Maria goes to a Tuesday night Mo Group. She’s been going for a few months now since the leader met her at church and invited her. She’s 37 and has two children. Her daughter is in 7th grade and her son in 5th. She’s been divorced now for about 3 years and had badly wanted to be married again. She recently met a man whom she’s dated for a month and a half now and as a mo group leader you’ve heard her make comments that lead you to assume that he has been staying at her house a lot. You are not sure where she is spiritually. If asked if she was a Christian, she’d probably say yes, but she was baptized as a baby in the Catholic church, and since high school hasn’t gone to church much.
About a month ago you started to feel some coldness from her, but you couldn’t put your finger on it. You decided to keep an eye on her and see if there’s anything going on. The following week, you were doing announcements as usual and mentioned an upcoming church-wide service project. You said that you were going to go and encouraged the group to do the same. After that announcement, Maria glanced over to Jen sitting next to her and you heard her say mockingly, “Serve, serve, serve, that’s all they ever talk about, whatever happened to caring for people?” Group continued normally but Maria’s comment stuck in your mind.
A few days later you called her to debrief. You got her answering machine. You tried again the night before Mo Group only to receive her machine again. She wasn’t at group. The next day you received this e-mail and are now trying to figure out what to do next.
“You probably won’t see me coming to Mo Group anymore. I am very angry at you and how you’re leading our group. You and your husband have such a perfect life and it makes me so jealous! You don’t know what it’s like to have my life and wish you were married! Isn’t our church supposed to be about caring, but the main pastor’s hardly ever said two words to me and instead you’re our mo group leader and I don’t think you’ve even gone to seminary! And as a leader, all you ever talk about is serving and all the things we need to be doing. I had a hard time not cussing you out when you asked us to serve two weeks ago. A lot of us in the group are hurting and you have the nerve to ask us to serve. There is no way I’ll be coming to that service project. I’m not the only one who feels this way. So, I won’t be coming back to our Mo Group but I’ll probably see you on Sunday. Regards, Maria.”
