Sorry for the delay, I hate to keep you waiting, I know these blogs are the highlight of your week so I humbly apologize for taking so long to put this up! ;)
So I paid a little visit to the local pentecostal church here in Ogden for a quick look at the church that rocks the net with shocking viral videos of dozens of people collapsing to the floor in convulsing fits of erratic spasms induced by the ambient madness of the congregation's wailing and weeping in a raging torrent of emotional outbursts. We have all seen clips of sermons with people running around flailing their arms through the air with reckless abandon and disregard for personal safety, the men and women crawling about on the floor on all fours barking and bouncing like wild animals, speaking in undecipherable, gibberish known as "tongues", loud and rowdy rocking hymns reverberating off the back of your skull and shaking the foundations of the building... this was not the case... at least not the day that I visited, I need to visit during a "revival". There were a few things there that met my expectations (though not to the degree which I had expected them), and many others which I did not expect.
ATMOSPHERE: 4/10 candles
The atmosphere was... different. It was very laid back and casual. Admittedly I felt a bit anxious before going in as I wasn't sure how we would be received as newcomers. The building was an unassuming little business building that was also the office of a Christian construction company.
Where they lost a lot of points with me was the disorder and structure of the place. They ran two services at once, a children's lesson downstairs on the ground level in the suite they rent in the building, and one for the adults upstairs in a borrowed conference room. It reminded me of one of those get-rich-quick seminars (Which I am ashamed to say that I had had the displeasure of attending once upon a time). So we sat through the service on a variety of different folding chairs and metal-frame seats with a bit of padding so needles to say, not the most comfortable 2 hours of my life. Chad and I also noticed a bunch of red solo plastic cups taped to the ceiling (covering the motion sensors I assume, that or they invented an interesting variation on beer pong for after hours meetings). The whole atmosphere seemed, sort of hurried, cheap, and unprofessional.
COMMUNITY: 7/10 candles
Okay, I was being pretty generous here. The people were in fact pretty friendly but I felt very awkward around them at times. They had invited Chad and I to join them at their post service luncheon so that was a very generous thought on their part. The congregation consisted mostly of elderly people or people that had obviously lived a very hard life and found Jesus (some of them, possibly while they were doing time). The people were very involved and obviously valued this community. They support other members of the congregation and help each other to go out on their demon-slaying missions (more on this later). They even gave the first timers (there were even several others besides Chad and myself) goodie bags and a visitor card to fill out. Later they read out the names of the visitors to welcome them. Acceptance, another win for these guys (I just wonder if they would sing a different tune, knowing more about who Chad and I were. We should have gone to the luncheon to find out... next time though). They also have a food bank where anyone who needs food can withdraw from which is a great practice that I fully support. These guys are totally about helping others in need, BIG win for me!
(On an unrelated note, there were a lot of southern accents in that room)
SERVICE: 1/10 candles
I have to be honest here, I had to give them the bare minimum candle just because there was an actual service held. The big redeeming facet of the service was the music at the beginning. They played loud Christian rock music over a very nice sound system and it was sung in a karaoke-like fashion with words projected on a screen in the front of the room and three singers with microphones there leading the song and singing with the soundtrack. I have to say, these three girls were REALLY into it, during interludes or transition between tracks they would start praying aloud and moaning and were obviously overcome with emotion through the music, in fact there were tears being shed throughout the room. I may have actually witnessed one of the singers speaking in tongues, but it was hard to tell. I do have to admit, these girls LOVED Jesus... like a lot... like more than a friend....
I will admit that the music wasn't all that bad, I rather enjoyed a few of the songs but they got real old after a while.
The next order of business was another pastor had mentioned a mission that he was saving for, he wanted to continue his work in Cuba. He said that God's message was needed in third-world countries. There was crisis in Cuba, they needed to go in and fight the demon dominion. So there were now a few questions that came to my mind upon hearing him say these things:
1) Are people allowed to go to Cuba from the States? (as it turns out, yeah kinda)
2) Cuba is third world? (well, I learned that it is really more second world but with third world parts)
3) Demon dominion? Okay he must be talking about the corrupt government.
As to the last of these thoughts, no. It was no metaphor, these people actually believe that there are literal demons tormenting families in Cuba and they are attacking the church missions there. The church is at a literal spiritual war with literal living, breathing, doll moving, door closing, haunting demons! I couldn't believe it at first but then after he told the story of reports from families there that mysterious dolls were turning up in their homes, etc, there were several "Amen's" and "Praise Jesus's" chiming in from everywhere in the congregation. I started to feel even more uncomfortable than before. They plan to send god warriors to engage in actual spiritual combat with the evil Demon Dominion in Cuba! "There is someone inside us fighting demons every day, that someone is Jesus!" ! I can't make this stuff up! They were serious. (though I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was) To do this, they needed to raise a couple thousand dollars, at which point they started collections. The 11-12 year old boy (who was DJ-ing earlier during the music portion) went around with a basket to collect.
