Church # 27. Christ City. Aug 17, 2014.

This week we go big! Really Big! Mega size!!!! I was actually a friend that suggested this church to me. I didn’t even know it existed. I couldn’t even get to consider it was nearly out of city limits. But that is what generous friends with cars are for. 

We agreed that we didn’t feel ambitious enough to get up for the morning service so we oppted for the 6pm one. We got there early, and I had read on the website that there was some other pre-service ritual that would be going on that was optional. I had no idea what it was thou.  So this is what the outside looks like. 

And the other area…

There were two greeters at the doors as we come in. you could tell this place was very new. Very modern sleek design all done in white and grey. I expected we would just head right to the main theater and sit and wait, but it wasn’t opened yet.  We were directed do the hall to a large side room with open doors and found it full of people praying. Matt entered immediately fallowed by me; however his girlfriend Sara didn’t feel comfortable entering the room and stayed outside. This room had people expressing their form of prayer in all different manners.  Some were kneeling down with their heads on chairs; some people were pacing the length of the room back and forth with hands held open. Some prayed allowed, some in silence, some were singing. One guy had his fists clichéd raised in the air shouting his worship to the sky.  I needed to be very sneaky but I was able to manage some photos. 

I joined the worship with my friend beside me well dressed in a nice shit, his skinny jeans and a pair of red Doc Martians. I never took the time to ask Matt what his spiritual beliefs were. But it was him that asked me to come explore this church with him and here he stands beside me in this room full of very intense worship with his hands raised.  

Some part of me is always kind of surprised when I find spiritual people in the metal/punk/alternative world. The overall environment is very anti-religion so a person of faith in that environment often has to stay very quite. 

One clear example of this that I remember comes from my bible study days at Grant MacEwan. We generally had our standard group of 8-10 people that would come but we would get visitors some days. One night, in drops one guy I would never expect. And no it was not Jesus.

It was an old friend I knew from the heavy metal scene back in my home town that I hadn’t seen in a long time. Not too much had chanced with him, he was just as tattooed, priced and a metal as ever. This guy walks in with his bible and sits down and has this immediate expression of relief and comfort. He started talking enthusiastically as if he hadn’t seen another Christian he could talk to in a very long time, and immediately pulled out his I phone and showed us his “Read the Whole Bible in a Year app” and yes, there is an app for that. He was working as security at a major music venue at the time well staffed with a lot of other metal heads. Only his closest friends knew that he was actually a very strict Christian (who only allowed himself one glass of wine a day). But those few people he did tell about his faith would back him up 100% and would not let other people give him shit for it. I respect those guys, life is made so much better with good friends.  

 I digress back to Christ City. 

When the worship in the side room was done, we re-grouped and headed into the main auditorium. It was HUGE!!!!!

I knew the band was set up for a stage, but it look the lights going down  to the point where I could not see my not book and the fog machines going off for me to realize this was going to be quite the show. Then the 7 piece rock band kicked in and it was show time! I took a moment for me to stop and realize I was in a church because it felt almost exactly like a concert at Rexal. 

There were many interesting sights I spotted. That of which included; a Goth-lady with long white hair and a back bowler hat holding a little boy, people jogging on the spot during the song “Run for You” and a 70 year old man in a full suit jumping up and down, a dude in his Edmonton Eskimos jersey  and many other happenings. 

There was a line in one of the songs that said. “Let the whole earth sing in the freedom we know.” I like that. 

There were around 200 people. Full family mix this time. Including a surprising amount of young men that actually don’t appear to be drug there by their girlfriends but have actually intentionally gone together as a group of guys and came to church. This is something I have not seen before. 

After the singing worship was finished the offering was taken right away with church volunteers using flowerpots to serve as a collection bowl. There was a separate kid’s cub that was mentioned, I’m guessing some kind of a Sunday school program. There was also mention of “corporate prayer” and “the corporate body worshiping god”. I have never seen this term before. From what I concluded it simply means a group of people worshiping god instead of just private individual worship. Not saying the both are not just as effective and important, but group worship definitely has some degree of enrichment that comes with having others pray with you. 

