Season 1, Episode 28: Filipina Project Engineer and Worship Leader Theresa Melendez speaks about gender in the workplace, deconstructing faith and the state of the church right now in the midst of the Pandemic

We are still social distancing here.

Today’s guest is Theresa Melendez - Filipina Project Engineer, Worship leader, mom and wife. She’s also in a band!

Danielle asks how Theresa and her family are doing during COVID. She says she is “blessed” because her work is considered essential, so she’s been learning to work from home. Her husband is a freelancer and most of his clients are not working right now, which means he is not working. Their kids are doing school at home and that is the most stressful part of COVID for her. Theresa calls herself “strict” and says she wants her kids to learn Chinese and do algebra… She wants them to take education seriously but knows that she can’t be “that super homeschool mom.” There is grace for and for them in this season. She said however we can get it done is the way we get it done. But she is “breaking the rules” a bit by taking her kids to her mom’s house Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Theresa says this not only helps her to be able to keep working but it also is good for her mother who is home alone otherwise and it always her to be useful.

Theresa doesn’t love working from home. She says it’s hard to look around the house and see all the things that need to get done that she can’t do because she’s actually working.

“We’re coping pretty well.” She says. But at the same time Theresa says, “I’ve never spent so much money on food!” It’s either a huge increase in her monthly budget for food or she just never noticed how much money they spent on food before COVID. Perhaps, she says, it’s because it’s such “a huge ordeal to do to the grocery store now.”  She jokes about having to find a face mask that will match her outfit. Now she spends time a lot time pre-planning her trips to the store focusing on how to get in and out of in the quickest amount of time with the least amount of touching and contact with people as possible.

Maggie adds that we’re all in that same place of having to rethink things that we never had to before, like going to the store and minimizing contact. “Our brains are working so much more than they used to.” Maggie notes that Theresa’s home is now also her place of work and so her brain is having to switch back and forth between work-mode and mom-mode. There’s a bit of brain acrobats going on where our mind has to juggle all the things while seemingly trying to be as productive as before we have all these other obstacles.

Theresa shares that she mostly grew up here in Poulsbo, having moved her in 1987. “I’m a navy brat,” she says so she’s been exposed to lots of different cultures. She remembers not really knowing what race was until her family moved to North Chicago when she was in the 5th Grade. It was a predominantly African American community and that was the first time that she noticed that she was different. Then after living in Chicago her family moved to Kitsap County and there were only two or three other Filipino kids, a hand full of Native America students and maybe two African American students. It was a predominantly white community.

She recalls that in Chicago people were fascinated with her, but when she moved here she began to hear things. She learned about swastikas and white supremacy.. and she wondered “what does this have to do with me?” She thought it was about someone else. Her friends never treated her differently and she felt she was never exposed to blatant in your face racism. Growing up kids would make jokes asking her if she eats dogs? And she was like “no…we actually  have dogs as pets likes everyone else.”

When she stepped into the leadership here in our community she was thankful to be under leadership that was very open. Theresa feels more boundaries because she is a woman than she does because of her race. It’s not as if she feels that people have their thumb on her. Theresa has worked in the construction industry for over 20 years, which is a predominately male working environment. She works in the office but believes if she wanted to work in the field she would have some trouble. She said she’s had to grow a really hard and thick skin.

She lead a group at her church and the leadership was very respectful and she was “given to permission to be who she is.” Work is where gender thing has come to play. She has battle that early on, but overall she's had respectful bosses.

Danielle says it is very common for women to get push back and imagines that it is especially so in the construction setting. But Danielle has noticed that even though Theresa has built up a “thick skin,” she has not become bitter and there is something very sweet about that. Danielle asks Theresa how was she able to develop that thick skin while still retaining her kindness?

Theresa describes how she had a bad working experience in Seattle where there was some sexual harassment happening in the office that she worked for. She was a single mom at the time so it was taking a huge risk to step down from a job that paid her well, including paying for her commute, and working with a good boss, but it was the inappropriate co-workers that made it so difficult for her to continue to work there. After she left that job, Theresa spent six months reflecting on what kind of work environment she wanted to work in. She said it was God’s grace.

Theresa is an enneagram 9, a peace maker, and that is how she deals with things: She sees everyone’s side of things and she doesn’t really let it get to her. She doesn’t dwell on things and grow bitter, because bitterness doesn’t affect the other person: They will just go about their life never even knowing but you will feel imprisoned by your own bitterness. “I just forgive 'em and move on.” She said she knows now how to have a voice, even though back then she didn’t. Now that she’s in her 40s she knows how to put her foot down.

