Month: June 2018

Why we left our “perfect” church

Posted on by tabathatillman

I think there’s a lot of tension around the idea of a “perfect” church. Obviously, we’re humans and only Christ is perfect (so we shouldn’t expect our churches to be perfect), but I think that there’s different kind of “perfect” that pertains to the church, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today. I firmly believe that there is a “perfect” church for each individual person, and this perfect church will look different for everyone.  Everyone looks for different things in a church, so the “perfect” church would have the things that you want while also being life giving to you.

About a year ago Kaleb and I left our “perfect” church. It was really heartbreaking for us, and we haven’t really talked about it much. So, I think today I’m finally read to do that. Leading up to our marriage, Kaleb was attending Thomson First United Methodist, and once I got back from school I started attending the church too! We loved it.

The pastor of the church was John Barnes, and to this day he’s the best pastor I’ve ever had the privilege of listening to.  You see, John was a very, very humble man and this quality showed in his preaching. With every sermon that John preached, you could see the preparation he put into the sermon. John set aside a few hours every day to work on his sermon. He prayed about his sermon and he made sure that the message he preached was really what God wanted for his congregation. His sermons were life giving. They had stories, but he never strayed from his scripture. John also used bullet points and always made sure to start with the bullet and come back to it at the end of that section to tie everything together. He made his sermons so easy to follow, but he also added points into his sermon for people that are further in their walks than others. I loved the stories and the bullet points, but Kaleb loved the historical context that he would add to his sermons. Every time John would preach he preached from a different place than most preachers. He had this understanding that he wasn’t good enough to be up there, but he was so humbled that God equipped him to be up there.

The people at Thomson First were the sweetest. Everyone was so welcoming to us. They always made a point to check in on Kaleb and I and to see how we were doing. It was a church where everyone loved everyone. This also followed into what the church did. The church was always taking up collections to bless and minister to different people. Thomson First was always trying to find good ways to help those in their community. I also loved this church because they realized that you don’t always have to go on a mission trip overseas to make a difference. Thomson first did a lot of missions in our city, state, and country. These are areas that a lot of churches tend to overlook because it sounds better to say I’ve sent x amount of mission teams to Africa. There was always something going on at Thomson First to help others.

I also really loved that Thomson First had three different services. The early service was small and just hymnal singing,  the second service was a contemporary service, and the third service was a traditional service with a choir. The music in each service was executed so beautifully. I’ve never been to the early service, but I know it was more of a low-key service. Kaleb played electric guitar for the contemporary service. They practiced once during the week and then again right before the service. The band always asked questions to make sure that they were playing their part to the best of their ability, and they always loved being up on stage to worship God. Thomson’s tradition service was led by Brian Woods-Lusting, and he did an amazing job with that choir. He picked beautiful music that went with the service and he challenged his choir to do more complicated music than they were used to. To this day I can honestly say that the choir at Thomson First was one of the best I’ve heard. It was just such a nice church to go to when you’re a trained musician because you knew that these people put in as much time as you would have.

I could go on and on about TFUMC, but I’ll leave it there. I know at this point you’re probably wondering why we left, and the truth is that we left because things change, and they don’t always change for the better. You see, because this was a Methodist church, John had to leave. His time was up and it was time for him to go to his next church. When the new pastor came, Kaleb and I realized that his preaching style didn’t really speak to us like John’s style did. Before we left, Kaleb and I just started going to the young adults ministry and we loved that community, but it was time to go. In our opinion fellowship, ministry, and music are great, but those life changing messages from the pastor are what we crave the most. Around this time, Kaleb heard that he got a job working in Thomson, so we decided to head back to Augusta to find a church, so that Kaleb wasn’t having to drive to Thomson six out of seven days of the week.

After we left, Kaleb and I jumped around to different churches, but we never stayed at one for more than threeish months. It has been hard because everywhere we go, we compare the churches to TFUMC. People think we’re ridiculous for doing this, but we’ve seen that there are churches that are “perfect” for us. I was even able to find a “perfect” church in Milledgeville.  The first couple of months at a new church are always great, but we always tend to find things that don’t sit well with us after a few months. We’re at a church now that we like, but we’ll have to see if it holds up to the test of time.  -Tabatha

Coping

Posted on by tabathatillman

So last week we talked about the importance of building rapport with others, and this week I wanted to talk about coping. Dictionary.com defines coping as “facing and dealing with responsibilities, problems, or difficulties, especially successfully or in a calm or adequate manner.” Now before we really dig into coping, I think there are some things that need to be discussed.

People have a need to cope when things in their life catch them off guard. Some examples of this are death, disappointment, stress, and sometimes people even need help handling the good things in their life that happen. When these things happen, it’s important for people to find a healthy way to handle them. Before this can happen though, these feelings need to run their course. If someone is experiencing grief, they need to actually grieve whatever it is before they can find a way to cope with this grief. Once you’ve grieved whatever you’ve lost, only then can you find a way to make the grief bearable to live with.

