What My Dad And I Have Been Arguing About

I have a special relationship with my dad. He is one of my favorite conversation partners and we both have become masters at throwing zingers at each other. Conversations is the polite term for what my mom would call arguments.

Lately we have been having a recurring conversation.

My dad serves as the district manager for the American Red Cross’s efforts in Placer County. Placer county is home to some of the biggest and wealthiest churches in the Sacramento area. We are talking big ones. Ones with more parking spaces that strip malls. Ones who can drop $400,000 redecorating their youth ministry center. And that is the source of our conversation.

I come from the perspective that if a church has succeeded in attracting huge crowds of teenagers to youth programs it is time, not for celebration, but for asking some hard questions.

Questions like: Yes, they had 400 kids at their day camp, but did they come for positive mentoring with caring adults, or for the highly advertised chocolate water slide (no, I am not making that up). Or questions like: Is it good for kids to be ushered into their own room, far from their families for “church”, when all research indicated their parents play the largest role in their faith development?

My dad tends to acknowledge the merit of the questions. Then he hits me with this one: Are you sure you aren’t just jealous.
Ouch.

The truth is, I think I am jealous. Who doesn’t want to be the center of all that attention from teenagers? Who doesn’t understand feeling so passionate about something – say, building faith in teenagers – that you are willing to try anything to realize it, even using a chocolate water slide? I think if I had the budget for a chocolate water slide, I might find myself finding a way to argue myself into renting it.

And this is why I need these conversations with my dad. He allows me to make my arguments, and even acknowledges their merits. But he then he forces me to deal with my own reality, the thin space of life where my idealism and neediness connect to from the substance of my life. By helping me see my own failure to live up to my ideals, he helps me see with more compassion and respond with more respect to those whose ideals are different than my own. I think they end up making me easier to live with.