Midweek services much different

[Kelly]

We've just started attending a church in our area after many years of not going. Sunday services were great! There was much worship, song and praise - and the pastor's message and style were very moving and personal. We left feeling like we'd given proper praise to God and got our cups filled in the process.

We attended the wednesday night service expecting something somewhat similar and found it to be pretty different. The crowd was much smaller, and was older - but I expected that. I would like to know more about what we experienced from some of the things we saw below:

• Mumbling? - Everyone was continuously praying to themselves, but I'm not sure if it was Tongues or what? We all have moments where we pray to ourselves but this was going on for the whole service, even when the pastor was speaking. People were also singing to themselves but REALLY off key - so that it seemed to go above the dinn of mumbling.
• Visions - People would blurt out things they apparently just saw in their heads. Example: "I saw Jesus above the crashing waves, he held out his hand to me" Someone else would add "I saw him too, except his hands had the holes from the cross and like Thomas, I believed"
• Laying/kneeling on the stage - One man ran up during a song and layed on the elevated stage. He stayed there, face down, for a half an hour (basically until the pastor came up to speak). Others knelt at the stage the entire time.
• God speaking through them - In big, booming voices, several men (and a few women) would annouce something quasi biblical, which I could sometimes detect as scripture and othertimes not. They all seemed to be speaking as God. One of these gentlemen wished to do this multiple times and the Pastor politely asked him not to continue, as he barely had enough time to speak by the end of it all. The pastor seemed a bit annoyed and addressed him by name - it gave me the impression that it was a regular occurance.

How the evening affected me? Instead of focusing all my attention on God, giving thanks and praise, I was too busy caught up in the spectacle around me. I felt feelings of

Envy - "How come I don't feel the spirit moving through me like that?"

Fear - "What the heck is that?"

Doubt - "Is God really speaking through that guy?"

Pride - "I don't think that's genuine. He's just trying to get the spotlight"

These horrible feelings brewed inside me to the point where I started to dislike the more vocal worshippers before I had even gotten to know them! I questioned the depth of my faith, the intensity of my devotion - I left feeling seperated and lost as if I had exposed another tier to faith that was closer to God and somehow I wasn't enough of a believer to accept or experience it.

Instead of giving glory to God and filling my cup, I was focused on my own thoughts and was poking holes in my own cup with my feelings of doubt, fear and envy. I casually brought it up to my wife on the way home (she was silent the whole service). She was feeling the same things and even said that if that had been our first experience with that church she would not have wanted to come back.

 

[Kelly]

Well, once again I go to the Book and find the answers. 1 Corinthians 12-14 identifies God speaking through you as one of the Spiritual Gifts, in this case Prophesy.

I still have to work out my acceptance that what I saw was legitimate.

 

[Blessed-one]

um, can't tell. Very unusual....

i think whether it's genuine or not, don't be pulled into the mindset that i cannot do this because i'm not a good enough christian and that God doesn't love me enough to give me this gift. If you could not cope with the strain of these 'bad' emotions? don't go to the night service.

personally, i find it disturbing that people would disturb the service.. pastors are God appointed to teach us things, ever heard of the saying that boring pastor does not mean he's an ineffective teacher, rather, it's the listener that has the problem.