The topic of the service today’s was “getting closer to god”, in which they examined a verity of passage that encourage us to continuously strive to become  the most holy, loving and spiritual people that we can become. Here are some quotes from that. 

“God has no issues with personal boundaries.”

“My burden is light”

“You can always get closer to god”

“Jesus satisfied the prophecy.”

“We cannot fall back to the old ways of the Israelite”

“God’s Grace goes beyond all sin no matter how deep”

“When you seek me you will find me”

“God does not play hide and seek, that is a man’s game.”

“You cannot hide from god but you can miss him.”

“Seeing god is a passionate activity”

“Draw near to god and he will draw near to you”

“The serpent convinced them that their lives would be better without god and it would be better to serve themselves.”

“I am your shield” 

Contrary to the stereotype of mega churches we were at no time encourage to buy anything but in fact we were actually given free stuff!  If you come to the front desk and say you are new you can get a welcome gift bag which includes a water bottle, trident layer gum, and info about the church. Did I mention they make their own coffee? 

Over all a cool experience. I really feel that is one of these churches that is out to celebrate their salvation and “spread the good news”. I personally love to see that in a church. One finally shout-out to my cool friends that came along for the ride, this article would not be possible without you!

Church #26 (Part 2) Grace Pentecostal Church. Aug 3rd 2014.

I would like to start out with extending a warm hug and thank you to John (whose name has been chanced for safety reasons.) For stepping forward to give his story on his experience with “Oneness Pentecostals”. I would just like to say that John is a fantastic guy who is tall and handsome and can often be seen riding around on a white horse. So if you see him, you know who I’m talking about!

Looking good John!

Hahahahahahaha!

*Jokes.

But in all seriousness, this interview was intense and I sorted my information under the fallowing questions. Here we go.

When did he join the church?

He was 20 when he joined and 30 when he left. He is now 31.

Why did he join the church?

He was a really messed up kid with a lot of addiction problems (that started young) amongst other things. He had recently met a girl who had come from a similar situation, and also wanted to get away from her self-harming ways. So they both decided that they would go church shopping together. At first they did not like what they were seeing. A lot of inconsistencies with churches fallowing certain doctrine and not others. A lot of them had no proper resources for helping them clean up from addiction.  Also the typical singing and clapping hands “praise the lord” church was very unattractive to John’s mind of a 20 year old guy.  (as apparently its not to a lot of guys in their 20’s).

Apparently there is entire books written on the topic. 

They chose the church they did because they were very deep into their bible readings and were very hard and consistent on the “facts”.  The harsh war general type speech style of teaching appealed to John’s “manly side”. And it defiantly drew a clear line in the sand when it came to his bad habit and addictions.  Cleaned him up real good.  He even recalls seeing miracles in the church, in relation to healing, and he considers himself staying sober a miracle in itself.

Why was he picked to being trained for future leadership?

Basically he was the right man for the job. The young people he was ministering to fallowed him, he showed a strong commitment to the church and showed enthusiasm in his work.

In an earlier e-mail John had mentioned to me that he faced more pressure and restriction then the other church members because of his position. I asked him how the restrictions on him were different than the ones on an average church member.

John explained to me that the restriction were the same, just he had to deal with them to a stronger degree. He recalled a time when he came to work ( aka. the church) and he shirt was not pressed properly and he would get hauled into the office and yelled at. He was required at all times to be a “perfect” example to young people he was ministering to. He also had to put in an intense time commitment. He and his wife worked 6 days a week for the church and had only 1 day off to themselves.

Then I asked him what happened him that caused him to question the church and eventually leave?

He recalled a verity of events and reasons. For one thing they could not get way, no vacation time; it was alike asking for the world to get 2 days off to go see family for a holiday. He stared seeing inconsistencies in the church doctrine. The leadership was acting hypocritically. They band their congregation from watching TV or movies, but will go home and break out the video camera and make home movies of their kids. When John decided to call them out on all this, the response he got completely dismissed and refused acknowledge to his concerns. He pretty much got told not to question authority and get back to work.

