August 10, 2011 Lessons from my Pentecostal Past, Pt. 2: Prayer
In my last post I talked about my early struggles in the Pentecostal church I attended. The gifts of the Spirit—tongues in particular—left me feeling confused more often than I felt connected to God. I wondered whether I was faking more than just praying in tongues—faking at passion for God, faking at believing in him at all. Though I struggled there, I also came to know and seek Christ in that church (though that looked very different than how I seek God now). I couldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just like any other human interaction, it was full of the good and the bad—things worth keeping and tossing in the recycling bin.
But one of the main goals in reflecting on my past in this way is so that I can mentally redeem it and not leave it all behind. In this post (and the ones that follow) I will focus on one key idea that was impressed on me by friends, pastors and teachers in my Pentecostal church that I think are worth holding on to. Most of these are ideas or practices that I have long ignored, but want to reembrace.
One of the practices that my AG church and friends took seriously was prayer. And I mean they took it very seriously—even more so than you are imagining. I don’t doubt that my Methodist friends take it any less seriously, but quite frankly, I just don’t see us doing it as much. And I know you don’t see me doing it!
An hour before our youth group met on Wednesday nights, we had a 30 minute prayer time every single week. Our youth pastor, a great guy, blasted worship music and all of us that attended (usually 15-20) paced our facility and prayed fervently. I mean it—people marched back and forth, praying at the top of their lungs. In spite of the blasting music you could hear a roar of prayer coming from my youth pastor and a bunch of 16-18 year olds. And the prayers were always of a transformative nature. We pled with God to change people’s hearts during the service that night, to help us to want to know him better, to make us want to pray, to have a tangible experience of God’s presence with us that night. As I’ll talk about in another post, we prayed for our friends at school and asked that God would reveal himself to them. Again, people prayed loudly in tongues, hoping that God would speak to them and that our prayers would invite his presence. At the end of half an hour or so, we would all gather together, hold hands and pray with confidence that God would move in mighty ways that night. We expected that he would.
Our whole church did a similar thing on Saturday nights. Our entire pastoral staff and many from the congregation would meet in the sanctuary where we would spend 30 minutes in prayer (again, fervent, passionate prayer) asking for God’s presence during the Sunday services. It was really cool to see my senior pastor lead our congregation in that way. We saw him on his knees every week, praying on our behalf.
We all had was this underlying assumption that if we prayed, God would respond. That’s why we spent so much time in the prayer on Wednesday and Sundays. If you had a sin you constantly struggled with, wondered whether God might be calling you to ministry, if you needed encouragement or wanted to pray on someone else’s behalf, then we knew you needed to pour out your heart to God in the altars. Something happened there that changed you when you walked away.
Until writing this out, I had long-forgotten that comforting feeling of having some old saint in our church lay a hand on my shoulder as I cried out to God in the altars. I remember some good older men from our church that would walk through the altars with a little vial of anointing oil and laying their hands on our shoulders and praying for us. The altars in the sanctuary of my old church were permanently salty from tears.
I don’t do that stuff anymore. Not like that at least. I’ve lost some of that fervency and sense of expectation. I miss it, to be quite honest. I don’t mean to say that “real prayer” has to look like what I’ve described here. I hope you get what I’m trying to communicate…
My AG friends prioritized prayer and put a system into place to insure that it was happening. Everyone knew that on Saturday nights and before youth group on Wednesdays there would be a time of prayer. And we would almost always pray in the altars after service, too. Not everyone came to prayer or down to the altars every time, but the symbolism was not missed on me. If we really wanted “more of God’s presence” (a phrase we used a ton back then, but I scarcely ever use now), or for him to work in our hearts and leave us different people, then we needed to pray.
I loved our discussion on pt. 1 in this series. I would love to hear more about your experiences (Pentecostal or otherwise). How do you experience prayer in your life now? Did you notice anything about my experience that gives you pause? What do you think about it?
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Cody Bromley
said
In Fall 2005, I stopped attending Liberty on Wednesday nights to instead go to an AG church. Most of that decision was a girl I was interested in, but part of it was me being a young punk and not liking the changes Chris King was making in my youth group. What I saw there was different from what I had ever seen. So much more charisma than I’d ever seen. I went there for about 9 months, including a spring break retreat to Turner Falls. That was about the time when I decided it wasn’t for me. I remember spending 10-15 minutes kneeling on the floor with my head bowed trying to “speak in tongues.” It was a frustrating experience as people stood over me praying in tongues, and when I finally repeated their jibberjabber it was much like you described. They’d said I got it, and then vanished back into the crowd. After that night of camp I felt alone and confused. Everyone else seemed like they got it, but I was skeptical and scared that maybe I was missing something very basic about my faith.
Six years later I’m much more comfortable distancing myself from that stuff. I didn’t lose my faith, but instead found it in the word instead of charismatic speakers. Also, having strong biblical community with New Life helped me a lot in the last two years.
Keep writing, I’ll keep reading.
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jonodom
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Cody,
That’s really interesting. I had no idea that you had left Liberty or that you plugged in w/an AG church. I would be interested to know which church (but you can tell me that privately). I’m glad that you were able to walk away with your faith and not confused. I’ve been fascinated to learn how many of us have had a similar struggle.
Thanks for sharing and for reading it.
jon
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Jim
said
Great reflection, Jon. You’ve caused me to consider the gap between my intentions and my reality in the area of prayer.
