Recovering Pentecostal

It’s almost 2am on June 4th, and I can’t sleep.

And I can’t help but remember that exactly a year ago tonight, I didn’t sleep this night either. Only last year, I was spending my sleepless night in the waiting room of an ICU… during the final hours of my father’s life.

I can’t believe that it has been a year now since he passed away.

I still wonder about all the “what-ifs”, despite my best efforts to banish them from my mind… and that’s at least part of what’s keeping me up tonight. I know that the what-ifs are a pointless pursuit. But pointless or not… they haven’t really gone away. They’ve just gotten somewhat easier to ignore (most of the time).

As difficult as things have been, I can’t even imagine how much more difficult it must be for someone to deal with the loss of  a loved one without God. I miss my dad a lot — but I’m confident that he is in heaven, so I know that I will see him again. And ultimately, that’s the best comfort anyone could ever have. For a believer, death is not a “goodbye” – it’s a “see you later.” That doesn’t make the pain and grief any less real, but it does remind me that this loss is definitely one-sided. For those left behind, it’s a big loss. For my dad, it’s all gain.

One thing I’ve learned over the past year is that it is important to grieve… but everyone will deal with it differently. I was amazed (and frankly, offended sometimes) by how many folks thought they knew exactly how we (the family) were supposed to work through this process. Some even went so far as to tell us that we were doing it wrong!! I’m not sure that there is a right or wrong way. I’m not even sure that it’s a “process” — since “process” to me implies a beginning and an end. I’ve yet to meet anyone who has gotten to the end.

My dad lived 1000+ miles from me, so things were a little strange for me at first (once I was back home). I didn’t have the constant physical reminders of his absence… so in some ways, it was easier for me to get back to my “normal” life. But then the loss would hit me when I’d think about calling my parents on the phone, or forwarding a funny email, or whenever I had news (good or bad) that I just wanted to share with someone. I began to pursue one of my father’s hobbies — photography — and there were some tender times when I wished I could talk to him about that. And then, of course, there’s the conversations with my family… which sometimes lead to tearful memories (or tearful sympathy for what they were feeling). I expected those moments of sadness… or at least I was somewhat prepared for them.

But there were other things that I really wasn’t expecting. For example, it would hit me sometimes when I’d listen to contemporary Christian music on the radio (which I used to love). Christian music can actually be morbid and depressing when you’re dealing with a loss.

Another thing I wasn’t expecting was how much I’d come to dread going to church. Even in a good, healthy church… people are people, and they can say and do some amazingly insensitive things. It doesn’t help matters that you desperately want things to get back to some sort of “normal.” You want people to believe that you’re OK… and you tell them that you’re OK… even when you’re not. Things have gotten a lot better over time… but even now, a year later, I still have no desire to go to my church when I’m feeling “down.”

The last thing I wasn’t expecting was how some new things have become very significant to me. Within a couple of weeks of the funeral last year, my church was going on a missions trip to a children’s home in Mexico. I decided to join them at the last minute… mostly because I just wanted to keep myself occupied… and because I didn’t want to be alone on Father’s Day. I had never gone before. But once I got there, I was hooked… and I realized that this was exactly the sort of project that my dad would have supported — helping kids who really needed it, doing practical things, and even throwing in a little photography! We’re going back to Mexico in about a week — we’ll be leaving June 12th. I’m really looking forward to it. I’m excited about the projects that we’re planning. When I go to Mexico, I’m not just doing something worthwhile – I feel like this is something I can do in my father’s honor. And that has made it all the more significant to me… and therapeutic too.

So here’s a little advice if you’re trying to comfort someone who has gone through a difficult loss.

• Don’t expect everyone to deal with pain the way that you deal with it… or in your timeframe.
• Don’t try to be someone’s counselor and confidant unless you already have that level of relationship with them.
• Sometimes the best thing you can do is just be there. A friend who can sit with you through awkward silences can be far more comforting than one who feels compelled to give advice… even if it is good advice.
• Be honest. Don’t say that you know what someone is going through if you really haven’t experienced it.
• Even if we say we’re OK… there’s a good chance that we’re not.
• Talk about something other than the loss. (It can be discouraging when every conversation begins with, ‘Are you doing OK?’)
• Most people are very supportive for the first couple of weeks after a loss… and then they disappear. If you really want to help someone who is going through this sort of thing… be there for them when everyone else has forgotten. (a month or two later… or more… and on holidays).

One of the blogs I enjoy reading comes from Phil Cooke. Recently, he posted a link to this video and asked for comments.

