Category: United Pentecostal Church

The following is part two of a six part guest series from Alicia Sounier Dwivedi, a former United Pentecostal Church member. See Part 1.

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Growing up in the church I’m sure it seemed like I was a very well-rounded young person. On the outside I was happy and dedicated (and I was), yet on the inside I was full of turmoil that never subsided. I remember receiving awards at our end of the year school banquet for having Christian character (not my words, but those who issued the awards). I received the gym award almost every year, the principle’s award, supervisor’s award, and two-times pastor’s awards. These were the BIG-TIME awards, and I’d get one each year. I’m not bragging. I’m saying this to say it seemed to everyone else I was truly a good Christian young person (and I was). So how then could I still be begging for salvation 13 years after I became a part of the church? There I was developing the fruit of the Spirit, but didn’t recognize it for what it was because I couldn’t get past tongues. So shameful.

When I graduated from the Christian School at 18, I specifically remember feeling so lost and confused. School was over. I had no idea what to do with my life, and still didn’t know if I was saved. Full of fear and anguish, I told my mom I couldn’t live this church life anymore. I was going to walk away from God because I didn’t know what he wanted from me. I wasn’t going to walk away from him because I wanted the world – I WAS GOING TO WALK AWAY FROM HIM BECAUSE I TRULY DIDN’T THINK HE WANTED ME.

I identified with the man in the Bible who buried his talents in the sand because he felt God was a hard taskmaster. Instead of using his talents, he didn’t want to lose his talents. Not only did I not know what my talents were or what I was supposed to do with them, I didn’t want to potentially lose anything God had given me.

I couldn’t go before the throne of God with boldness – I still didn’t know if I was saved. This was the mental battle of my life. I felt like God’s burden was heavy, his yoke was not easy for me, and I did not have peace that passed all understanding. What I did have was insecurity and fear. No matter how I turned myself inside out, dedicated myself to fasting, outreach, and gave tithes and offerings I just could not speak in tongues (especially an “adult tongue”). What good was I to the kingdom of God if I couldn’t even be assured of my own salvation?

My precious mother cried her eyes out when I told her how I was feeling. My mom was a tongue-talker, and oftentimes gave messages in tongues which would then be interpreted. To me she was amazing (and she is). She asked me if I’d be willing to go to CLC Bible College in Stockton, CA if she could scrape together the money on a single-parent’s salary. I told her I’d be willing to go. So off I went.

While at CLC I had the same struggle of course. Nothing changed for me spiritually while there, but because I didn’t know what else to do – I stayed at the college until a severe car accident forced me from returning for my last year as a music major. While there, however, a new concept was opened in my mind. One very prominent and well-known teacher, Daniel Segraves, taught women were not to cut their hair. This was the same teaching as my home church – no confusion – cut and dry belief. However, this teacher’s son, Mark Segraves, was also a teacher at the college who believed women could cut their hair. [Note from Lois: Mark once held license in the UPCI but has not for over a decade.] I was shocked! How could two ministers/teachers and father/son completely believe the opposite on such an important subject? Was there such a fine line in what I was taught that there could actually be another viewpoint? Turns out, yes, there is indeed another viewpoint (listen to debates).

Side note – oftentimes people who leave the UPC are credited with causing division. This is such a fallacy. There are huge divisions within itself and oftentimes even from church to church in the same section. When the division becomes too huge – a split takes place. There have been quite a few church splits over the years (no fault of ‘backsliders’). Not only are there splits, but some churches leave the UPC altogether over issues that cannot be agreed upon (no fault of ‘backsliders‘).

I can remember going to various churches within our district, some were even stricter than us while some were less. Everybody looking around at everybody else, judging in our minds who is better or not due to outward standards. But when we are taught to judge every outward appearance as Godliness then we become the best little judgers. The very nature of the UPC’s teaching on outward standards being so cut and dry naturally produces one of the most judgmental groups within Christianity. Side-note ended. Let’s continue with my story…

The severity of my inferiority was so monstrous that I didn’t date one guy while at CLC for 2.5 years. They all wanted to be preachers. Why would I date someone who wanted to be a preacher? I was STILL begging God to save me. How could I pray for God to save other people when I didn’t feel I was saved with any certainty?

To this day I don’t like praying out loud. It’s become such a phobia it turns my stomach when I hear my own voice in prayer. I can pray internally, feel the presence of God touching me and directing me, but am very quiet. However, if I’m in a church filled with people who are praying out loud, THEN I can pray loudly – as long as my own voice is drowned out. I believe all the years of verbally calling out to God to fill me with the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues became a torment. Gradually over time my voice quieted with doubt. So then I started praying for God to forgive me for my doubt and “help my unbelief”. God said if I asked, I’d be given what I asked for. If I knocked – he’d open the door to me, yet I felt so shut out. What was wrong with me?

