As the sign came into view, “Entering Forsyth County,” one of my colleagues exclaimed, “Yay, Forsyth County!” It was maybe a little over the top but mostly amusing. She attended Wake Forest University, which is in that county.

There were four of us. Each attended a different college. No one put another’s school down, but none of us hid our pride in our own. This was just another example. It was all in good fun, much more positive than some of our interactions.

We had been chosen and put together for this summer project. Our primary role was to spend a week each in various churches, interacting with youth, leading in worship and presenting two plays. There was one other team like ours. A couple of times, with neither team booked in a church, we were together for other activities.

During one week when we were a group of eight, we had a meeting that departed from the good-natured banter described above.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a guy on the other team criticized me for talking about my school, UNC, and the town in which it is located, Chapel Hill, more than he wanted to hear. My team members, who had spent a lot more time with me, didn’t seem to have a problem with me on this. (But, as we’ll see in a moment, they did have other problems with me.) I tried to say I thought I was joining in the rah-rah banter, maybe as much as but no more than everyone else. If I’d had more presence of mind, I could’ve added that for the past three years, I had spent most of my days there. UNC and Chapel Hill provided the context for much of what I had to say.

He didn’t indicate he had a problem with anyone else sharing their own campus experiences. Ah, but what was different was that he had wanted to go to UNC-CH but couldn’t swing it financially. When others mentioned their schools, he didn’t feel envious.

It was unpleasant, but much worse was to come.

As if interpersonal issues weren’t enough, we also had to deal with a number of external challenges, including a drowning at a swim party and a serious accident during a fellowship event. One day, our supervisor received a letter from members of one church, complaining about our time with them, though the feedback had seemed quite positive while we were there. Late in the summer, we performed the play “In White America” in a town that had just been ordered (finally) to integrate their schools.

Each person had a specific area of responsibility. These roles were team coordinator, music leader, recreation and discussion leader, and preacher. I was designated the preacher and worked up a sermon to give each Sunday. The other guy was assigned recreation and discussion. The older of the two young women was named coordinator, the other given music responsibility.

That seemed good at the start, but circumstances blurred some lines. Because we traveled in my car, it was necessary for me to do some coordinating. Because my guitar and I accompanied our singing in the productions and sometimes in worship, I was de facto music leader at times. Of lesser note, but notable, I was passably athletic while the other male student was not athletic at all. This may have affected our relative roles in some recreational activities.

Even if you don’t intend to usurp some of other people’s authority (and even if they let you), doing so can engender resentment. And I presented them with other issues as well.

I do own some of the blame for intra-team friction. I had strong ideas about many things and could be short on tact. I had mental health difficulties I had only begun to address, though it turned out I wasn’t the only one on the team wearing this tag. Nonetheless, I felt then and still feel now that the amount of criticism leveled at me, as compared to what others received, was excessive.

That I was less conventional in my appearance and approach to life was a problem for the others from the beginning. Yet before the summer started, I had shaved off my then-full beard. I got my hair cut shorter and neater, though since it still touched my ears, it was too long for my teammates. Less superficial were the adaptions I made conversationally. I made sure my language was less “colorful” than was the norm among my college friends. Just as significantly, I began peppering things I said with theological words and phrases, something I had pretty much abandoned as a college student.

I felt I was compromising — moving closer to being like my teammates. I made changes to be less different from them. But I didn’t become exactly like them, and they discredited or disregarded the changes I had made. It wasn’t all; so it was none.

We had a weekly meeting that including the chance to air concerns — i.e., a gripe session. I seemed to be the primary object of the aired concerns. There was one week in which the two females had done something that the other male told me he was going to criticize in that week’s session. But it was held after we’d led some activity in which everything had clicked. My compatriot was in too good a mood to complain during the session. That was the closest we came to having one of those meetings in which I wasn’t the focus.

Things boiled over in a team meeting one night with our supervisor. The other guy on the team went through a long spiel about his growing dissatisfaction. He said he didn’t think he could continue to be on the team. His biggest issue was that there was one person he just could not work with. And that person, he revealed (though everyone already knew), was the person now writing this piece. Among other things, he criticized my hair. That didn’t surprise me, but I was taken aback when he also said the sermon I had preached most Sundays wasn’t any good. That was the first I’d heard of that. Some helpful suggestions early on might’ve been nice.

Before he officially quit, he got a chance for a repeat performance. The next week, we were again together with the other team at a weeklong youth conference. There was a meeting one night of both teams with our supervisor and his supervisor. My colleague repeated his soliloquy for a larger audience, with the same buildup to leveling blame on me. The first time, I had tried to offer some personal defense for my alleged transgressions. This time, I said nothing.

Accommodations were made for us to operate as a team of three in the last two or three churches. Despite this person’s growing resentment toward me, he had freely used me as a sounding board for his personal struggles. Not many days after he had left the team because he couldn’t work with me, he called one morning to the home where I was staying that week, because he just had to talk to me about the latest things with which he was dealing in his personal life.

The summer provided growing experiences, and not all of them were negative. Our highest highs weren’t as high as our lowest lows were low. But there were a lot of highs. Many joyful moments. A lot of intensity, often good, at times not so good. I can’t say I’m sorry I went through it, but by the time it was over, I was more than ready to go home.

After the goodbyes at the conclusion of a meal following the Sunday morning service in our last church of the summer, I got in my car and headed southwest. In Durham, on I-85, I reached the exit with the sign saying:
U.S. 15-501 S
Chapel Hill

Tears flowed.