Category: United Pentecostal Church | Page 73

Broken Bones & Whiplash In Church

This is another ‘random memory’ that something made me think about today.

It’s often preached in UPC (United Pentecostal Church) churches that when it comes to “shouting” or “dancing in the spirit”, no one will ever EVER get hurt unless the person doing the shouting is faking. From what I’ve seen, this is just not the case.

The main incident happened when I was around 10 or 11. My great Aunt was the one doing the ‘shouting’. She was being prayed for up front, speaking in tongues, and started shouting. She bumped into the altar and it turned over and landed on the foot of an elderly lady who was standing up front praying and it broke her foot.

The reaction of the entire church was pretty ugly. They told my Aunt that she was faking, and she was shunned and verbally abused for several months after that. My reaction was “WHAT JUST HAPPENED????” I was soooo confused. The thing is, I KNOW my Aunt, and I KNOW that she would never fake anything.

I don’t really know what my beliefs are on shouting and dancing, I don’t know if its of God, or if its a product of emotional frenzy, but either way, I know that my Aunt was not doing something fake just to appear ‘spiritual’. Whether what she was doing was of God or a product of something else, she truly believed it was of God and felt ‘something’ or she wouldn’t have been doing it.

Almost 20 years later, I still have no idea what to think about this particular instance. The lady with the broken foot never blamed my Aunt, said that she believed my Aunt was “in the spirit” and that its possible for something like this to happen due to ‘human imperfections’. I don’t know…

My other two memories involve (surprise surprise) my Mom. One thing that happened was in the same church. My Mom was “running the aisles” and she started grabbing people’s hands and pulling them out to run the aisles with her. One lady whose hand she grabbed got halfway around the church and then fell in the floor. People ignored her for quite awhile thinking she was “slain in the spirit”, and then someone noticed she was calling for help. I can’t remember exactly which bone it was, but a bone in her lower body had broke and she couldn’t stand up. Paramedics were called and she was taken to the hospital. The church was VERY angry with my Mom for pulling her out to run the aisles with her, even though this was a common practice.

It turned out that this lady had bone cancer, and she didn’t know it yet. After they patched this bone up, other bones kept breaking every time she walked and she died around a year later.

Another thing was several years later, at a different church, my Mom was again running the aisles and “dancing in the spirit”. She grabbed me by the hand and pulled me out to run and dance with her. I had no interest in this, but she had hold of my hand so tight I couldn’t easily let go. I tried to just move unobtrusively with her, but her dancing was so exuberant she was jerking me around all over the place. For about two weeks I had whiplash symptoms.

Most Pentecostal churches would censure anyone who tried to ‘force’ someone else to “dance in the spirit” or run the aisles, because they teach that this is a spontaneous reaction induced by the Holy Ghost alone. Being ‘forced’ to do it by someone else would basically be considered faking. But there are also some who not only condone this, but encourage it. I’ve seen this more among ultra-conservative Apostolics rather than UPC.

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Broken Dreams

For years I wanted to be a missionary. I was raised in the ’80s. We are the World was one of my favorite songs. Missions work seemed like the ultimate adventure, and still allowed me the opportunity to help others.

When I was first shamed, my pastor knew my desire. He told me several times that he didn’t want me at his church, so maybe I should just go be a missionary. Not knowing what was happening, I decided that missions work was out of the question for me, because I was so messed up I couldn’t even be a good saint, much less someone who could reach out and touch others.

For years after that, I hid the pieces of my dream. I built some other dreams, and tried to follow them instead. And I did. But I wasn’t satisfied.

Dreams mean a lot to people. If someone shares their dream with you, treasure it, protect it, and encourage it. Don’t kill it, crush it, or break it. Dreams are precious things, but they are fragile, after all.