This one had me shaking my head… but not because I was doing the hokey pokey. And it was hard to watch start-to-finish, because I know that there are very sincere folks involved. This happened a church/ministry that I have visited… a place where I still have some really good friends who are truly doing some really great things for God.

The hokey pokey… it’s hokey. It’s silly. But there’s nothing wrong with having a little fun at church, acting silly and child-like, loosening up a bit. I believe that there’s a time for a little levity, even as a part of worship.

But these clips (originally edited together this way by the church that held the meeting — so it was not edited by critics to make it look bad) also bother me, and I’d like to try to articulate that a little bit.

I have a hard time with on-the-spot miracle testimonies. We have no idea who these people are. We don’t know their history. We don’t know if they really had a medical problem in the first place. We are expected to take their testimonies at face value. If we dare question, we are being mean and judgmental. We have a critical spirit. Questioning is frowned upon. Asking for proof is considered insulting.

But this isn’t how we operate in real life.

In real life, when we’re being asked to make a decision that has a significant bearing on our lives, we are expected to weigh the evidence, look at the options, do research, and make an informed decision. Anything less would be considered foolish. If I was going to buy a house, and I didn’t have it inspected, but just chose to believe the seller’s report… I have no recourse later on if I get burned in the transaction. The seller is motivated to make the house look good, not to give me a good deal. That doesn’t make the seller evil; but it means that I have to take an active responsibility for what I choose to buy.

When we go to a church or conference, we’re essentially being asked to buy something. I’m not talking about the book table — I’m talking about the philosophical buy-in, the choice to believe. In certain circles, it is deemed more noble to NOT do your homework, to trust that the preacher has pure motives and a direct line to God. To simply take it on faith that everything is exactly how it is claimed to be. That’s dangerous.

The sellers are not necessarily motivated to be fair and balanced. The preacher wants his ministry to grow. He may have wonderful reasons why he wants his ministry to grow — noble things that he hopes to accomplish — but he is motivated none the less. He is going to talk about the successes much more than the failures. (And when he talks about the failures, usually he’s going to turn that around into a success story too.)

The person giving the testimony of being healed can also be motivated by something other than honesty. Some people desire attention, and this is seen as an acceptable way to get it. Some people are so committed to a church or a ministry that they will exaggerate or even fabricate in order to make that ministry look good. Some get caught up in the moment, and the emotion or the adrenaline might actually make them believe that something happened when it actually didn’t. And some people have been trained to believe that lying is actually a form of faith — say what you WANT to be true, not what is true. Therefore, if I WANT to be healed, I’ll get up and say that I am healed.

There are also sociological and psychological forces at play. If I tell you that I was stuck in traffic for an hour, you might feel compelled to share about the time when you were stuck in traffic for two hours. And that might motivate someone else to talk about being stuck in traffic for 4 hours. There’s a very real human tendency for one-up-manship. So, for a mixture of reasons, and a mixture of motivations, what we hear from the platform at testimony time might not really be true.

But for a moment, lets lay all of that aside. Let’s assume that real miracles are happening in a place where really weird things are being done. Does a miracle validate a specific practice – is it an endorsement, a sign that the practice should be repeated and continued? If a miracle appears to be connected to something, does it turn that “something” into a sacred, untouchable thing?

In the Old Testament, when Isreal had sinned and a plague was spreading through the population, God chose an unusual means to heal the people: a bronze serpent. Anyone who looked at the bronze serpent was healed. This was a pretty straight-forward case. God told the people to do something, they did it, and they were healed. God used that means at that moment. It was definitely and unquestionably a “God-thing” – it’s in the Bible! But fast forward a few centuries, and we find that the bronze serpent has become an idol, something that the people worship instead of worshiping God. It had to be destroyed. And destroying it was also a “God-thing.”

When a surgeon removes a tumor, we don’t build a shrine around the scalpel. The scalpel can’t heal without the surgeon’s skill. One of my favorite programs growing up was M*A*S*H. Often, those surgeons were working in conditions that were less than ideal, and sometimes they had to improvise when the proper instruments were not available. I remember one particular episode where the chaplain did a tracheotomy on a soldier in the field using a pen, while one of the surgeons talked him through the process on the radio. And it worked! We praise the chaplain, but apart from the surgeon he couldn’t have done it. And even as we marvel at the flexibility and teamwork of the M*A*S*H team, we understand that this is not the preferred method to do a tracheotomy. If someone needs a tracheotomy, we’re not going to go looking for a chaplain on the side of a road.

