Intro to book Im working on

Hey guys, The following is a very rough first draft of the intro chapter to a book I am working on. It hasn't been edited yet, so I am not looking for grammatical feedback, but I would like to know what you think about the content. Should I redo it? should I scrap it and start over? Having never written a book before this whole thing is new to me so I figured I would invite others into the journey with me. The main question I have is, would you want to keep reading this book if you read the intro. So here goes nothing.

Stuff I’ve Learned In Church

Introduction

            When I was in the 8^th grade I made one of the biggest decisions of my then 13 year old life.  I decided that I was going to try out for the football team at Crane Middle School.  Now to you that may not seem like such a big deal, but let me give you a little bit of personal history.  Technically an honest person would not describe me as either tall (5’8” on a good day), nor slender for a male.  To put it in more tangible terminology, I’ve always been what one may consider, “husky”.  Add to this the reality that I was a very “late bloomer” and you could understand why choosing to play 8^th grade football in Texas, a state where this sport is only slightly less important than Jesus, was such a big choice.  Unknowingly I was stepping into my first exposure to the reality that in life there are unseen dividing lines between our experiences and opportunities.  In this case, that dividing line was called, “Puberty”.

            You see, at Crane Middle School, there were actually two 8^th grade football teams.  First there was the “A Team”, and just as one could easily surmise, this was the star studded team comprised of all the kids who already had deepening voices and used razors to avoid looking like grown men.  They were the Goliaths of our middle school.  They were the young men that strutted around the halls, lifted weights like Olympians, and were brave enough to shower in the open bathrooms in our locker room. 

            Then, there was the “B Team”.  This was the team for the rest of us.  Those of us who were still far from being counted among the young men, and who would avoid by every means necessary the public humiliation of an open shower room.  We walked home stinky, talking about video games, and daydreaming about the cheerleaders who never even noticed us.  We were smaller and weaker, but what we lacked in stature we made up for with good ole fashioned heart…at least that is what our coach told us.

Being that my body wasn’t exactly built for speed, I chose to play the position of offensive lineman.  Football seemed complicated to me at the time, but I knew I loved to hit people and that seemed easy to me.  As my coach explained it, “you will never get your name in the paper playing O-Line, but games are won or lost within three yards of the ball”.  At the time I had no clue what that meant but I just nodded my helmet and made a football grunting sound like everyone else.  But I quickly got assigned to being the “Starting Right Tackle” of the B team.

Regardless of our physical differences all of the football players shared practice time and we would often be thrown together for position drills.  Now the way these drills worked was quiet simple.  All players of the same position would get in a line.  The first two guys in line would run the drill against each other.  Then, the first person went to the back of the line and the second person would turn and run the drill again against the person in line behind him.  After that everyone would move up a spot and the process would continue. 

One of the drills our coaches used for us offensive linemen was called, “The Boards”.  It was a pretty simple concept.  Lying on the ground was a five foot long 1”x10” board (painted Crane Comet Green to match our jerseys of course).  Two guys would line up facing each other at either end of the board in their pre-snap stance.  To the loud cheers of the other linemen waiting in line, when the coach blew the whistle, both players would come firing out of their stances full speed at one another colliding like two rams during breeding season.  They would charge into each other until one gave way and was pushed backwards beyond the board.  The drill was then won by one and lost by the other.  The line would move up and the process would repeat.

Well, considering everything I said about the discrepancy between the A-teamers and the B-teamers, you could understand why a bit of strategizing took place when the coach called all the linemen over to the boards.  All the B-teamer would strategically try to line themselves between two other B-teamers.  Obviously, this doesn’t work for everyone, and inevitably there would be two “sacrificial lambs” that took it on the chin from the A-team on behalf of the rest of the B-team linemen.

One day, as we were lining up for the boards, I made the mistake of allowing a conversation to distract me while all the other B-teamers scurried and shuffled strategically in the line.  When I turned around I realize that not only was I facing an A-Teamer, I was facing none other than Timmy Gonzalez.  Now Timmy wasn’t just an A-Teamer…he was the embodiment of all things “A-Team”.  He was the largest offensive lineman on our team.  In fact, he was bigger than some of the teachers in our school.  Timmy was the kind of lineman that B-teamers wanted to be like when we grew up!  Timmy was so developed that he must have hit puberty in the womb! He was a football wrecking ball!  The only saving grace I had in this situation was that Timmy was both a very nice guy and a personal friend of mine.