This leads me to say that everyone copes with things differently. Some people grieve the life of a loved one for a day and they’re done, while others could take weeks or month. When my grandmother died, I was really upset and I would always find myself crying over it. I can honestly say that it took me a few years to truly grieve her death. The reason it took so long was because through her death I lost a lot. Not only was I grieving my grandmother, but I was also grieving the moments that my dad’s entire family got together. Grandmother had us over for dinner every summer. I was grieving that my last memories of her weren’t good ones dues to the progression of her Alzheimer’s disease. That was a lot to grieve, but it also took a long time to really work through why I was so upset. I typically have a difficult time identifying the roots of my feelings.

Once I finished grieving, I had to learn how to cope. I will always miss everything I lost, but I had to find a way to live my life without them. This led me to finding my favorite coping tool: songwriting. I wrote a song about grandmother and it helped me cope so much. I was able to put my feelings on paper and to music and it helped me to let go. This is typically my go-to anytime I need to cope with anything. Songwriting is so freeing to me and if for some reason I can’t get a song out of my feelings, then I usually just write a blog about it so that my feelings can come out.

Now obviously, everyone copes differently. I’ll list a few different ways people cope: journaling, exercise, talking it out, being alone, music, art, and distracting themselves. These are just a few, but I think it’s very important for people to identify something that makes them feel better and helps them go work through their feelings. If you don’t have a coping tool, I highly recommend finding one. It might take a while, but it will be worth it. Also remember, everyone works through emotions at a different rate. Don’t compare yourself to others that have been through the same situation as you. Also know that it isn’t helpful to ask someone why they aren’t over something yet. I’ve heard this happen many times and it just puts people if a bad place. If you or anyone you know has something that they need to cope with, just know that the best role you can take is a supportive one. You can’t force someone to work through something faster than they’re ready for, so don’t assume that you know where they should be or what they need. -Tabatha

Rapport: I Don’t Trust You, and That’s Okay

Posted on by tabathatillman

Hello everyone! Today I wanted to share some music therapy knowledge that has not only helped me in the workforce, but it has also helped me in life in general. Today’s we’re going to talk about rapport. Building rapport is something that music therapy students start hearing about from their very first music therapy class, and it’s basically the foundation to any sort of therapy actually being able to work.

According to Dictionary.com, Rapport is a relation; connection, especially harmonious or sympathetic relation. The concept behind this is that in order to actually work on things with a client, you first need to form a connection with them. The therapist has to build trust with that person. I’ve found that music makes rapport so much easier to build because connecting through music is such a powerful thing. It begins with something as simple as listening to the preferred music of those that you’re working with. Once you find that common ground it’s a lot easier to get to know them, because the music breaks down a barrier. From there, it just takes the therapist being open with those that they’re working with and not trying to force anything.  The key is to be warm and unintimidating.

So we’ve covered the first half of the title of this blog, but let’s look at the second half of it. Some clients are really hard to build rapport with. It’s ok not to trust your therapist. Some people begin trusting a therapist within the first month of working with them, while others might take a few months to warm up to a therapist or could perhaps never even warm up to the therapist. I want to stress that this is okay. It is possible to work with a therapist and have them give you some tips to help your life, or work with you on specific goals, without every actually trusting them to share your deepest issues. I hope that most people can get to a point where they can share things, but it’s okay if they can’t.

For example: If someone, let’s call her Petunia, is dealing with stress, a music therapist can work on stress management in music therapy sessions. A music therapist can use music to work through some of her stress in the session, but a music therapist can also help Petunia come up with some coping mechanisms to help with her stress. These are the things that a music therapist can do without Petunia actually telling the music therapist what the root of the stress is. If Petunia were to tell the music therapist what the root of the stress was, then the music therapist would have the chance to better cater the treatment to Petunia’s needs, but if that rapport isn’t building quickly, the music therapist can still help until it does.

Now, I also want to explain how this carries over into our everyday life. You see, in life you’ll meet some very open people that will tell you their entire life story from the moment they meet you, and you’ll also meet some people who might not tell you anything super important about them until after knowing them for about three months. It’s the same concept as a therapist building rapport. When you’re getting to know people, you can’t expect them to bear their soul with you from the moment you meet them. Some people take longer to warm up to than others. There are a lot of people that don’t get this. Rapport can make or break relationships with others. If I don’t trust you/have a close relationship with you, and you try to ask me personal questions about my life that I don’t think you have any business knowing, then I’m probably going to shy away from you. It’s important to build trust with those that you are getting to know and not try to step over any boundaries until you feel like you and that person have a good relationship established.

Has anyone every had an instance where someone tried to talk to them about stuff that you just didn’t feel like you had the established rapport to talk about? I know I have! This is key to really understanding friendships/work relationships. It seems like a no brainer, but it’s something that we really do tend to struggle with at times. Anyway, feel free to drop a comment or ask me any questions about this topic. Thanks, Tabatha