But too often, that’s exactly what we do in the church.

At the beginning of this video, you hear the speaker explaining that they had done this “Holy Ghost hokey pokey” before and folks were healed, so they were going to do it again and see what happens.

Sounds a lot like a bronze serpent to me…

Some answers are definitely more satisfying than others.

One answer that I’ve heard multiple times since I’ve started digging into doctrinal issues is particularly unsatisfying to me. It goes something like this:

Doctrine X is true because this is what the majority of the church has historically believed. People much smarter / more educated / more spiritual / more historically connected to the source materials / more… “whatever” than I spent significant amounts of time wrestling with these things, and we should accept their time-tested conclusions.

I have a couple of problems with this. Historically, many things that we would now consider very wrong were once considered normal and right. Just because the majority of a group accepts something as true and good, that doesn’t guarantee its truthfulness and goodness. (Consider Apartheid or Slavery… or the idea that the earth was flat.) Also… if we consider anything outside of the Bible to be on par with its teachings–even the Bible-based teachings of others whom we respect–are we truly letting the Bible be the ultimate authority?

But even worse, this argument is usually invoked as a discussion-ender… and that makes it feel eerily similar to a favorite argument of some controlling pastors I’ve known in the past: “I’m the leader, God directs me, either you trust me or you’ll be outside of God’s will.” And maybe that’s why I resist it so much.

I have no problem with the concept of learning from the wisdom of others. But until I can see something for myself in the Scriptures, I’m not going to accept it… no matter how many dead theologians say otherwise.

I haven’t been blogging much lately… but that’s because I’ve been keeping myself pretty busy. I’m back in college this semester as a full-time student, for the first time in ~15 years. It’s been an interesting experience so far. I’m attending Louisiana College, a Baptist school. I’m not there to study religion, but several religion classes are required for all students, and I’m taking some of them this semester. They’ve given me a lot to think about.

What doctrines/beliefs are truly important? Until now, my list was pretty short, simple, and (frankly) vague. Being at LC is challenging my vagueness. It’s not always a comfortable process, but it’s a valuable one. And it’s good for me.

For example, I’ve never heard the doctrine of the Trinity explained with such detail or “forcefulness” before. Of course, most of the churches I attended in my pre-Pentecostal days never actually taught on the Godhead at all. They were Trinitarian on paper & by default — because that’s just the way it was. There was no need to go into detail because as far as we all knew, that was the only option. But when I began to move towards more UPC-like churches, I started to hear a lot of Oneness teaching. It made sense to me… at least in part because it really didn’t seem all that different from the way I pictured God in my head. In fact, if you forced the average Oneness believer and the average Trinitarian believer to talk about the Godhead without using the terms “Oneness” or “Trinity,” it seemed like you’d get mostly similar descriptions. So the issue had become a non-issue for me.

But these two positions are not the same. And they’re not compatible. And despite what each side would like you to believe, neither position is taught explicitly in the Bible the same way that it is explained in texts and apologetic works. And neither position can give a fully satisfying explanation of the Godhead without ultimately acknowledging that certain things are simply a mystery.

So that’s one of the things that I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last few weeks  And I’ll probably blog about it some more now that I’ve “broken the ice” a bit.

Early in my teens, I had an opportunity to go to a Christian music festival that was sponsored by the only “contemporary” Christian radio station in that area. I was so excited: some of my favorite artists and radio personalities were going to be there. And it wasn’t one of those huge mega-concerts… so there was the distinct possibility that I might even get to MEET them, maybe even shake their hands! What more could a star-struck teen possibly want?

It was amazing. I DID get to meet many of the voices I had heard and admired from a distance on the radio. But two encounters in particular had a lasting impression on me.

The first was a negative encounter. This particular artist was out at her product table… berating the volunteers who were staffing it. She wasn’t happy with their work… and she told them exactly how she felt, right in front of anyone else who might have been around. The volunteers were visibly hurt. Any respect that I may have had for her before melted into pure disgust. She might have just been having a bad day. Or she might have had a legitimate beef with the volunteers. But regardless, I never bought another one of her albums.

The second was a positive encounter. At the time, this artist was my absolute favorite! (Does anyone else out there remember Steve Camp’s 80′s & early 90′s stuff??) I knew many of his songs by heart. If I remember correctly, he had been one of the “headline” acts. All I wanted was to shake his hand, just to be able to say that I had met him. I don’t even remember exactly what I said to him — but I do remember that during our short conversation, one of the event staff members came up and interrupted us. I’m sure that whatever the staffer had to say was definitely more important than the star-struck ramblings of a little girl — but Steve Camp (politely) stopped the staffer and asked him to wait while he finished talking to me.

