the speaker throughout the week. The speaker said my son looked familiar, but couldn’t place where he knew my him from (the last time he would have seen my son was probably 4 years ago, before my son grew to 5’10” and went from a buzz cut to hair that is half way down his back).
During one of the chapel services at camp, the speaker said something regarding how the Bible clearly says... After the chapel service, my son approached the speaker to ask how he interprets the scripture (verbal plenary, etc.). After a time or two of him asking questions of the speaker, he said the speaker started to soften the hardline tone of his messages.
I’m proud of my son. He is becoming a thoughtful young man, who isn’t intimidated by his youthfulness or the speaker standing on stage. If something doesn’t sound right, or if it goes against the convictions he has, he will speak up and ask questions. As far as I have seen, he does this in a much more tactful way than I do at times.
We have been very open with our sons as we have walked through this season of deconstruction/decompressing/reconstruction that we have been going through for the past few years. Sometimes our dinner conversations are back and forth on what we believe or why we think the way we do. Sometimes we ask a son or sons to watch a series, such as Shinny Happy People, with us. Recently, as we were driving to New York for my brother-in-law's funeral, at least of my sons asked if we could listen to The Holy Post podcast. All of them, in different ways, said they like listening to it with mom and dad because it leads to good discussions.
I’m not sure what my former Overseer thinks about Tricia and I after our son pushed back to what he said during his messages. Honestly, I don’t really care. I am grateful that my son, at 14, is finding his voice. At times I look at him and imagine how my life would have been different if I had found my voice at 14 instead of not really finding my voice until I was in my 40’s