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jonodom
said
Thanks Jim.
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Mimo
said
I’m really thankful for this post as a follow-up. In the comment I thought I’d left on the last post I affirmed that many have struggled very seriously within the framework of being pressured into speaking in tongues. My mom was one of those people – she was previously catholic and had to be “born again” in her new Pentecostal church which almost made her leave that church entirely.
However, it is true that there is good hidden in the facade of the Pentecostal circus act. I wonder how many people had the privilege to experience what we experienced on those nights of prayer. I know that personally, God did so much of that surgically transforming work in me during times at the altar on Sunday nights when I would feel the Holy Spirit challenge me at the most awkward moments to go down and submit myself at the altar in prayer – and every single time I was obedient to that challenge I experienced a totally new refreshing of God’s love for me. I am thankful that we were lead by the congregation we grew up in to value prayer in that way. It’s just sad that the kind of prayer you are describing often gets rejected because of the emotions tied for most with the Pentecostal experience.
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jonodom
said
The main reason I am writing this is to 1.) Share with others about some of the redeeming factors of Pentecostalism and 2.) to redeem in my own mind much of my spiritual history.
I have several more posts to come… I’ll want to hear your thoughts each step of the way.
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Carol
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I grew up baptist,my grandparents were church of the brethren ministers, but some of my family were pentecostal when I was in high school. As a small child I didnt quite understand, and I thot that the way to salvation was, whatever religion you were is how you were saved that we had different ways to salvation or more than one way to salvation, I dont think that I fully understood. That was coming from a child’s view. I was a “bus kid” to church since I was about 4 yrs old. I grew up in church. I am familiar w/ pentecostal ways that you speak about. I was taught differently in Bible college and to challenge some beliefs. In particular we were taught about prayer, holy spirit, and that it was a different form of holy spirit than in what the pentacostals preach. I was taught that in the bible, we can be full of the holy spirit and the spirit can guide us as we grow in the word. in the word, we will be fruitful. by our actions we show forth. More is expected of us as we do learn . As we grow and we yearn and want to no more about the bible and what God says in His word to us and to share it w/ others. As we are filled w/ the holy spirit we will show that in our talk w/ others; our daily walks, etc…I learned alot about prayer ~ pray, believing, God will answer. sometime I think we pray and not expect it to really be answered so we can be suprised when a prayer is answered; or, sometimes our answer may not be yes or no, its not now or God has the bigger picture in mind so He has the way to get their, but we are all human and we can make choices that lead us in different directions. God will use it along way. He has the perfect picture, but we may get to it an alternate way….there is more than one way to get there. Talking about take a pause or to challenge our roots, prayer to me, esp back in my college days, was one big long conversation through out the day, w/ god that started and never ended. How I let God/Holy Spirit direct me from everything from what I wore to what I ate, etc…God was along w/ me side by side, permanent freind always there and I had gotten away from that when I had gotten so sick and not able to be in church or do things like I use to do….it makes me take the time to think about that and how it use to be and to get back to that point……..I didn’t lose my faith but I would like to be stronger spiritually like I had been at one time in my life..
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jonodom
said
Thanks for sharing, Carol. It’s been fun getting to know you a little!
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Jody
said
Jon,
The only thing that gives me pause as I read this, is how do you square the act of “praying at the top of your lungs” in the youth room with how Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6: 5-8 “5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6 But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
7 “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. 8 So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
It just seems like there is something contradictory there to me. I’d love to here your insight on this.
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jonodom
said
Hey Jody,
I’m glad you read this. Thanks a lot for commenting, too.
I figured that someone would think I was proposing that this (what I described here) was Biblical prayer. I even had what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount on prayer in the back of my mind when I wrote this. That’s why I said: “I don’t mean to say that “real prayer” has to look like what I’ve described here. I hope you get what I’m trying to communicate…”
My main points here were to celebrate and remember a couple of practices from the AG that I did like:
1. Regular corporate prayer
2. Praying with expectation that God would respond somehow.
I would also throw out that the “upper room” experience of Acts 2 didn’t fit Jesus’ description of how to pray in Matthew 6. But i don’t think anyone would argue that Jesus wouldn’t put his stamp of approval on it because each person was not in their own closet.
Now, I’m with you that I do not want to participate in any kind of prayer olympics, where each person tries to show off who can pray the loudest and seem to have the most passion. That is (to me) what Jesus was getting at w/regard to the “hypocrites.”
I just remember and miss the consistency and the passion (sometimes misguided, most of the time sincere) that I once had. I have no desire to start praying like that again because of the mind games that were associated with it for me.
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Jody
said
I meant “hear” your insight, not “here”. Ugh-12 hour days.
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dfslagle
said
Jon, thank you for the candid and insightful reflection. Though my contact with you is limited to a couple of visits to Honduras, I am surprised to learn of your pentecostal past. There’s no good reason I should be. I can only guess it’s because you didn’t fit the stereotype that is more firmly planted in my mind than I care to admit. This probably says more about me than it does you. It is especially curious in light of the fact that one of my closest friends on our staff is AG and we’ve had many discussions along these lines. I suppose the take-away for me is that I need to be more careful about how easily and unknowingly I pigeon-hole people.
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jonodom
said
Thanks for sharing, Dan.
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Lessons from my Pentecostal Past, Pt. 3: Agent of Change « It's Chon
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