Several weeks ago, I was awarded a substantial faculty development grant from the university where I teach. I am excited about the opportunity that this grant gives me: through the generous support of my institution, I will be able to spend three weeks in 2012 dedicated to researching the rift between Teen Mania’s Honor Academy and the Recovering Alumni community. The grant also covers my airfare and travel expenses for a six-day trip to Texas in order to interview key players in this conflict.
In order to provide information for those who may like to talk with me about their experiences with Teen Mania and other similar organizations, I have decided to chronicle as much as my research as possible. Through this blog, I will keep track of my research questions, information that I gather toward answering those questions, and conclusions I am able to draw from that information. All of these posts will be tagged as “Teen Mania Research.”
This will be an ambitious project. It is ambitious because this is a complicated, nuanced situation. There are complexities that are difficult for those who have never been part of Teen Mania to understand. I hope that I am able to shed light on those complexities. I do not know what the research will lead to—an article? A book? Useful content for my composition students? Nothing more than personal enrichment? I envision the results to be a work of literary journalism, although I cannot anticipate the length or scope at this point.
For those who are just now being introduced to me through this project, I want to introduce myself: My name is Liz Boltz Ranfeld. I have an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of New Hampshire, and I am an English professor at a small college in Indiana. I am mother to an almost two-year-old. I am a believer and a skeptic, a liberal Christian who is a lot more comfortable around atheists than evangelicals. That said, there are a lot of evangelical Christians in my life that I dearly love. I have been writing for as long as I have been able to hold a pencil, and my writing tends to focus on spirituality, doubt, relationships, and the bonds of family.
My involvement with Teen Mania dates back to the early 90s, when I began attending Acquire the Fire as an eleven year old. Throughout my adolescence, Teen Mania played the most important non-familial role in my life. My siblings and I went on around a dozen trips with the organization in the 90s, and my brother is a 1999 Honor Academy graduate. Because my parents were well-known in certain evangelical circles at the time, they helped raise a lot of money for Teen Mania and were vocal supporters for years.
My involvement in the organization ended when my parents decided that it was no longer physically safe to be part of Teen Mania. I hated their decision at the time, but I continued to be involved in youth missions throughout my teenage years. The experience of being a teen missionary prompted an intense period of introspection once I became an adult, and in 2011 I completed my MFA thesis, a 240-page memoir that chronicles the ways that a single summer with Teen Mania caused equal levels of growth and detriment to my faith. I am currently seeking a publisher for that book.
I have been a reader of the Recovering Alumni blog since its first month, and I consider myself a member of the community. I have tried to set boundaries to my involvement, however, because I recognize that I was never an Honor Academy intern. I support the RA community because I believe that there have been instances of systematic abuse at the HA, and I do not believe that Teen Mania has appropriately handled the criticism that has been made regarding their programming.
Some may say that this makes me a “biased” researcher, and I can see their concerns. My response would be this: my research is not an attempt to prove or disprove claims of abuse at the HA, nor is it to answer the question of whether or not Teen Mania is a cult. I believe that individuals who are inclined to believe or disbelieve those statements can come to their own conclusion by looking at the evidence that has been presented by each stakeholder in this debate. It is not my goal to convince anyone that abuse does or does not happen at Teen Mania.
Instead, my research is about discerning the truth about the complicated history of this rift. I want to understand how an organization goes from little events called Beach Bash to being a huge and reputable organization with tens of thousands of participants, and then ends up in a position in which hundreds of former alumni speak out against it as abusive. I have also read rumors that the RA blog has drastically affected enrollment, which I think would be of interest to other volunteer-based organizations that have unhappy alumni. I want to clarify the timeline of events, evaluate the role that Mica of Recovering Alumni has played, and understand the motivation behind each of Teen Mania’s public responses to the RA community, as well as the semi-public responses that have happened via social networking sites.
Future posts in this series will:
- introduce my initial research questions.
- outline my hopes for interviews.
- call for stories from Teen Mania participants of all persuasions, whether exceedingly positive about their experience, overwhelmingly negative, or some blend of the two.
- chronicle my research.
I welcome questions and feedback regarding these posts. I hope to be as transparent and public as possible as I work through this process, and I welcome your involvement.
Thank you!
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I graduated from the internship in 2001. I have been to Thailand, Haiti, Panama, India, and El Salvador with TM. I got saved at an ATF in 1997. I would be willing to be interviewed for your research.
Thank you! I will be keeping a list of interested interview subjects and contacting people at a later date. I will also be posting information later about what specific sort of stories I need to hear–if I have heard mostly negative, for example, I may make a call for more positive stories. If I hear mostly from interns, I may make a call for staff people. I will also provide information for contacting me directly with questions and interest.
Liz, I’m intrigued with this research, not because I have personally been affiliated with TM much (a few ATF events are all I know), but as a friend and sister to people who have been involved. I appreciate your transparency in your research and I think that speaks volumes to your credibility as an unbiased researcher. Thank you for striving to unravel something controversial that deserves critical investigation.
I was glad to read the description of yourself. I wish you the best with this huge undertaking, and look forward to reading about it. I only know about TM through you.
I volunteer whatever resources I have to help you with this project. I was a January 1994 intern. Also an India 1993 MA, a Thailand 1994 MA, and went on the Mexico “field test” trip for The Journeyman when it was being rolled out. Anything you need from me, please let me know.
[...] read the introduction to this research project on yesterday’s post for relevant information about why I am researching the rift between Teen Mania’s Honor [...]
Lana and Megan–Thank you for your interest and support!
Amie–I would love to talk to you in the future. I think it will be especially insightful to get the perspectives of those who have a long history with Teen Mania. Also, I idolized so many 93-97 era interns when I was younger that it will be really fun to get to talk to some of you!