Maggie asks Theresa what helped her to gain her voice and get confidence to stand up for herself and other. Theresa says it’s really just life experience. Growing up she was the youngest child and she experienced trauma in her childhood. She used to be quiet and avoidant of conflict. She reflects that her aunt that was like her second mom to her and she taught her to not let people treat her poorly and to not to settle for less when dating. She also says her friend Danielle has challenged her and inspired her, helping her to stretch beyond what she thought that she could do. Having strong friends has helped her to become a stronger woman. Theresa also acknowledged that turning 40 really caused her to look back at her life and ask herself what she wants in life and what has allowed in her life that didn’t help push her forward? She now lives without really caring if people like her or not—she has taken the pressure off herself to make other people love Jesus because she loves Jesus.

Danielle recalls even just a few months ago sitting down with Theresa over coffee and they were talking about decolonizing her faith. Theresa grew up Catholic and didn’t really know how to transition into an [evangelical] Christian faith. She started to noticed as she matured in her walk, bring married to a pastor and being a worship leader, there is a common thread that weaved through it all—it's a taste of legalism. She started to question her core beliefs, “how did I come to believe what I believe?” Theresa noticed that what she believed didn't really align with the church that she belonged to. She wondered where it was all coming from so she began to study and read on her own to try to figure out the kind of judgement that she was seeing within the Church.

Theresa describes a homeless guy came in to their church while she was leading worship and she watched the ushers seat him in the back. She came off the stage and just wept. She was asking, “are we not here for the sick and hurting?” It broke her heart the way this man was treated and so she and her husband went back to talk to the man, offering to get meet any needs he had and to get him connected to services. She said she’s done homeless ministry for years and isn’t scared of homeless people and didn't really understand why the ushers were. Theresa and her husband’s used to have a home church that they intentionally found ways to work out in the community helping those in need. The short of it all is that in this experience with the homeless man coming into the church she fell that she saw the business side of things and she didn’t like what she saw. Theresa is now apart of a church in Palo Alto, CA called Alive which she attends online and she said it feels like home. There is diversity with no judgement. It is fellowship and intimacy, people able to express themselves. It feels like God working without walls.

Danielle says, it’s powerful model. It’s this picture of home, it’s the upper room like in Acts. Danielle names her own deep longing to be connected in those way to other people, to have faith mean more than following a set of rules… The church has really commercialized and Danielle finds herself resistant to the group emails--even the encouraging ones--that are coming out from the church right now under COVID. It feels like an odd sense of pressure. Danielle sends out her weekly and she even questions why she sends it out and whether it is just another commercial. There is so much noise on the internet right now.

Maggie acknowledges the tension that exists right now: we have COVID and social distancing and there is a plethora of content online now because society has moved online. The challenge is what can we do as a church to offer something (online) that isn’t just more noise? That isn't just another commercial…. “What we can offer is just our genuine selves: it's bringing who we are, it’s bringing our story, to the table where it’s welcome. Where everyone is welcome.” There is freedom in diversity and this is what the church is supposed to look like.

Theresa says when church becomes an MLM (Muliti level marketing) structure she questions the motives of the church. Right now her home church looks like having breakfast as a family, her daughter joining from her mother’s house, the kids do a short little message and worship, and they stream the service online. Afterwards they talk about the message. The church has a chat room that she connects with other people who are watching the live-stream from all over the world. It makes home church a global experience. 

When you dream about what home church looks like for around here? God has put in her heart to reach people who have been negatively impacted or hurt by the church. She believes her husband Don has been made a leader of the millennials; he has a special report with them. And before COVID hit they were really looking at how many people they can have in their home on Sunday mornings. They want to raise up leaders, find what their gifting are and train them.

Danielle asks Theresa for a song. A song that is meeting her Elevation Worship called Never Lost. God has gotten her through so much, the line that says “you’ve never lost a battle” is reminds her who God is.

Some of the lyrics:

“You are still showing up / At the tomb of every Lazarus / Your voice is calling me out … Breaking my heart of stone / Taking over like it's Jericho / And my walls are all crashing down”

“You can do all things!”

Theresa is reading: “Saints :becoming more than Christians" by Addison Bevere and “The Obesity Code” by Jason Fung

Theresa is listening to: the upper room and elevation worship…

Theresa is inspired by: Worship music
Connect to Theresa on Instagram @Jizazygirl

Band: Sweet T and Justice

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.