Everything probably would have been fine, but then the coaches got involved.  I can remember like it was yesterday Coach Walker looking at me and saying, “Pinto”, (which was his nickname for me in reference to my stature and shape at the time), “you better give Timmy something to think about!  You gonna let him push you around and shove you right off this board, or are you going to show him how big your heart is?” 

About this time the entirety of the B-team offensive line started chanting for me and smacking my helmet, “You got this Freddy.  Show him what’s up”.  Timmy just stood there smiling gently towards me and waiting to line up.  When we got down into our positions Timmy looked over at me and whispered as kindly as he could, “Don’t worry man, I’m not going to hurt you.  Just be cool and go with it.”  But I had too much riding on the line to, “go with it”.  So instead of smiling back, I put my mouthpiece in and crouched down into my stance.  Gritting my teeth, I channeled all the inner beast I could and waited for what seemed like an eternity for the whistle to blow.  When it did, Timmy didn’t even move forward.  He stood straight up as I lunged at him with all my might.  He gently caught me, and then extended his arms tossing me backwards to the ground.

After disposing of me about as gently as he could have, Timmy turned and started to walk to the back of the line. But when I saw the complete disappointment in the eyes of my entire fellow B-teamers, I sprang to my feet and had a moment of complete insanity.  I felt pride opening my mouth, and then as if in an out of body experience I heard the following words being shouted from my mouth, even as I cringed inside, “Hey Timmy, where you going?  I want to see you try and do that to me again!  This time, I am gonna knock you on your butt!”

There was an immediate silence across the field, as if a gunshot had gone off.  It took a second for everyone to process what had just been said before reacting.  The gauntlet had been thrown, and Timmy, shocked as he was, simply tried to laugh it off and keep walking. But just like an Angel of Death or something, Coach Walker magically appeared right in the middle of the situation and he yelled to Timmy, “Did you hear that?  Are you gonna let little Pinto call you out like that?  Are you scared of him or something?”  And then something amazing happened.  Slowly, but with building excitement, the B-team started chanting my real name, “Freddy, Freddy, Freddy!”  In a moment I had gone from zero to hero.  I had redeemed myself and restored the defiant pride they had earlier placed in me. 

Once Timmy heard the cheering and was quickly surrounded by his fellow A-team linemen, he had no choice. He turned and walked back to his position opposite me on the board.  When he turned and faced me the team erupted into cheers and I was surprised to see that practice had ceased and the entire B-team had assembled behind me.  Likewise, the entire A-team was now behind Timmy yelling at him to put us B-teamers in our place. 

Just like that I found myself in the place of a modern-day David facing Goliath.  There I stood on one side of the battlefield; a boy standing before a man.  Boldly challenging the giant without a hint of hesitation or fear.  Inside my heart was pounding so loud that I was certain everyone else could hear it, but I refused to let my fear show. 

As we took our positions on the board, the sound of the cheers became deafening. My team had moved from chanting, “Freddy, Freddy, Freddy” to chanting, “B-Team, B-Team, B-Team”, and I knew immediately that this was about much more than Timmy and I.  I had become the representative of every B-team player on the squad.  I carried the weight of every kid who got made fun of for not showering in the locker room.  I bore the frustration of every B-teamer who had been locked in an equipment locker, thrown in a trashcan, or had there head flushed in the toilet by the A-team.  And across from me stood not Timmy my friend, but an A-teamer.  He was now simply an oversized, intimidating expression of dominance and oppression wearing an A-Team green jersey and white helmet. 

As I crouched down into my three point lineman stance I went through the instructions in my mind. Straighten your back.  Head up. Legs ready to explode.  Visualize yourself going through your opponent.  Engage and fire your hands into his shoulder pads.  Drive with your legs.  Drive with your legs. Drive with your legs. 

