“I, too, was there the same year as Recovering Alumni. I think it was kind of a transition year…some of the old-timey crazy was still in full-effect, and some of the NEW! IMPROVED! CRAZY hadn’t yet been implemented. (examples: We still had to build the Quonset huts and do lots of other (extra) manual labor after working full days in the office. But they hadn’t yet instituted graduation levels and being forced to defend why you should get whatever special accolade on your diploma.
When I first got there, I was way excited and hyped on the Teen Mania Kool-Aid. (cherry, my fav!) I desperately wanted to be liked and given the stamp of leadership approval.
I played the game the best I knew how. It was, of course, not good enough. I was an AA, but not in one of the “cool” departments. (In retrospect, I thank God for my placement…I think it insulated me from some of the more horrific experiences other friends have shared with me. My boss really cared about me as a person and even took time weekly to have meetings to read books on leadership or just to talk to me and make sure I was ok.) The plan to give everyone spiritual gifts and personality profile tests as they come in is brilliant. The flaw in the system is…the tests are being given to EIGHTEEN YEAR OLDS…(this is a recurring and foundational flaw…) I scored as ENFP on the MBTI. I went around that year believing myself to be an extrovert among other things. Now, several years later, I know that I am very much NOT an ENFP, and it explains so many of the things I felt and experienced (but never fully acknowledged) during my year there.
I had a lot of struggles…I never quite fit in. But I was a GOOD GIRL. and I never stopped trying. (Though, I did have my tiny little rebellions…like having crushes on boys and actually acknowledging them in secret to a girl-friend. Had I been a perfect intern, I would have never spoken to those boys, and I CERTAINLY wouldn’t have “told them my vision.” But I never really bought into that. But this is a bunny trail…)
It wasn’t until at least a year after the internship that I started to come to grips with some of my issues. (The first year was spent missing the place and the people far too much to do any sort of productive processing.) Then I started wrestling with things like the emphasis on physical healing…and how if you’re not seeing your prayers answered clearly your faith is deficient. (One specific talk by Melissa King in the auditorium one night toward the end of our internship still springs fairly vividly to mind. She gave us 8 reasons why God doesn’t heal.)
At my Christian college, I started to see some of the same cult-of-personality, cookie-cutter tendencies that run RAMPANT at TM. Have you ever noticed how so many of the leaders are so similar? It’s not coincidence. Dave and Ron look for qualities that they see in themselves…and they source their leaders from ORU/Tulsa (at least they did in my day), and everyone is taught the same things and have the same sorts of personalities. and they, in turn, look for mini-me’s to elevate their special chosen “super-interns”. (that’s what we called the favored few in my day.) It wasn’t as bad in college, but it took me time before I quit trying to measure up there, too. Or rather, quit trying to be something I’m not. I wanted recognition…I will admit that. And the ones who get recognition are extroverted, bubbly, people-persons. The RA’s, the ACA’s, the CA’s…are all spiritual giants. And I wanted to be a good Christian.
So, I applied to be an RA my first year out of the internship. I was listed as an alternate, and I spent hours in the student development office crying to the woman who hadn’t chosen me because I truly DIDN’T UNDERSTAND! Dave had TOLD US that we were the cream of the crop; we were leaders. We were going to change the world. So why didn’t I get picked?
It took several years for me to realize (and be ok with) the fact that I am not wired that way. AND THAT’S OK. I have other giftings…giftings which are just as valuable to the kingdom of God. Teen Mania is not a place which celebrates people with different skills and abilities. At least it wasn’t for me. It wasn’t a place of self-discovery and growth and learning…It was a place of trying to fit into a mold so that I would be good enough.
Now…that is certainly not what they would say they’re about. The leadership would all SAY the right things. And might even mean them. But part of the problem is that whatever someone in leadership says…the next day, it is going to become a foaming-at-the-mouth radical mantra for a wild pack of zealous 18 year olds. 18 year olds do not know themselves. They do not know what grace or moderation are. And having such an intense, rule-filled, structured environment is not a healthy environment in which to facilitate the kind of growth the HA says it stands for. On a regular basis I saw (and experienced) the letter of the law trumping the spirit of the law. Until TM/HA manages to figure out how to change that foundational tenet…the HA is still going to be a poisonous place for some people…even if they don’t realize it until years after the fact.
(I could obviously write several more chapters…about how I was assigned an accountability partner, or how job assignments are actually carried out, or how trying to follow the rules made my church-going experience empty and painful…but this is already kind of long.)
other snippets of TM life:
*Crosswalk: in theory, TOTALLY FREAKING AWESOME. in practice…a little sketchy. I think being given specific rules (no asking questions! You can only ride 20 miles with one ride-giver!) hamstrung the experience a little bit. Then there was the fact that my group was 5 females and 1 male. We were lucky as hell that the man we were assigned was black…wandering around TX with a wooden cross…in an area that just HAPPENED to be circulating rumors of a KKK gathering…AWESOME. Yes, we did have a run-in with the cops. And yes, our token-black-guy saved our ignorant little white butts.
*I think it’s pretty consistently documented that females and males have very different HA experiences. When I was there, I doubt anyone would dispute the assertion that overall, the male leadership and the male intern experience was just better. After one chapel led by (definitely the best woman we had!) Brenda Bertrand on synergy…I went to another dorm to speak with a female intern with whom I’d been having misunderstandings. I was a few minutes late returning to my dorm…and ever dutiful, went straight to my CA to report myself. I EXPECTED to be told, “oh, if that’s why you were (less than 5 minutes) late, don’t worry about it. I’m glad you were experiencing healing.” That is not so much what I was told. I was assigned dish duty. I’m not proud of the fact that I did not respond with grace. I definitely gave my CA attitude and metaphorically stomped off to my room. i felt bad about this and went to visit my CA at her work assignment the next day (which was Saturday.) I arrived and she was on the phone, so I just sort of waited around. She must not have realized who was waiting for her, because I soon discovered her phone conversation was about ME! it turned out she was speaking to our IA…but the whole experience was really kind of ridiculous.