The truth is, even if the staffer had just interrupted and cut my conversation short, I would have still been excited about that day… but I probably would have forgotten about it long before I turned 20. The reason I remember it and still think about it 20+ years later is because it was so unusual for anyone to treat a stammering, awkward, nervous teenage girl (who had nothing practical to offer) as if she mattered.

Reading this book was an excellent way to kick off the new year!

Primal is about going back to the basics of Christianity, figuring out what is most important and focusing on that. Luckily, Jesus Himself told us what was most important: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and all your strength. It’s such a well-known quote that it’s easy to hear it and agree with it without ever really understanding it. I had always just understood it as a poetic/prosaic way of emphasizing that we’re supposed to love God with everything in us… but what if those four distinct areas were listed for a reason? Batterson explains what it might look like today to love God in with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

I was most intrigued by the idea that we love God with our mind through our God-given curiosity — not just about spiritual things, but about the world around us. That was especially encouraging to me as I’m heading back to college in a week!

Reading this book helped me realize that I’m pretty fortunate to be a part of a church that already puts a huge emphasis on loving God in many different ways. And it challenged me to love God even more!

I know that it is something of a Christian cliché to say that you received far more than you gave on a missions trip… but it’s so true. My church helps to support a Children’s Home in Mexico, and at least once a year they organize a short missions trip there. This year, we made two trips, and I was fortunate enough to participate in both.

The first time I came to Casa Hogar Benito Juarez in Reynosa, MX was this past June. It was just a couple of weeks after my father passed away. We left for Mexico on Father’s Day… and that was one of the reasons why I went. I just couldn’t imagine facing that day alone. Selfish motivations? Absolutely. But I wasn’t auditioning for sainthood.

I didn’t speak much Spanish, and the kids didn’t speak much (if any) English. Yet, even though they couldn’t always understand us, those kids trusted us implicitly and loved us. The gift I received from that trip was an invitation to trust God and love Him even when I couldn’t understand Him. That’s a lesson I’ve thought about many times in the six months since then.

Now I’m back in Mexico for another short missions trip. This time, we’ve come to deliver Christmas gifts that we collected from members of our church. We’ll be doing that later on today, and I can’t wait to see the looks on the kids’ faces, but I know I’ve already received my gift. There are things I take for granted back in the states (like a little privacy, hot water, and Internet access) that you can’t count on in Mexico. I knew that I’d probably be doing without those things this week. Yet… God (& Pastor Nathan!) worked it out so that I have all of those luxuries here… and I’m extremely grateful.

This trip has helped remind me that even the smallest things in my life are truly gifts… far better than the trinkets and smores and clothes and toys and everything else that we’ll be passing out to the kids today. And that realization itself is a great and wonderful gift.

You used to be considered “cutting edge” if you had an email account and checked it.

But now, even though services like Facebook and Twitter require all users to have a valid email address, email itself is falling out of use and social networking sites are becoming a primary mode of communication.

On one level, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this: social networking sites are far more flexible and graphically interesting than “old-fashioned” email. And sites like Facebook and Twitter have allowed many, myself included, to maintain relationships and reconnect with folks from my (often distant) past.

But there is also an inherent problem. Social networking sites are increasingly more important as storehouses of contact information and platforms of communication – yet they are single points of failure. The strength of email (at least back in the ‘good old days’) was that it was a distributed service. There was no single email server out there processing the world’s email — there were many servers, each handling email for their little piece of the ‘net world. Every domain has to make provisions to handle its own email, and many otherwise incompatible systems can exchange email through a set of very basic shared protocols. The distributed nature of email meant that even if one server crashed, 99.99% of the other servers would probably still be up and running. In other words, the failure of one member of a distributed system was not enough to bring down the system as a whole. Recently, Google’s gmail service experienced some well-publicized difficulties… yet non-Google email users were still able to contact other non-Google email accounts with no problems. (How mega-services like Google are un-distributing previously distributed services is a topic for another day!)

Social networking sites are not distributed systems — they’re centralized. When twitter goes down, it’s down for everyone. When Facebook goes down or (perhaps worse) implements a sweeping change (that will almost never be received well), all users feel the impact. We are empowered or crippled at the whim of developers, hackers, and hardware failures. Just ask any T-Mobile Sidekick customer if they ever stopped to consider the danger of entrusting too much data to a centralized system before the now-infamous crash.

