Pentecostal Phenomena
A couple of recent posts on the AR-Talk mailing list woke me up to the vast distance between (at least some) non-charismatic Christians and Pentecostal*/charismatic believers.
Some of the folks I’ve heard from on this issue over the years have never stepped foot near a church service outside their own denomination; others actually have left the Pentecostal movement - usually due to what they term as “errors” or “excesses”.
On AR-T, one poster found a video on youtube that he thought was disturbing. The video showed what appeared to be a church meeting with a preacher (who was yelling loudly and pacing back and forth energetically) and a crowd of people - some sitting and weeping, some jumping, some dancing, some prostrate on the floor. The audio was all in Spanish, so we’ve no way of knowing what the man was preaching. It could’ve been thoroughly orthodox, or it could’ve been off the planet. Based on looks only, I said it was almost certainly a gathering of Pentecostal or charismatic believers who were experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit.
Another poster found a video of a female preacher in Sri Lanka. Fortunately the audio is (mostly) in English, so we can have a better idea of what’s going on as she prophesies and speaks in tongues. The video also shows the response from the audience, which is rather dramatic.
I’ve been pondering what, exactly, was in these videos that disturbed my brothers so much. Was it the dancing? The prophesy? The tongues? People falling down on the floor?
So I thought I’d begin a series on things that may be seen within a Pentecostal church - describing both things I’ve seen and experienced, and things I’ve read about. We will, of course, see what the Bible has to say about these things. (I say “may” because some of our services are, by comparison, rather tame and a non-Pentecostal might feel only marginally out of place due to style differences.)
Here’s a partial list. Note that I’m including some of the spiritual gifts here, but not all of them (most people aren’t freaked out by the gift of faith, for example - they are, however, a bit unnerved if an uneducated person begins speaking fluently in another language…)
- Spirit Baptism
- Tongues and interpretation of tongues, and singing in the Spirit
- Prophecy and word of knowledge/word of wisdom
- Everyone praying at once
- Anointing with oil
- Healing
- Prayer Line
- Worship style
- Dancing, flags, tambourines
- Ending up on the floor (voluntarily or under the power of the Holy Spirit)
- Weeping
- Response during the sermon
- There’ll probably be more - feel free to suggest!
I’ll be working on these during my “free” time - so please be patient!
July 18th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
“People falling down on the floor?”
This would disturb me quite a bit; my first thought would be “Call an ambulance.”
July 18th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
It’s actually not so scary to witness, to tell the truth.