Church Change Post #5
So what happened Sunday night? hehhehehe … God is good.
I know that a lot of folks who read this will have never been in a Pentecostal church; keep in mind that I’ve only been in a non-AoG church a couple times so I don’t know how other folks do things. Might be the same way.
Usually at some point during the service - either after praise and worship, or at the end, the Pastor will call for the Elders of the church to come (in the AoG, the elders are usually the deacons and also current/former pastors, and their wives) to the altars, to anoint people with oil and pray for healing (see James 5). I don’t know how other AoG churches do things, but at Calvary (our old church) prayer is always for any need, not just health. If your family’s falling apart, you’ve lost your job, need a home, are facing a decision, are in need of salvation, have been in sin, are depressed, *whatever* - they’ll pray with you. They’ll also pray w/you on behalf of a third party who’s not present. LCAG seems to be the same way. So @ the end of service at LCAG, someone came up to ask for prayer regarding depression. They prayed for that need, and then opened the altar for anyone else who’s struggling with it. I looked at Ken and he said, “Let’s go; go with me.” I was surprised as he’s usually hesitant to go up for prayer — he’ll go if *I* suggest going. So we went up and said to them that he’s struggled with depression for several years, and they anointed both of us with oil and began to pray.
Now I need to digress for a moment to give a little background. Tom and Rachel led worship that night. (Maybe they are the worship leaders, don’t know?) Powerfully anointed musicians - in addition to “WOW, can they sing!” - they had a gift for leading people into God’s presence that’s just rarely seen. They were also ministering at the altar, along with Danny (senior pastor) and Donny (youth pastor) and their wives. We’d briefly said hi to them Weds night, but not said much because they needed to leave right after Bible Study. Also, I’d talked w/Danny on the phone but I hadn’t said a lot to him about WHY I thought God was calling us out of Calvary to LCAG, other than the community piece. Ken and I had laid in bed on Wed, Thurs, Fri, and Saturday night and talked seriously about all manner of things….hopes, dreams, fears, passions… why we thought God might be calling us, why we thought we might be insane to think that (at 2am it sounded insane. Really) We’d gotten into the Word and found all sorts of passages and shared them (which in the past has been a sticky thing for him). God kept making us run into Luke 4:18, which is the “life verse” of LCAG. (in fact He ran me into Isaiah 61:1 one morning, which is, guess what? what Jesus was quoting in Luke 4:18!) We’d talked about our feeling like we were entrenched in both Calvary and Greensboro, like God might be sending us out, about building, about the need for small-church discipling versus large-church discipling, about spiritual warfare). We talked about how I’ve felt for some time that God had something more for me at EW and I’d been missing something big but that first He had to do something IN me (and He’s already begun that work but I knew there was more), we talked about… well, a lot of things.
Guess what? We didn’t tell Danny any of it. Nor Donny. Nor Roger, our next door neighbor. Hadn’t told our (errrr… former) pastor, David. We hadn’t even discussed any of that stuff w/our visitor, or our kids. Not a soul. And probably 99% of it is stuff that you’d not guess from a newcomer to your church… ya think?
So we’re up there asking for prayer for Ken’s depression and all of a sudden Tom breaks off praying about that, looks Ken in the eye, and begins to speak … well, much of the above. What he didn’t fill in, Rachel did. And then Pastor Danny came over and told us a thing or two that blew us away. It was so obviously God moving through them that … WOW.
Now I’ve had the experience where someone has given me a word from the Lord before - it’s been whole, complete, accurate, amazing.
God’s worked through me in that gifting, which each time He does, absolutely blows me away and reduces me to tears that He’d do that. But this … this was just incredible. Absolutely incredible.
There’s a big difference, I think, between a “word from the Lord” and “an entire book” … they spoke for at least 15 or 20 minutes, to the point that Ken and I cannot think of a single thing that was left out that we’d talked about over the week.
Normally I don’t put a lot of stock in people who say, “thus sayeth the Lord” until I get to know and trust them and see what they say over some time, take it to the Book and take it to the Lord … but this was so incredibly detailed.
Have you ever heard the phrase, “God read my mail?”
God bugged my bedroom.
There’s no way … NO WAY … that the stuff they talked about could’ve been guessed, could’ve been picked up on from my conversation w/Danny, could’ve been sorted any way other than by the Holy Spirit’s direct work.
And also - do you remember what my friend Judy said (the next day, BTW - see post #4 in this series) … well, God also said through Tom, essentially, that there was going to be something that we were going to have to rise above and overcome in order to make this transition and that we were going to have to meet the challenge head-on in order to do so… but that we were indeed being called to LCAG.