After the Demon talk, the floor began to shake, could it be demons? No, it was from the speakers in the youth room below. It was quite a ruckus, I almost wonder if that is where the revival was held because there were several adults that came upstairs and joined the sermon a bit later.
The service was long and disorganized. There was almost no structure to it whatsoever. Like the student in class that had weeks to prepare a presentation but waited till midnight the night before it was due to start it. The Pastor was an older man, very kind and warm, before the sermon he chatted with Chad and I and told us a lovely story about how he and his wife have been together for 50+ years, now that is impressive! However that was the first and last coherent story he had said the whole morning. We were jumping all over the place from verse to verse and really nothing to ring them together. He went on to share a few anecdotes but never really got around to finishing them before moving on. He said that for today he wanted us to read a small list of verses from the bible but as he was reading through them for us he would interject saying "oh wait, that's not the one I was looking for". This happened often. He also kept tripping over his words, honestly I felt bad for the guy. I wanted so much to help him somehow, but I just wouldn't have known how. It just seemed very repetitive, he kept using the word "visitation" but never really clarified what he meant by that, only repeating now and again that we need to know the time of our visitation... over and over...
He said that there were two historical visitations with one more to go; but gave three examples(what I later assumed he meant was when came to earth, usually destroying a bunch of people. This was based on context):
1) God visited Noah and flooded the world
2) God visited and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah
3) Baby Jesus (he loved to say "baby Jesus")
(these were three, but based on the context and criteria, I imagine that there were indeed many more of these "visitations" he kept alluding to which are recorded in the Bible). The third and final one to expect he said was the Rapture, so the end of days. God visits his children to destroy them when they misbehave.
He wanted to inspire the congregation by saying that there were only two words he wanted us to walk away with today:
1) Watchman- we are like the town criers also known as watchmen. be a watchman and spread the word
2) ??? (he kinda trailed off and never came back to the topic)
Throughout his time on the floor there were moments where he would literally be shouting! My thoughts were "YES! This is FINALLY it! Now I get to see if the rumors are true". But after those brief moments of excitement, he would calmly retract and say "I could go on about that, but not today because we don't have time". This was a constant disappointment to me, I thought "NO! No, please do go on," but he never did...
MESSAGE: 1/10 candles
I gave the minimum candles for the message because there really wasn't one. Not a coherent one at least. If anything they owe me candles on this one...Here is what I gathered:
1) Demons are wreaking havoc in Cuba and moving dolls around
2) There is someone inside us fighting demons
3) Know the time of your visitation (whatever that means)
4) We are "watchmen" and need to go forth like the town crier and spread god's word
5) Don't cherry pick the Bible! read it "Civer t' Civer"! (actually, this was good advice, people should read their own book to learn more about what it is that they believe and claim to be true)
6) Don't listen to anyone who has a date of the second coming, no man knows (good defense against being scammed)
7) We are all equal, once you are saved and accept Jesus, race nor nationality matter (Equality= WIN)
He went on to say (with some difficulty) that archeologists have proved definitively that the bible is true
I don't know what in the world he was trying to get across, but if you are going to speak in front of a congregation, you are expected to have prepared beforehand and get your thoughts and materials in order to be an effective communicator. To me, it was all nonsensical but the congregation was eating it up.
OVERALL: 3/10 candles
I was greatly disappointed. It fell miles short of the madness that YouTube had promised. Part of the reason was because I went on the wrong day, because that does happen there, Chad's friend who used to attend the church had suggested we go to check it out. Fallen expectations aside, I would still not wish to visit this church again unless it was during a revival. I may be willing to give it a second chance though, owing to the possibility that the pastor who presided over the sermon during my recent visit was exhibiting early symptoms of Alzheimer's. My heart goes out to him and I sincerely hope that he was just ill-prepared and was not in fact suffering from the onset of some form of dementia. I wish him the best, but I was not impressed with this church.
(the following video sums up my visit to the Hope Resurrected Pentacostal Church...)
To my readers I hope this wasn't a let down for you, I will continue to seek out other interesting things and share them with you. Until then, I will leave you looking forward to my next adventure... the Jehovah's Witnesses! Stay tuned!
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