His Wife was feeling it too. She worked the day-care with the pastor’s wife who had all the dirt on the personal issues of all the church members.  But instead of keeping it to herself, this lady decided to gossip it around town. And the person who heard the most of it was John’s wife (who wanted no part in any of it.) It became a great distress in her life.

Speaking of his wife. A little background info on her. Her and John met when they both started looking for a church. They found the one they chose, and life got interesting when the congregation found out that they were living together already. As the time in the church progressed they feel into their social environment and were married 11months after meeting each other. But unlike most couples, they didn’t really have a relationship with each other. They had a relationship with the church. They committed themselves to it 6 days a week and had little time to actually develop a deeper understanding of each other. They did this for 10 years. I was afraid to ask about there current status considering John was clearly not wearing any rings on his left hand. But in the end of it all they felt drained and beat-up ( I can relate to this feeling after just one church service). They simply had nothing left to give.

In earlier e-mails I had also mentioned that I had pretty much escaped that day “unscathed” but he mentioned that he was not so lucky and is still suffering the effects of that church. I was not sure if he would be willing to share but he did and I am thankful for it.

He tells me at the point that he had left he assumed that life would simply move on and he would get a new job and everything would be just peachy. If only that were true. He was hit with feeling of severe depression and horrific feelings of self hatred that enveloped him to the fullest. Strangely enough these feeling were immediately relieved by him moving out of his house way from his wife. One of the craziest things that is blowing my mind about all this the “time warping affect” that this guy seems to have experienced. And sadly no, it’s not this kind of time warp.

He remembers days his depression was so bad that he litterly doesn’t remember whole 24 hour time periods, in which he, drove, worked, walked. Etc.  The biggest thing that amazed me was the fact that the environment he has in was so thought controlling that according to his doctor, he has not mentally grown and matured past the point of a 20 year old. He made not free choices for 10 years. He was told how to dress how to walk, how to talk, he didn’t even make a choice on buying a car without consulting the pastor. As he said “The Church took away all your ability to make a decision.” He also in this time discovered without the church as the third person between him and his wife, after 10 years together, needed to start having a relationship together. And to their shock and amazement then now realize that they have nothing in common. They are currently “separated”. His wife has progressed to the state of an average 30 year old and this 10 year “mental gap” between the two of them has caused a lot of stress. 

I couldn’t help but notice A few things while talking to this fellow. #1 yes the ring was missing. #2 he looks 30 but it was honestly like talking to a 20 year old.  it was strange sitting in front of someone who is clearly 7 years my senior, but if you blindfolded me I would tell you he is 4 years younger. #3. During the time I was talking to him he stated multiple times that he is not sure if he believes in god anymore or in anything. Yet like two good punk rockers we got into some heavy discussion about topics everyone else avoids ex. Religion. I noticed at this point he immediately kicked back into his preaching stage and started explain to me all the heavy strict doctrine of his last church and how it is justified. Shocking coming from a guy that told me he didn’t believe in god not an hour earlier. I don’t judge him for it thou. I guess it just shows how deep in his system this church got. 

My last question was one that concerned me heavily.

How much danger am I in for publishing this interview? And how much danger faces the people left at this type of church?

He assured me that I was in no danger as a journalist, but I still felt the need to change his name anyhow, for his sake. However he told me that this church, also has two sister churches. One is harmless but there is one on the north end called, First United Pentecostal Church. This place is without a doubt, Dangerous. I made a point of Google mapping it. The singe in front of the church says “The BIBLE Pentecostal Church.” I would say don’t go near it but that might be kind of hard considering the huge fence they have around the place , and the warning singes on the road gate.  If there is one thing I have learned in my past 26 churches, it is fear the church with a tall fence. Cause chances are they are trying to keep something out, or worse, keep something in.  

"I urge caution to anyone that goes to any instatution that claims they speak for god."

-John.