My pastor often preached about the unwise virgins who let their oil run low therefore being unable to go with the bridegroom when he came. For us in this current age this meant we had to continually show we were full of the Holy Ghost by speaking in tongues. I was so going to Hell, but not by choice. This led to another thought as I didn’t understand how having the Holy Ghost could be compared to needing gas in a car. You either have it or you don’t, right? It’s not like you’ll run low like a car does, and somehow not be able to make it in the rapture because you don’t have enough Holy Ghost to fly you all the way up to the Heavens.

My pastor also shared a story from his past where he couldn’t feel the presence of God for like a full day. No matter how much he prayed and cried he just couldn’t feel God like normal. This scared him so much, and he thought God was taking his Spirit from him and rejecting him, like God had rejected King Saul. When my pastor could finally feel God’s presence again, he wept like a baby. I would often think to myself that if my pastor felt this horrific terror of possibly being rejected after only one day, then he really had no idea what it was like to be in my shoes of feeling rejected for years.
For a long time I mistakenly corresponded speaking in tongues with having the Holy Spirit. The presence of God moving within us is not tongues, and this was one of my greatest misunderstandings. For I knew what the presence of God was and felt like. I’d been experiencing him from the time I was a very little girl.

I think in many of our United Pentecostal churches today, people assume just because ‘tongues’ are present in a service it means what’s happening is of God. This is hugely erroneous. Just think of churches that do snake handling and poison drinking…I’ve seen videos where tongues are being spoken in the background of those services too. Anyone believe God condones that? Tongues are NOT the basis of judging whether a situation is right or not. God doesn’t take his Spirit from us when we do something bad, and then give his Spirit back to us after the bad thing is over. I’ve even heard some people say they speak in tongues while having sex. Yup, I just said that. GROSS! Is this really what the Holy Spirit was given for? REALLY?

Deanna Jo of Responsible Faith interviews Alicia:

See Part 3.

The following is part one of a six part guest series from Alicia Sounier Dwivedi, a former United Pentecostal Church member.

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As a very young child of about 5 years old I began attending Sunday school at a United Pentecostal Church in Augusta, ME with my cousins, and I LOVED IT! When I was a 10-year-old girl, my mom started attending our local UPC regularly, and I LOVED IT! I even got to switch out of public school to the UPC’s Christian School, and I LOVED IT! I feel like I blossomed after being moved out of public school into the Christian school at around 10 years old. The church, school, community, and all its functions were some of the best things that ever happened to me. I am thankful for the people who invested in me from the time I was a small child. I love most of the memories I made, and love the people who were part of my community.

Now in hindsight I realize some of the things I struggled with, that tore at the very core of my being, I should never have had to go through and neither do countless others. Due to these same issues many people sit on pews wondering at their place within the church. Some walk away giving up on God altogether, and others, like me, walk away from the UPC – but not God. However, we’re considered ‘backslidden‘ or ‘prodigals’. My previous pastor said this to me not so long ago in a kind tone of voice. I’m being serious – he’s known me since I was 5 years old, and he was being lovingly kind about it.

I can remember praying with all of my little heart to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost with evidence of speaking in other tongues many many many many many times as a little girl. Being so emotional and wanting something so badly, with tears rolling down my face, I can remember pleading with God to fill me with the Holy Ghost. I began wondering why he just wouldn’t give it to me. What was wrong with me that God wouldn’t give me this gift he said he would give when I asked? I was doing what I was told…I repented, and yet God was withholding something so precious from me (salvation). An innocent little child becoming a beggar at the altar. Little did I know I was being handed an unnecessary burden I would carry for the next 40 years.

Church service after church service would go by, and a child here and there would get the Holy Ghost (or be refilled) – but not me. You know if you are telling a small child to ask nicely for a treat of some sort, but don’t actually give it to them, they’ll start questioning your character. Then you keep telling them to repetitively ask “the correct way” so they’ll eventually get what was promised them, then they’ll not keep asking with any sort of faith they’ll actually get it. How heartbreaking for any child to stand with hands outstretched and pleading eyes WAITING AND WAITING. I was walking away empty handed time again all the while knowing until I spoke in tongues I would go to hell if I died. I wouldn’t do this to my own precious child, and it breaks my heart imagining how God must feel watching his children being placed under the burdens of faulty doctrine. I loved and wanted God so much, but legalistic teachings began entrenching itself into my little mind.