No, I don’t see myself biking across China passing out bibles. But God has a purpose and it isn’t too late to find it. My childhood dream was glorious, but in reality it wasn’t so much about traveling the world as it was about helping others and doing something for God. Maybe its time to brush the dust off of my dreams, to polish them a bit and examine them in the light of experience. Maybe they weren’t so broken, after all. Even if they were, I think I know now Who can fix them.

Go to Hell, do not pass go and do not collect 200

From my earliest memories, I was always confused about how we (as the only true believers going to heaven) could be so nonchalant about sending so many people to hell. According to the doctrine, most of our friends, neighbors, and even many of our relatives were going to spend eternity in a lake burning with fire and brimstone, but we just laughed and socialized and only showed any concern during heated revivals. The rest of the time, we acted as if we really didn’t care. How could this be?

There were also times when I observed some seeming to almost rejoice that some ‘jerk’ was headed for the lake of fire! And then it was also understood that “they were making their own bed and would have to lay in it – even if it was on fire!”

We would rejoice when someone would come to church and make a start but if they slipped up and didn’t stay, we quickly tch, tched, them back on the road to damnation.

As an adult this always still bothered me, even though I was very hesitant to bring many friends to my out of the mainstream church and carried a heavy load of guilt for my complicity in their not finding salvation.

Finally as a senior citizen, I have escaped the cult and clearly see the ridiculousness of the doctrine that would take God’s plan and create a burden so heavy that none can bear it. Who among us is able to bear the burden of believing that all but those in this one doctrine are headed for eternal damnation, regardless of whether they are loving, believing, kind, caring Christians? The doctrine of the cult condemns them for clothing choices, ordinary daily activities, and hairstyles.

Christ condemned the Pharisees that would put these heavy burdens on those He had set free. God isn’t measuring your sleeve length or checking out your bling, He is looking on your heart AND He tells us by their fruit shall you know them. Is this fruit clothing, hairstyles, or other outward appearance? NO, this fruit is LOVE . . . . .by this shall you know that they are my disciples, that they have LOVE one to another. I remember, from my earliest memories that many of those being condemned to Hell by the United Pentecostal Church were full of love, kindness, gentleness, meekness, . . . . .

Oh, but, (they would say) what about Cornelius? He still had to be baptized and be filled with the Spirit! Yes, but did he then have to be circumcised (ie: follow the Pharisees law)? No, he did not! Who are you to judge another man’s servant? Is it for us to judge who is baptized and correctly filled with God’s Spirit or were we told by God that “by the fruit of God’s love shining forth in their life we would know them”!?

I would venture one step further . . . .how many doing the condemning show any measure of love, especially to those without. . . . .it is easy to love those who love us, do not even the infidels do this but God commands us to love even the jerk that we would prefer to send to Hell . . . . . . . .and that love should be so obvious and overwhelming as to be clearly seen as a signal that we belong to Him. Sadly, I found very little evidence of this kind of love within the UPC.

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Taking A Break From The Timeline

I’m going to take a break from cataloguing memories in a specific timeline. Concentrating so hard on such unpleasant events and trying to remember accurate details is getting me down. Last night I had nightmares about the exorcism.

Yes, I’m a grown woman, wife, mother, professional, and I still have nightmares about things that happened in my UPC (United Pentecostal Church) upbringing. If my husband is not with me, I sleep with the light on. Even after years of therapy and feeling more peaceful with the world in general than I ever have, I still have a lot of residual fear that is not yet completely gone.

I cannot read the book of Revelations without seeing that horrible “End Times” video in my mind that was shown to me by Apostolics. I will not speak of it now, maybe sometime I’ll write about it. Sometimes I can almost put this stuff behind me and have peace, but *something* always happens and I find myself shaking inside again, while keeping my demeanor frozen in ‘normalcy’. Can’t let the masses see the fear, they’d think I was crazy. (Maybe I am.. after all, a Pentecostal preacher said I was a reprobate…)

So, while I’m taking this break, I will continue posting some random (less disturbing) memories about growing up UPC/Apostolic.

