Toby Lee Teague

Life With Color – Part 5

Shelly and I left Southern California and moved to a Texas panhandle town in 1990. Borger, Texas had about 15,000 people and was a bit of a shock from where we had been living. It was a complete West Texas town. When the McDonald’s opened there was a half hour wait in the drive through. All I could think was, I used to live a 10 minute drive from 3 McDonald’s in California. I was young, only about 25 years old and did not think much about where we were moving. I was just ready to be away from the church we worked at in Bellflower. We moved into a parsonage and showed up for church a few days later.

When we started to attend church there was a special day planned. It was something called “Friend Day.” A special day to invite your friends to church and to try to get as many people into the church as you could to be at church on that day. We had only lived in town for a couple of months and only knew one person who did not already go to our church. It was the worker at our son’s daycare. She greeted us each morning and watched over Jake for us. I took a chance that maybe she did not have a church she attended. I invited her to come to church and she said yes. We had our friend so we would not be alone in not bringing someone to church.

On that Sunday morning my parents drove up from Lubbock for the weekend. Shelly sat with them and I waited by the front door for our friend to arrive. When she showed up I was excited. I’ve had plenty of people tell me they were going to be at church and not show. We walked into the church and I walked with her to the front of the church. That is where my parents always sat so up to the front of the auditorium we went. It was an exciting day at the church. There were new people and a buzz in the air. As we walked up the aisle though it got quieter behind us the further up the aisle we went. When we got to where my parents were sitting I introduced them to our guest and she sat with them. I went to make sure nothing else needed to be done before the service started. That is when I noticed something that I still remember to this day.

As I turned to walk to the back of the church people were looking at us. Well not us, just her. It was a little quiet and there were only whispers. I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. I checked my zipper and moved on to do what I needed to do before church started. The day went on and we celebrated having a big crowd with lunch and some fun. Eventually our friend left and we spent some time with my parents and thought the day was great. It was not until the next day in the office that I figured out what was going on.

I had been to work for a little while on that Monday when one of the deacons came into my office to have a talk with me. He asked me why I had invited that woman to church and then began to explain to me that her people had a church and she should attend there. He even pulled a map of the town out and drew a circle around part of it and let me know it would be best if I stayed out of that part of town. It was “their part of town”. He just advised me it would be best for me not to that again. I was a little shocked; I had forgotten where I was living now I guess.

I wanted to let the guy know that “they” were just as important as we were. I also let him know that you probably shouldn’t use that word to describe them. It amazed me that I lived a neighborhood over from Compton in Southern California just a few months before this day. I had gone to church with people of all nationalities and backgrounds. Yet, here I was being schooled by an older guy about some people’s place in our world. It made me take a step back. Other deacons did not say anything that day, but I could tell from the conversations and jokes that were told that this was a church that was not integrated or looking to be one that was any time soon.

Funny thing is that I began to look around and realized that the town sort of was this way no matter what church it was. I felt like I needed to apologize to our guest for putting her in that position. I did not know the rules of where I was living. Or at least I was hoping that bullshit was done. We stayed in Borger for another 3 years and when I remember back I do not remember meeting or spending time with any other black people. Looking back now I wish I would have had the guts to stand up against what was so wrong. It was Texas and I’m pretty sure I would have been fired even sooner than I was by that church.

I wish I could say that when we moved to Fort Worth in 1993 that it was different being in a bigger city, but the town that bussed me across town was still finding its way in the segregation battle. I worked at a church that did not understand the neighborhood it was in and the people who lived around us. It was one of the more frustrating things about working in that church. It has plenty of stories that made me question what exactly we were doing as people. Then we moved to Leslie, Michigan in 1995 and I became the lead pastor that could finally maybe find a way to make a change in the acceptable. Maybe that would make a good end to this journey.