 

Church #26 (Part 1) Grace Pentecostal Church. Aug 3rd 2014.

I wish I didn’t have to write this but here it goes. Every Sunday that I get up and pick a church at random, I pray that I will have a positive experience. I like to think that of the few bad churches I have been to that the worst is behind me. I wish that was the truth, because this ended up being scarier then what I am willing to believe. Here we go. 

I had walked by this church many times before and waited in front of it for the bus many times. The only thing that I though might be unusual about it was that it was in the basement of a business. First underground church I have ever seen. I got the service times confused and ended up arriving 15 min late. But it was no big deal in my eyes. There were only 12 people in the room.  There was a senior African-Canadian fellow leading the service (first time I’ve seen that). I immediately noticed that out of the 12, there were 5 young men in their early 20’s.  This was shocking. Young men in churches are extremely rare. You’re normally lucky to get 1 in a room of 100.  So this was baffling.  They also all sat in the first two pews on the left side of the church.  One young fellow looked noticeably interesting with his white pants white suspenders and two bandaged up fingers on his right hand ( he later told me that he crushed them in a minor workplace accident.)

I really felt there was no option to be anonymous in this church. This guy was watching you. Really watching you. So much so that he called me out when I accidentally picked up the wrong song book. (There was more than one here).

When I had come in they were in the middle of singing and I just simply joined them from the point that they were at.  After a few songs there was a quick break where the leader started speaking. He stated an interesting statistic that involved a survey of large group of people from around the world.  The question was “what is your greatest desire in life?” The results of this survey generated some interesting results including that 6% said “I want to own a bicycle”. Such a small thing. We were then all told to be thank-full and count our blessings. And then the singing continued.

The prayer was interesting here. There was more than one person praying at a time and yelling over each-other. The offering plate was passed around early, but just as I was digging in my purse to get my loony out, it went right past me. Ok it didn’t even go past me. They stopped at 2 of the 12 people in the room and then brought it up to speaker’s podium and left it there. Yes I got blown-off for the offering plate. Lame move guys.

This church was unique in the fact that it was just a heavy amount of preaching. The service was 2.5hours and 1.5-2h of it was just the church leader speaking. Ok speaking is an understatement; this guy uses vocal punch as if he throws baseballs for a living.

There is just a large list of quotes from here on out so I thought I would file them accordingly.

Good quotes.

“The only thing we have is what we give”

Senior lady stands up and tells a humorous story about her and her sisters falling asleep in church.

“Our footsteps and our path is directed by god-we need to stay close to god to help direct us-the lord is my shepherd.”

“Church is where we come to get our souls ready t meet god”.

“Sin does not rule a man”

“God will give us a new heart and remove our hearts of stone”

“We must life for god 24/7”

Amongst all this there was a point where the church leader called me out and asked me to stand up and introduce myself. I did so and also made appoint of telling him about my journalism and that toady they were church #26. The  pastor was thrown totally off guard and after taking a few min to collect himself looked at me and said “ well we hope you decide to make church #26 your home.” At the end of these 2 posts, you will look back on this quote and laugh. Guaranteed.

They also had this deep obsession of repenting and being baptized. I like I know it is important and all, but that seems to be the number one thing that is on the top of their list. I have never seen this attitude before. The pastor also made it clear that a repented man is a “new man” and must not carry forward any of the evil or ungodly characteristics that he had before.  That all addictions and bad habits must be purged in full.

During this service i felt something strange. I was ignored 50% of the time. Largely due to the fact that the pastor head was  turned to the right  and speaking specifically to the group of 5 young men at the front left side of the room. This is how the conversation went.

Pastor: “some people got out to the moves and put ungodly things before their eyes, but we don’t do that!”

Young Men: *nod and smile.

Pastor: “Some people go out to the bars of the weekends! But we don’t do that!”

Young Men: *nod and smile.

Pastor” when that girl calls you up and wants to hang out you tell her no! Cause we don’t do that!”

Young Men: *nod and smile.

This is the vibe I got from that.

