I spoke with long time Foothills family member, Darren Shryock, to get his perspective on how to achieve the church mission to Glorify God, Make Disciples and Reflect God’s Love.
Darren, an Elder at Foothills Church, is also an educator. He taught high school English and coached boys basketball for 25 years until 2014 when he took the position of Athletic Director and Assistant Principal at Stayton High School.
Darren is daily faced with the task of reflecting God’s love in challenging and often intense and volatile situations. “What I’m dealing with this morning,” Darren said, “are parents who were ejected from a football game Monday night, a coach who was ejected from a game last night and a kid who yelled a racial comment from the stands.” Darren shared that this was uncharacteristic, “It’s not who we are; it just all happened at once.” To intensify the matter, the parents, who were ejected from the game, came to his office a couple days later to let off steam. “They came to my office, very upset."
The number one thing I try to do is stay composed.
How does he handle the anger? “The number one thing I try to do is stay composed. I’ve had people standing over me screaming at me. And I always try to keep my voice calm and stay as composed as I can. I hope that is a reflection of God’s love.” Darren said he recognizes that this ability to be even tempered isn’t because he’s just a “cool customer” and really disciplined but because he is depending on God’s strength.
Darren shared that avoiding angry speech means rejecting the verbiage that comes with it. “I never swear.” He said, “That’s an anomaly in today’s society -- to never engage in profanity with anyone in any circumstance; you very rarely see that.”
Stop you’re making me feel uncomfortable.
Darren has light hearted tricks to keep conversations from becoming demeaning or inappropriate. “Early in my teaching career, I was at a training seminar and they had a rule that if someone was saying something or doing something that made you uncomfortable, you were instructed to put your hand up and say ‘stop you’re making me feel uncomfortable.’ People make fun of me, but jokingly I still do that today.” He does it in fun, but it gets the point across.
Daily interaction with colleagues and students keeps Darren constantly vigilant to be a reflection of God’s love. Darren has found that his involvement in service at Foothills has also been a strong motivator to personally grow and to make disciples. “One of the reasons I’ve stayed an Elder all these years is because it helps me grow and I’m able to help others grow in Christ. Over the years, people have come to me to ask for counsel on matters because of my position as an Elder. That keeps me centered.”
I’m too busy not to pray.
While his job demands much of his time, Darren still feels committed to be involved in small groups and mentoring relationships. How does he make it work? “Obviously I have shortcomings and need to get better. We all need to get better, but it starts with personal devotional time. If I’m grounded and focused on God’s Word, things seem to go better. Like the old adage says, ‘I’m too busy not to pray.’”
The danger is when we lose relationship either with others
or with Christ.
Darren feels that small groups are important to fulfill the mission of Foothills. “As long as we are grounded in a relationship with Christ and with each other, then much of that [Glorifying God, Making Disciples and
Reflecting God’s Love] will play out. The danger is when we lose relationship either with others or with Christ. That’s when people become isolated, and get offended, thinking, 'No one cares about me.' But as long as we keep connected to fellow believers and to Jesus, we should grow. If my relationship with Christ is strong, I’m going to want to spend time in the Word, spend time praying. If my relationship with people in the church is strong, I’m going to want to spend time in a small group and will want to take steps to be in a servant role.”