I’m the proud owner of a Palm Pre. One of the Pre’s strengths is its contact aggregation from sites like Facebook. In the dark ages before smart phones, if I needed to contact someone by phone, I might have looked up their published info on Facebook or some other ‘net resource, then manually created a contact for them in my cell phone. And then it would just sit there — never to be updated again unless I tried the number later on and found it to be disconnected. But my Pre is smart. It grabs all of my Facebook friends, and if they have phone numbers listed in their profile, those numbers are automatically part of my contact list. When they change their phone number on Facebook, my phone is also updated. It’s a wonderful feature…

Or maybe it’s a nightmare waiting to happen. Let’s imagine that something catastrophic happened at Facebook, a glitch that caused all phone numbers to be changed to, say, 555-1212. My Pre would dutifully update my contacts with this bogus info. We’d have to wait either for a) Facebook to fix the glitch, or b) individuals to realize that something was wrong and correct their own data individually. (Incidentally, the flood of folks trying to connect to change their info would probably bring Facebook down, and the resulting Tweetstorm would likely render Twitter hopelessly lagged and unresponsive…)

Facebook doesn’t allow you to export contact info, so there is no easy way to keep a backup copy of your friends’ information. (There are some hacks out there, but they seem to be shady at best.)

So what would we do if we woke up tomorrow and Facebook was down, perhaps indefinitely… perhaps forever?

Pain is inevitable… but it doesn’t have to be permanent. This book walks the reader through seven universal struggles that cause pain: Injustice, Rejection, Loneliness, Loss, Discipline, Failure, and Death. The authors share stories from their own lives, as well as other examples of individuals who have been through difficult and painful situations. For each universal struggle, the authors define the problem, spend some time talking about things in our lives that can contribute to it, and then offer practical advice and solutions to those who find themselves wrestling with those issues.

You won’t find anything shockingly new or different in these pages, but you will find solid advice built on biblical principles and presented in a well organized and easily digestible format. If you’re not dealing with one of these “universal struggles” right now… you will face them eventually. Even though this book is “self-help,” reading it can also help you understand the pain of those around you – and perhaps even help you help them.

This book was especially timely for me. Sometimes we all just need to be reminded to look for God’s purposes regardless of our struggles.

It’s easy to worship when you’re celebrating a victory. Praise almost comes naturally when things are going well.

But after you’ve been dealt a blow or experienced a failure — it’s so much harder.

Last week, Pastor Nathan preached about worship. One of the definitions for worship was “honoring someone of greater importance.” Another was “showing submission.” He encouraged us to honor and submit to God by giving EVERYTHING to Him… even our failures. Even the things that didn’t go well. At first, that sounded a little weird to me — don’t we want to give only our very best? What did it really mean to give our failures to Him? How could that also be an act of worship?

I had no idea how quickly I’d get a chance to put that into practice. By the middle of the week, I was slammed hard by three things at once: things that were all failures in some way. They made me question my intelligence, my judgment… and even my worth. One of these things resulted in some data being lost — and that hurt not only me, but some folks I really care about — including my pastors. I felt absolutely horrible about it. I was haunted by an endless string of “what ifs,” wishing I could change things. I felt like I was in a deep pit… and wouldn’t have minded much if someone just wanted to bury me there.

When you’re agonizing over your worthlessness, worship isn’t exactly the first thing on your mind.

When I told my pastor what was happening, he could have chosen to focus on the inconvenience that this caused… but he didn’t. Instead, he used that moment when I was at a real low point to remind me that my worth in his eyes and God’s eyes doesn’t depend on my performance.

I was still in a bad spot — I still had a lot of work ahead of me — but that one statement changed the atmosphere in my little personal pit. Before that, I felt mostly guilt and shame and wanted to hide. After… I was both humbled and honored that I could still be valued even when things didn’t turn out so well.

How can you help but respond in worship to such an awesome realization?

I gave those failures to God. That doesn’t mean that I’m not still working on fixing them, but it does mean that I’m leaning on Him for help rather than hiding from Him until I can sort it all out on my own. For me right now, that’s raw worship — worship stained with tears and dirt and blood — a real “just-as-I-am” surrendering, before I even attempt to make myself presentable. An acknowledgment of His superior worth and acceptance of the nearly incredible fact that this God of infinite worthiness and power sees me exactly how I am… and still sees value in me.