Growing in Faith in the Pentecostal Church. Part 2.

In part one of my journey in the pentecostal church I told the story of my conversion in the pentecostal denomination. There was a battle between Catholics and Pentecostals over the affections of my heart, there were strobe lights and deadly perilous youth games, there were the typically un-typical Pentecostal spiritual experiences, and there was Bible and prayer. Anyways that was part one. (Check it out here)

What I wanted to write about in this blog post was how I grew in the faith in the following years.

As I mentioned earlier, I had become a Christian through the pentecostal church at my home town. But my conversion to the faith also occurred during my first year at university, and the university itself was in a different town. So in a sense my life was split to some degree by my degree. I had my pentecostal church at home which I would attend on the weekend and I had my evangelical group in my university home which I would attend through the week.

So what was it like to attend both at effectively the same time?

First of all, I didn’t know anything different. This was how it all started and so it was that I didn’t immediately grasp the difference between the two. What I mean by this is that aside from the very obvious differences in style and presentation, I wasn’t particularly aware of the differences in theology or their degrees of significance.

In fact, during the car trips (in my 1980’s hand-me-down V6 Holden Commodore) between the two towns I would listen (with the help of a radio transmitter contraption) to both the Bethel Church Sermon of the week, and John Piper’s sermon of the week, to Brian Houston then Mark Driscoll, to Steve Furtick then Tim Keller. Now if you don’t know the difference between each of these people, then you need to know there is a difference between each of these people. Which again, is not something I immediately grasped.

Over time however, I found myself drawn to the substance of the reformed crew. There was a certain kind of compelling logic that gripped my mind. But when I say, “over time”, I mean over at least a couple of years. So over a couple of years, I would make a two-hour car trip just about every weekend (not to mention all the different trips in between, such as going to work in another town), and in these car trips I would be listening to this diametric selection of preachers. There was a great deal of content being consumed which meant I was learning a good deal during that time (which is typically the case for a new Christian). I mention this in order to give a sense of how much content I was consuming, because eventually when I found myself drawn more to the reformed crew, it certainly wasn’t for lack of engagement and consideration of the pentecostal crew’s content. It was the ideas themselves that won me over and I genuinely became persuaded of the reformed evangelical framework. These preachers and teachers had a depth to their preaching, it was exegetical, the whole counsel of scripture was on the table, it was deeply coherent philosophically, and there was a variety of pastoral concerns – the word of God was shown to apply to every part of my life in many different ways. But at this point let me provide a caveat, there’s no reason the Pentecostal crew couldn’t achieve all these aforementioned qualities. I’m just saying it wasn’t my experience. I think my experience says something about the Pentecostal framework, or ‘vibe’. Even though it’s a generalisation, I think it is fair to say they will not produce teachings of the same calibre. That’s because they’re using a different framework that produces a different kind of teaching. In my opinion, I was listening to some of the most popular and important preachers from the pentecostal church.

In the end, I favoured listening to the reformed evangelical preachers for all those reasons listed above. As you might have assumed, this profoundly shaped my theology.

Did I stop going to my pentecostal church at home? Absolutely not! I was still a young christian at this stage. So although my thinking was very much reformed I nevertheless held to some of the more typical points of Pentecostal theology (notions about the Holy Spirit, tongues, prophecy, etc.). Yet at the same time, I had the inkling that Pentecostals and reformed Christians didn’t necessarily get along too well. Not that I ever really saw this in action. I just had some Pentecostal friends who wouldn’t attend the reformed evangelical AFES Uni group which I attended. And I believe it was because of differences regarding prophecy and maybe some other things like that. I’m very sympathetic to these differences. Having been in both traditions, to the members of either tradition, the practices of your church are important (I might even now say, worth disagreeing over). I, however, didn’t feel the pinch quite as hard as others. I had good friends in the reformed uni group and in the Pentecostal circles – still do!

There was also a lot of intentional discipleship from the AFES uni crew: a mid-week meeting, one-to-one meetings with friends who discipled me, one-to-one meeting with the head of the AFES group as well – I asked a lot of questions and I had a lot of questions asked of me, many challenges were put to me, I was thrown into walk-up evangelism, more to watch than to do at this stage. All generally good. Probably the only difficult time I had that I particularly remember was when one bro tried to read Deuteronomy with me. I thought it was so boring. I just couldn’t quite track with it all. I’m glad I no longer think that way.

When I finished university or was coming to the end of university I had to decide what kind of church to go to. What kind of church do you think I went to?

Well, I attended my local pentecostal church. Steve and Sherryl were my pastors. My very dear friend Nathaniel ran the youth group and I would occasionally help out. There were nights of prayer and praise and wonderful fellowship together.

Eventually I had to move town for work. What kind of church do you think I decided to go to then?

I attended my local pentecostal church. Greg and Tina were my Pastors. It was hip and happening. The walls were dark. The lights turned down. The music was pumping and the people were of a variety of ages and ethnicities (which was rather special in a rural city I thought). Not typically all young, although there was certainly that demographic. But I attended both the young adults Bible study and also a Bible study in which I was the youngest member by a couple of decades! I attended this church for about a year and I gotta say it was a pretty mixed bag on reflection. It was the classic kind of Pentecostal vibe I became a Christian in. Lots of music. Topical sermons (one was even on hell! Which is notable if you know what I mean). Big flashy building. Lots of prayer meetings. As part of this church I managed to be involved in some outreach as a ‘Red Frog’ at the university campus. Which also got me connected to the university ministry there (run by an AFES worker. But I couldn’t attend that very often unfortunately). I also met up one-to-one with a number of people which was good.

But memorably and sadly, I gotta say there were a couple of times when the teaching was not right in the least. And somehow they both managed to be on the book of Jonah! I don’t think that the minister necessarily screened what was being taught before it was being taught. Occasionally the minister would invite people to come and preach, whether from within or without the church (as a guest). But there were some moments that were definitely below par. Sometimes the preachers would start with, ‘I prepared something to teach on today… But the Holy Spirit spoke to me and told me to preach on something else just this morning.’ Another time it was from someone who seemed to be respected by the senior minister. So it was a bit of a contradiction. The senior minister was himself a decent preacher and I thought he was solid (generally speaking). But then at other times under his authority he would let other people say things that were in error. I’ve seen this sort of pattern in other churches as well, big notable churches. For example there have been times that Hillsong have endorsed preachers that they ought not to have endorsed. Although Hillsong themselves, at least certain key individuals, haven’t necessarily made the same errors (at least not regularly in my understanding).

By this stage I was dating my now wife. And while I travelled up to Sydney I would visit an evangelical church (Urban Grace). I thought the teaching at Urban Grace was absolutely solid. It was the kind of nuanced and gritty teaching I’d heard so many times in the podcasts. But by this stage I wasn’t prepared to leave my old church, the pentecostal church. Rather I committed to the pentecostal church all the way through till my marriage.

Then I spent four years at Moore College…