Teena Myers

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The new series, Steps of Faith, attracted a student who loved her homeland of Honduras. A quarter of the way into the series, she walked into class with a cassette player, inserted a cassette, and pressed the record button.

“I am going to translate your lessons into Spanish and put them on the radio in Honduras,” she explained.

Several lessons later, she expressed frustration with the poor quality of the recordings, which made it difficult to hear everything I said. I doubted that a single mother of two, who worked as a hairdresser, could afford to buy radio time in a foreign land. But the project was important to her, so I offered to write more of what I said and give her a copy.

Before I finished teaching the series, I was writing everything I said and reading most of it to the class. When others learned I gave her copies of the lessons, they wanted copies too. I made extras and placed them on a table for anyone who wanted one. Occasionally, a student would tell me, “You should be published,” which I always dismissed as nonsense.

Eventually, the woman abandoned her goal. Translating English into Spanish proved to be a challenge. She gave up her dream of sharing my lessons with Honduras, but she started something that never stopped. I continued to write everything I said and put copies on the table—rarely having any left over to bring home.

One day, I had a new student. At the conclusion of the lesson, he exclaimed, “That’s good teaching.” We went to the main sanctuary for the service. The pastor introduced the guest speaker as a good friend and an evangelist he greatly admired. The guest speaker was the new student from my class.

About midway through his message, the evangelist paused and said, “You have a great teacher in this church. I sat in her Sunday school class this morning. All of you should be in that class.” Everyone turned and looked at me—except the pastor, whose face flushed red with anger.

Several weeks later, a deacon paused in the middle of the announcements to tell the church that I was the finest teacher the church had ever had. He then continued with the announcements and introduced a man who attended my class to sing a solo. The soloist compounded the problem by telling the congregation, “I have attended Sunday school all my life, but I have never heard a better teacher than Teena. You should attend her class.” Again, everyone turned to look at me—except the pastor, who sat motionless.

He had received too many compliments about my class to justify taking it away from me. Instead, he avoided me, refused to look at me, and would not speak to me. The compliments created a problem I did not know how to fix. It became increasingly difficult to contain my frustration with his childish behavior.

I visited a friend in Mississippi to cry on her shoulder about his abusive treatment.

“Have you ever heard of Joyce Meyers?” she asked.

“I’ve seen her TV show while flipping through channels but never stopped to listen.”

“I find it interesting that you have the same last name, and both had a problem with your pastor. You should contact her ministry.”

I sent an email to her ministry requesting prayer and the titles of any books or recordings she had that might help me resolve the problem with my pastor.

A month later, I received a package from Joyce Meyers’s ministry. The letter said, “The Holy Spirit told us to give you this cassette.” I was amazed to learn that Rev. Meyers and I shared more than a last name. Her pastor and his wife had the same first names as my pastor and his wife. The name of her church, Life Christian Center, was similar to mine, Christian Life Center. Her description of the problem between her and her pastor was identical to mine. After she spoke, her pastor admitted he wrestled with jealousy when her class drew more people than he had in the main service—and described how he dealt with it.

The message gave me hope. If my pastor listened to the cassette, I thought it might solve the problem. My husband gave the cassette to our pastor and asked him to listen to it. The following Sunday, he returned the cassette and told my husband I was forbidden from bringing written copies of my lessons into the church. He also told some of the people in my class they should stop listening to me and return any copies of my lessons.

His response made it clear the problem could not be fixed. I decided it would be in the best interest of the congregation for me to leave. My husband was Sunday school superintendent at the time, so I told him to find another teacher—and that we needed to find another church.

The following Sunday, I taught my last class and told the students I would not be returning. Then I went home without attending the main service. As soon as I stepped into my apartment, my phone rang.

TO BE CONTINUED…