Crazy Stuff in Church

[derAlte]

One of the supreme joys of my life is having communion with the Holy Ghost. In His presence is fullness of joy and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore. For most of the four plus decades I’ve been an Apostolic Christian, church services have been nothing but a delight. But there have been a few times when things went haywire. The circumstances may be humorous now but at the time were perplexing. I’m starting this thread so we can share crazy stuff that may have happened in church services.

I’ll go first.

A few years after God filled me with the Holy Ghost, I was in a wonderful church. Our pastor was young but had a zeal for revival. One Sunday morning, things went off the rails for him. Here’s how it unfolded…

In our town, we had an active Gideons International group. They had approached our pastor for permission to make a presentation at our church on a Sunday morning. The Gideons rightly have a good reputation printing and distributing Bibles all over the world. Our pastor was not averse to their coming. I don’t remember the poor man’s denomination, but the Gideon who arrived that Sunday morning was not Pentecostal. I’m thinking he must have been a Baptist or some such. Was he in for a surprise!

Also attending church that morning was a zealous young man who had received the Holy Ghost not long before. He was a single, sincere, intense guy in his mid-20s. He had a deep desire for more of God. He also had a lot to learn.

In those days, the church started with Sunday school, taught by our pastor, followed by a full-on worship service and ending with preaching and an altar call.

On that particular Sunday, I had invited my old non-Pentecostal German grandmother to come to church. To my surprise, she agreed. I picked her up in my '63 Plymouth Valiant with the push-button shift and was excited to have her in service as we made our way into the sanctuary that morning. We sang a chorus and the kids were dismissed to attend their classes. Our pastor began to teach the adults.

As I sat there, I began to hear a low level hum coming from the other side of the church. Looking to my right, I observed the intense new convert rocking back and forth with stammering lips. He was scheduled to lead worship that morning after the Gideon man made his presentation following Sunday school.

My pastor kept teaching but all the while this young kept rocking back and forth with stammering lips. I found it annoying, to be honest. My old German granny just sat there taking it all in.

When our pastor finished teaching, the Gideon made his presentation. It was standard, boilerplate Baptist rhetoric. When he finished, the intense young man stepped up to the pulpit to lead the congregation in songs. I had, at this point, left my grandmother and had gone to the platform to play my saxophone in the orchestra.

This is where the service unraveled. The intense young man began to loudly speak in tongues and kept at it for some time. There was no interpretation. I looked over at my grandmother, who was quietly observing. This was not how church normally proceeded. I leaned over to the pastor’s wife, who was at the organ, and in a panic asked, “What’s going on?” Equally panicked, my pastor’s wife answered, “I don’t know.”

And then things got even more bizarre when a few moments later, the young man fell flat on his back, slain in the Spirit, as it was called in Pentecostal circles, still loudly speaking in tongues. The Baptist Gideon had wide eyes, thoroughly alarmed. My sweet old grandma continued to demurely observe.

After this went on for a while, our pastor, not knowing what else to do, stepped to the pulpit and asked everyone to kneel and pray. Everyone responded with alacrity. Not feeling that he could pull the service back together, our pastor dismissed after everyone had had a season of prayer.

My mind was in a turmoil as I escorted my dear old grandmother out to the car. What kind of impression had she gotten from all this? She looked at me and with deep sincerity told me, “I know what happened to that young man.”

With dread in my heart, I reluctantly asked her, “What happened to him?”

With conviction she told me, “His soul left his body and went on a journey.” My late grandfather had been a devotee of books regarding “soul travel” and other mystical hooey. I wanted to face-palm. Grandma definitely didn’t get it.

While I was sitting in my Plymouth Valiant hearing my grandmother’s ooky-spooky theories, an older man and his son in the congregation buttonholed the intense new convert and dragged him off into a Sunday school room. He later told me they tried to cast the devil out of him! They interpreted everything that happened at the pulpit that morning as demonic.

My poor pastor!

Anyone else here ever have crazy stuff happen in church?