One such memory is this: I remember an unsaved couple coming to our church once, and of course, the lady was not dressed in compliance with the standards. She wore a dress, but had cut hair, makeup, earrings, etc. A boy of about 12 went up to her after service and said “Don’t come back as long as you’re wearing earrings, we don’t believe in that here”. She wasn’t sure how to take it, because looking around, none of the women were wearing earrings. But, this was just a child, so she wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not.

Fortunately, someone heard him and went and told the Pastor. The Pastor immediately came to her and apologized and said that he was just a confused child, we very much wanted her to come back, in fact to come back forever would be our greatest wish. She said “But is it true? Do you consider earrings a sin?”

Since the lady had obviously just had her feelings hurt, the Pastor tried to stumble around the standards without saying outright, yes we consider them a sin. By this point he was pretty flustered and although I can’t remember his exact explanation, I know it wasn’t great (how could it be?) and they never came back. The boy was given a talking-to from the Pastor, and then was punished at home by his parents.

However, I don’t know that he really deserved punishment. He was repeating what he’d been taught. He thought he was standing up for his beliefs. The church didn’t do much teaching on grace, personal convictions, or ‘working out your own salvation’, but they did a WHOLE LOT of preaching on standards, not being ashamed of your beliefs, not letting the church get contaminated with worldliness, and the hell fire that was waiting for anyone who was ashamed to stand up for Pentecostal ‘truths’. So, who was really to blame for this boy’s behavior?

Personally, I would compare this to an army unit spending 12 years teaching a soldier to defend its territory against a well-defined enemy, and then punishing the soldier for acting on his training.

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Measuring Up

Whatever you did, you did not miss church unless it was very dire. If you were sick, you came to church anyway, unless you were throwing up or had diarrhea. Unless you were contagious you were at church.

When it came to working your job, you had to keep your priorities right. First of all, if you were interviewing for a job and they wanted you to work on a church night or Sunday, you turned that job down and walked away. You needed to put God first. You didn’t participate in anything that would take you away from regular church services.

There were a few exceptions, such as being on your honeymoon. However, many people did not even pay attention to those exceptions. I cannot tell you how many times we had visitors from other United Pentecostal Church or independent churches, people that were on vacation, and even people that were on their honeymoon. You just did not miss church!

Not only did you not miss church, you needed to be there 30 minutes early to pray. If you were not making it a full 30 minutes ahead of time for prayer, you would hear about it, often from the pulpit (in a general rebuke to all).

I remember feeling tremendous guilt, as a mother of four very small children, when I didn’t make it to church the full 30 minutes ahead of time. I felt, whether true or not, like people were judging me for being late. I wasn’t even late, but it felt late because I wasn’t there 30 minutes before church for prayer. However, like most young mothers with small children, it is a huge task to get all those babies ready for church. Then, about the time you think you got them all ready, one of them leaks out of his diaper, or someone gets something on their clothes. Then you have to change that and clean them up. It’s really a chore to get a family to church on time. Also, trying to pray for 30 minutes before church with four kids under the age of 10 can be a real handful. While you’re trying to pray, you get five words out, and a couple of kids are fighting, or they’re talking too loud, or some other childish behavior that’s disturbing others. I found it rather pointless as a mother of four small children to even come early for prayer.

Be that as it may, it was definitely expected. You certainly were not going to have any position of leadership if you were not very faithful with coming early for prayer.

Another thing about that culture was that if you were going to miss service, for whatever reason, you called the pastor and told him ahead of time. If you didn’t, he would be wondering where you were, and you were sure to get a call as he was trying to figure out why you weren’t there. Strangely enough, that is still expected in the church I attend now, although I do not do it.

Many other people find it ridiculous, as we are all adults and can choose to go when we want to and stay home when we want to. It was not that way in the church where I grew up! If you were not in church every service, and early to pray, you had better have a really good reason!

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