Remembering Metochoi
11 years ago when I was pregnant with my first child, I learned on an internet discussion board about a parenting book that was “popular” and yet “controversial.” I spent about 30 minutes reading up about the controversy, and promptly dismissed it as “ridiculous, no one would believe the ideas in that book are useful.”
A few months later, after an aquaintance recommended the book to me with exceeding passion, and especially when I learned that the church my husband and I had just started attending was using teaching materials produced by this author, I had to rethink the hasty conclusion that I had drawn. Was this a teaching that I should embrace? If it wasn’t, should I take some other action?
I embarked on an odyssey of sorts that would leave me very involved in the “debate” over this topic for several years. But most of all, I “met” several on-line friends that I still keep in contact with though a Yahoo group called “ParMin” (it was originally “PAM”-Parenting as Ministry-through another website, but when we transferred to Yahoo “PAM” was not available as a group name). Others, though they touched my life, I have not kept in touch with.
One was “Metochoi”–Mike. He was a pastor of a small church in Texas, and he watched his congregation be ripped apart by these teachings, thus why he got involved in the debate. He was a man of great wisdom and humor. Through him, I learned a lot about how to interpret scripture, particularly though his “Biblical Hermenuetics” series.
This man radically changed my thinking about what it means to be a Biblical parent, and what it means to really, trully study the scripture. And for that, I am indebted.
Unfortunately, I learned yesterday that he had been diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, and succumbed to it yesterday. He will be missed.
Other tributes to Metochoi can be found at these links:
Quiet Garden - “He was a pastor of a little church in Nowhere, Texas …. A history of countering legalistic Christian fads, a mind primed with logic and a personality unafraid to laugh at bullies equipped him to do battle. …he used to sign his posts, “I love moms and babies”. At heart, Mike was a pastor AND a dad. He loved his wife and he understood the connection she experienced with her babies was a sacred and God-given thing”
Random Musings - “It sounds trite and corny, but this man changed my life. Sometimes I’d tease him that he ruined my life. I’d say, ‘Here I was, happily living a life of crushing rules and regulations that I kept failing at, until you came along and ruined my life with all your talk of grace, freedom, and joy.’”
Tags: parenting
I join you in remembering him. One thing I loved about him is how he would stand up to bullies.