It seemed as if time slowed down and those few short seconds stretched into an endless moment.  While I waited for the whistle, I could feel the fear-induced adrenaline flooding my system.  As my heart raced I focused on visualizing Timmy crashing to the ground.  Searching inside myself, I harnessed all of the rage I could and I became convinced that when that whistle blew I would shock the world by exploding with such power that Timmy would be tossed onto his back.

Then, Coach Walker raised the whistle to his mouth.  It was time.  I locked eyes with Goliath, staring at him defiantly.  But the eyes I met were not angry.  In fact, they looked sad.  In that last moment, big Timmy looked at me and mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”  And then, the whistle blew and we leapt forward to the deafening cheers of our teammates.

Now, let me pause for a second and explain something.  I have never been tazed by a police officer, but as some of my friends who are cops explain it, the feeling is like being struck with pain in every part of your body at the same time.  Every joint, every muscle, every bone is invaded with sharp and intense pain simultaneously.  The reason I describe that type of pain is because I don’t really remember the seconds after Coach Walker blew his whistle, I only remember looking up at the sky from my back, and feeling that kind of pain.  You see, when that whistle blew, Timmy decided that he would actually hit me this time for real, instead of taking it easy on me.

There was no celebration for the nation of Israel as I stood defiantly over Goliaths body.  There was only pain.  I’m not sure how long I laid there on the ground feeling like a truck had run me over, but I remember that when I finally attempted to move none of my teammates were there.  They had all moved on to the next drill…perhaps as a way to save me the embarrassment of having to face them.

For me, that is my football story.  But some of you are reading this and thinking, “That is my life’s story.”  Or maybe you are thinking, “That’s my church story.”  You see, I have been in ministry for about 15 years and I have had the chance to hear a lot of people’s stories.  Some of them have broken my heart.  One thing I have learned is that we are all on a journey together. Some of us are further along than others, but we are all still on a journey; a journey to be more like Jesus tomorrow than we were today.

Just like my football story, there are moments in our lives when we feel like we have been knocked to the ground.  But we pick ourselves up and try again, only to get knocked down even harder the next time.  This only becomes more painful when we feel we are fighting for the right thing.  Some of us have found ourselves trying to fight the good fight and simply not finding success. 

If you have been a part of a church, perhaps you have had the terrible experience of realizing that the same team that was cheering for you had walked off when you hit the ground the hardest.  At the moment in your life when you could have used a teammate the most, you found yourself scrambling around, feeling as if life had hit you like a truck. 

If you can relate to this, then I have good news for you; this book is for you!  I’m not sure what the Goliath has been in your life.  Maybe a failed marriage.  Perhaps a troubled child.  Maybe losing someone you loved dearly.  Or maybe it was a financial fallout during the recent economic collapse.  But I do know that during these times we often turn to God.  Many of us find ourselves heading to church for the first time in a while, or the first time ever, because of the train-wrecks of life.  Unfortunately, what we may have discovered is that churches are full of people who are broken just like us.  And sometimes in their brokenness, instead of helping us, they have only further hurt us.

The good news is that not all church experiences are like this.  I believe God loves the church and that he is actively at work within the local expressions of community all over this world.  So that’s what this book is about.  This year I celebrate the 20^th anniversary of beginning my relationship with Christ.  In those 20 years I have learned many things by being involved in local churches.  Some of the lessons I have learned have been painful and hurtful, but others have been wonderful and transforming to my life in a positive way. 

This book is about some of the things I have learned: the good, the bad, and the hilarious.  I’ll say now that if you have grown up in church and never had to stop to consider the perspective of an “outsider” to the faith, then this book may offend you.  I’m ok with that.  Your journey may look different than mine and that’s ok with me.  But I assure you that I write as a voice representing what has been the experience of many of my peers over the years.  All of us at different points in our life have to decide if we would rather be “right” or believe what is true.  Throughout my walk with God there have been many times where I have had to decide that what I believed or what I had been taught didn’t exactly seem to line up with scripture.  So I had to make a choice; do I believe what I am being taught, or do I believe what the Bible is saying.  You will have to make that choice as well, and you may have to make it as you read this book.  So I invite you to read this book with an open mind, an open heart, and an open Bible.  Hopefully there will be something from my journey with Christ that may help you on your journey with Him.  That is my hope and prayer in writing this.  Enjoy.