FINALLY one service my Sunday school teacher started celebrating while praying for me stating I’d gotten the Holy Ghost. I was confused because I hadn’t heard any new language coming out of my mouth. Sure, I had stammering lips and tears, but there was no new language. I also didn’t feel any different. I remember her shaking her head yes, and saying “Yes, Alicia. That’s the Holy Ghost, Alicia.” Then she’d speak in tongues off and on again, but break off to encourage me in English. I later learned this Sunday School teacher was known for saying kids had spoken in tongues when they actually hadn’t.

From a 5-year-old little girl until 30 I attended the UPC church. I left the church around 30, and it hasn’t been until this year as a 45-year-old woman that I FINALLY figured out some things and have closure. To this day I truly don’t know if I ever really spoke in tongues. Instead I believe what I was experiencing was a wildly emotional response taught to me by my peers.

Growing up in the church and being a part of its functions were right up my alley. No one had to force me to go to church – I ABSOLUTELY LOVED MY CHURCH & CHURCH FAMILY! It didn’t matter what I had to do to be pleasing to God, I would do it without much thought or hesitation. Don’t cut your hair – OK. Don’t wear makeup – OK. Don’t wear pants – OK. Come to church three times a week and five days a week during revival – OK. Sleeves down to your elbows and skirts below the knee – OK. No worldly music, no cussing, no drinking, no smoking, no premarital sex – OK. Standards didn’t overwhelm me, and I did them because I thought this was what God wanted. My issue was elsewhere – SPEAKING IN TONGUES.

Being a part of a church that taught speaking in tongues as not only the initial evidence of the infilling of the Holy Ghost, but it was also something that had to be repeated (should be daily), but also needed to be done again on cue if asked to ‘pray in the Spirit’ at any time during a church service. I COULDN’T DO IT. I would wonder what was wrong with me that I couldn’t speak out like ‘everybody else’. Questioning my salvation was regularly on my mind and in my heart. I cried – A LOT (understatement – I can’t adequately describe the amount of tears). I became very self-conscious in not only praying for myself, but praying for others. If I couldn’t speak in tongues properly – therefore not being saved properly – how then could I pray for anybody else to get the Holy Ghost? I would feel so relieved when the Pastor would come take my place while praying for somebody. My prayers were not as effective as his…

I begged God service after service to change me. Do anything he needed to do to me to allow me the ease of speaking in tongues to be absolutely sure of my salvation. I had no reassurance when I died I would go to Heaven, and was literally petrified of death.

I would ask various people I respected about why it takes some people longer to receive the Holy Ghost. I would never reveal I was asking for myself, but it was always for “another person I knew.” The consistent answer was there was something within that person that was wrong and stopping them from receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. So, something was wrong with me, yet I couldn’t figure out what it was. Church service after church service would go by, year after year would go by, and there I was still stuck begging God for just the basics of salvation.

There were infrequent times I thought possibly I spoke in tongues, but these situations were few, far between and very questionable. I had to be bawling my eyes out, extremely emotional with tears, stammering lips, and there’d be slight repetitive syllables softly rolling off my tongue. When this would happen I would then immediately start to pray for God to kill me. Let me die now! Die in my sleep, get in an accident on the way home, or just a death that wasn’t too painful. PLEASE LET ME DIE NOW SO I CAN GO TO HEAVEN. This is all I really wanted. I wasn’t too concerned with my future or what God wanted me to accomplish with a full life. I just wanted to go to Heaven so badly. I was a healthy teenager who loved God, yet there I was praying for death. Also when these situations would occur I didn’t feel any extra peace, happiness or reassurance. I still questioned myself.

I remember this one very well-known evangelist who came to our church to minister. Our church would be packed out when he’d show up, and I always looked forward to his arrival. At the altar call of one service he was praying over a teenager in our youth group. Because the evangelist had the microphone up to his face and the young man’s he was praying for, the whole church could hear the young man praying in tongues. His tongue sounded almost exactly like mine. The evangelist proceeded to tell the young man to grow up and gain some depth in God because his tongue was a baby tongue!

I WAS MORTIFIED and so thankful the evangelist hadn’t been praying for me and said that. So not only did I very rarely speak in tongues, but the tongue I did sometimes have was a baby tongue? This was so confusing to me. How did God give us a baby tongue that was supposed to gradually switch over into what? An adult tongue? Where was this mentioned in the Bible? In fact, most of the tongues I did hear going on in church didn’t sound like languages at all. Speaking in tongues wasn’t supposed to be about ‘learning to do it’ like a language we learn to speak. It was supposed to be something the Holy Ghost accomplished within us, right? But what did I know? The people I looked up to and loved said this is the way it was, so this is the way it was.

Deanna Jo of Responsible Faith interviews Alicia:

See Part 2.