Powerful stuff.
I don’t know when I’ve felt more encouraged, scared, excited … all at once.
September 27th, 2006 at 4:53 am
Wow, amazing! Ima hafta read the earlier entries to know what’s been going on (didn’t know you were changing churches, and all that), but it’s great to hear how God is still so presently active in your lives and still bringing hearling.
Praise God!
Rich
BlogRodent
September 27th, 2006 at 5:11 am
Okay, I just finished reading this series, and I have to tell you, I think you’re doing a good thing.
Can I tell you what my immediate impression was upon reading post #5 first, before I had read everything that led up to it? Well, of course I can.
As I finished the post and thought about commenting the first thing on my mind was, “Well, I’m surprised she’s changing churches, because I’ve heard so many good things about her current pastor.” But my next thought was, “Being part of a community is maybe more important than going to a great church.” I had no idea if this was a church local to you, or not, but the primary idea on my mind was community. And it sounds like that’s definitely at play here.
Can’t say whether this is another confirmation for you, or not, but there you have it.
Dig in, Kathi, and keep walking in the light. I’m proud of you!
Rich
BlogRodent
September 27th, 2006 at 10:45 am
Well — in one sense, of course, we don’t go to church for the pastor.
But in another sense, of course, you are right.
We asked ourselves a few times, “What are we… NUTS?” Calvary not only has Pastor Crabtree (who as far as we were concerned at the time couldn’t be topped as a pastor), it also has 101 different programs and classes and all the things that a large church has to offer (read: much security).
It’s also the sort of thing that we might have actually fought God tooth and nail about, if we hadn’t had THIS much confirmation. Know what I mean? But time and time and time again we began to see and hear and feel and KNOW (to the point that our pagan visitor was pointing stuff out to us and saying, “um - think that’s God telling you something, guys”) - it became so obvious that God wanted us at LCAG. We actually both “knew” that first Wed. night… but the whole process took less than a week (for all of my multiplied words in this blog) - can you believe it?
I can’t “compare” Pastor David and Pastor Danny. They’re two VERY different people, two VERY different personalities, two VERY different pastors. Yet they’re alike in one respect: they love the Lord with all their hearts, minds, souls, and strength… and that shows in each of them so much that when you meet them even outside the church setting, you *know*. They’re both beyond excellent in all respects - preaching, teaching, shepherding, caring for people…. all of the important stuff. While Pastor David’s a fabulous pastor and is doing great things up in Greensboro … Pastor Danny’s *also* a fabulous pastor and is doing GREAT things down here in Level Cross. (He’s literally taken a church that was about to close due to severe wounds from the previous pastor, with 5 people left holding the doors open out of sheer stubbornness, and built it to a thriving church of 35-50 regulars in 11 months. Three Sundays ago he had 60 people there and baptized 13. We’re having services where the Holy Spirit is so strongly present that we show up ifor evening services and leave at 10 or 11pm. The day I was healed we were supposed to sing for an hour or so… we couldn’t stop. God was there! He was so PRESENT among us that we just HAD to worship. Now, that day was homecoming so we were going to be there for am service, lunch, and an hour or so of singing - so perhaps leave by 2 or 3… right? Nope. We shut things down at 6:30pm and that only because Pastor’s family had to go to their church for evening services, and a large group went on with them to their church. But that kind of thing’s become the norm. Last night, for example… prayer meeting. Only 4 of us there - from 7-11pm. God was there, and so we were there. That’s the big difference, I guess… no one here looks at their watch to see when something’s going to need to end.
We had to get beyond the “who’s your pastor” syndrome a little bit, Rich. Distance ourselves from it. (ouchie) Would never have considered that the issue existed in the sub-recesses of the mind, had God not thrust us into this position.
We also had to walk right out of our big big security blanket and into a whole lot of intimate, intricate relationship with people. (I think that’s what my next post is going to focus on. Might be the final post in the series.) At Calvary, we were part of the group and if we wanted to distance ourselves we could do so easily. At LCAG that is impossible. There’s no such thing as a face in the crowd at this church.
Oh - just looked up at one thing you wrote, which I guess is an implied question ?? LCAG is about three minutes from my house.
I don’t think anyone we go to church with lives more than about 10 minutes from our house. In fact, Roger’s next door and Donny and Theresa are right across the street 
I love that.
It’s all definitely DIFFERENT.