 I was called out a third time in the service as he spent his 1.5-2hours preaching on people were flipping pages in there bibles every 5-10 min. This is not a church service that just focuses and breaks down one or two things this guy I am sure covered 10-15 topics.  I just eventually give up and sat there and wrote my notes. Then the point came where he addressed me and asked me to read the next line. I looked up and politely told him that I had fallen off track since I had been taking notes. Once again you could see on his face that I threw him a total curve ball. He went on preaching while one of the senior ladies ran over to me and helped me flip to the right page. Then I read the scripture quote and sat down.

I have encountered this “teacher style” of preaching the before but I am not even sure you could call it that. It was more like a bible rant from a prosecuting lawyer.

Harsh/Odd/Questionable quotes.

80% of church money is tax deductible. The tradition for having no-low tax on a church was started in ancient times.

“All must appear before judgment”

“Church cannot be a social venue.”

The pastor recalls having Elvis style sideburns when he first came to this church and how he progressively cut them off.

“I don’t want you to say amen! I want you to go home and do it!”

“the unrichous will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.”

“Fornicators, Idolaters, adulterers and the effeminate will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. “

“God says if you are effeminate you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

“Men lower your voices when you come to church!”

“Brother _____ does not wear sister _____ dress!!” 

“If you want to live long, keep gods commandments.”

 And my personal favorite.

“No matter what kind of Bow-tie, Shirt and Bubble bath you give a pig , it is still a Pig!” 

AWWWWWW!!!! SO CUTE!!!!!!

One thing that was mentioned at the beginning and end of all this was the issue of dating. The pastor made it quite clear that none of the young men in the church were allowed to date unless they bring these girls to church and they get approved thru him first.

At the end of these 2.5 hours I felt nothing less then what I must feel like to get punched in the gut. Regardless, I made a point of going to the front and introducing myself to the 5 young men in the room and I asked if it was ok if I could ask them some questions for my article. They agreed and we all sat down. As I asked my questions, everyone left except for one senior lady, the group of 5, and the preacher who walked in and out of the room and sat down at one point and watched me. But it was clear from the look on this guy’s face that he was right pissed off with me.

First I told them about my article and the finer details of what it was about, and then I started my questions.

First I mentioned that it is supper unusual to see this many young men in a church so small. I asked them why they picked this church. The reply was typical of that I have heard at other churches.  According to them it has god’s love, gives them strength, and preaches the true message.

Then I addressed the young fellow with 2 broken fingers and asked him why he started coming here. He told me that he was a very messed-up kid and that his father started bringing him to a Pentecostal church. He at one point moved to the city with his mother and then just found another nearby. There was a young fellow that raised his hand  and mad an extra comment, saying that if you don’t show up to church the pastor calls you up and checks on you and sees what’s going on. Despite the terrified  look on my face he assures me that it is a “good thing” and that the pastor is a “good Sheppard” I was also told that they feel like their relationships in the church have more meaning and value then ones outside of it.

The last question I had for them was a good one. I asked them what do they do for fun. (Considering they are restricted from doing EVERYTHING!)  And the one young fellow pipes on the end and says “we EAT!!!!”  And then the group laughs. But they did tell me that they want to do activities that “are not sinful and glorify god”  so apparently that includes go-carting, talent shows, karaoke, board games and they all apparently play in a band and jam together.

I went home after all this and tried to get some house work done. But I couldn’t.

I was thinking about what I saw today and as the minutes and hours when on it was bothering me to the point where I needed to do something. So a called up my good friend and pastor. I read off to him everything I saw and witnessed today. And then I pulled out the pamphlets they gave me. Then I mentioned this one.

He asked me to open it and read form it, at one point he stopped me and said “Alanna, you didn’t find a church, what you found was a cult!” 

Yep. That’s how I felt.

The crazier part is that he recommended talking to a friend of his that was deep into this cult and left! That interview was intense. Keep an eye open for the post!

Ps. apparently this place may be called Grace Pentecostal Church, but that is not what they stamped on the back of their pamphlets…

Weird hey?