Christian conversion experience: descriptions/analysis/links: input invited

That's unfortunate, and it bothers me to see Christians pushing people over when laying hands on them.Sorry that happened to you.There is a real deal though where the glory can come down so strong that it does indeed cause one to fall down, sometimes pinned to the floor with a strong presence, sometimes a sweet presence, sometimes an intoxicating presence like getting very drunk or high, or even tripping. God's presence can be overwhelming.Unfortunately, people want His glory and try to fake it when He doesn't show up in power, not realizing that God likes to do things all sorts of ways, the still, quiet voice can be just as liberating as the greatest manifestation of glory, but we humans are too often carnal.Sorry the carnal aspect of the church "happened to you."I don't much like church culture myself, but I do like corporate worship, and sometimes the teaching and preaching.

Faith, the destructive tendencies you witnessed in the charismatic church are present in most churches. It has nothing to do with the anointing and phenomena except that perhaps some are more dedicated to spiritual power, and may get off there.But it really has to do with false leadership. Basically, pastors and leaders were never meant to be, and are not "head" of the church or over people in the way people teach. Paul writes "Christ is the head of every man." Jesus lays it out a little differently in writing that spiritual leadership is not like the leadership of the world. it is not leadership "like the princes of this world" whereby men can be benefitted. It's sort of complicated, but when you get into new spiritual arenas, it's important to rely on Christ's principles to avoid falling into error.Unfortunately, churches and groups tend to take on and substitute the spirit of the leader or leaders to a degree that a sort of group identity emerges and becomes the ruling spirit of the place, and sometimes that begins to replace the role of the Holy Spirit in people's lives.That's my 2 cents.But the healings, the glory, the gifts are the real deal. As far as being slain in the spirit, people don't always realize that the 2nd Great Awakening, which largely revived and produced the evangelical and Baptist movement in the United States began with some of the most wild and charismatic revivals in all of church history.At the Cane Ridge revival in 1800, which many conservative Southern Baptists venerate, thousands upon thousands of people would be slain in the spirit in large human waves and lay on the ground, sometimes being moved on by the Spirit for days. There was weeping, "the holy laughter" (Toronto and Brownsville style), speaking in tongues although described as gibberish, visions, and one very curious but prominent "wonder" as Presbyterians, Methodists, etc,...would bark and howl sometimes on all four limbs. I am not kidding. They called it treeing the devil and did this for days.Most Baptists and Evangelicals scowl and scoff at such things, but at the same time, they don't realize it was revivals with such things as these that birthed the evangelical movement in the United States with the advent of the 2nd Great Awakening.My feeling is if God is in it, I really don't care how weird it looks. I've never tried treeing the devil, but most of the other stuff I've seen and experienced with tangible benefits from the Holy Spirit.This message has been edited by randman, 06-25-2005 03:22 AM

I know this was not written to me, but it is curious as to what role should fear play. Is the "fear of the Lord" good?I think there is a hard side to reality that we cannot deny, and in some sense, God being the God of reality contains what we might perceive as a "hard side." I think that is really the wrong perception of God, and that Jesus shows us that.But what is a correct perception is that God is a God of absolute truth and rightness, and that God is uncompromising.It's sort of a grand tragedy in a way, but I have faith there's more to the story, and have had glimpses of it.Hell is very real, but so is redemption, and hell is not the end of the story. Jesus Himself is. His body "fills all in all" and that has to mean hell too. What He did on the Cross far outweighs what Adam did, or however you want to accept that concept, and far outweighs our own sin.

Faith, I read your post and want to comment and hope you don't mind.There is a cultish aspect in some charismatic churches and other churches with dedicated believers. I believe I have gained some understanding of how this happens, and imo, it has nothing to do so much with things like tongues or spiritual phenomena, but with specific false concepts that play out into a sort of group-think and counterfeit spirit.But on the tongues, I first spoke in tongues by bursting out singing in a foreign seeming language while walking on the beach when the sun was setting and the moon was rising, Wrightsville Beach in fact.I had no idea what was happening, but it felt right and so I kept going.But I did not speak again in tongues for a year. I came across some people talking about tongues, and I told them I had never spoke in tongues since I didn't know that was what I was doing.Well, since then, well I don't want to say so much, but I do understand most people start out more like you with less fluent-sounding speaking, and frankly, that's probably OK, for most.But it seems to distress you, and moreover, the fact it arises from time to time when don't seem to want it too is sort of disturbing, but then again, everyone is different and maybe your spirit is just itching to break out in this way.My whole point for this long piece (I apologize for the length) is to recommend a way for the tongue to maybe be a little more fluent. When I am praying harder in my mind and break out in tongues, it can be a little harder, and more what you describe, although for some reason I have never been as monosyllabic as some. Maybe I let go a little easier. I don't know.But I find that I can sort of relax a little and listen, and somehow let the tongue develop.My wife began speaking in tongues sort of repeating a pattern as you describe, and then broke our years ago into songs, some in a specific Portugese dialect from Brazil which she had never heard, but a woman from Latin America identified that when visiting our home. I picked up what I thought were Spanish words, but didn't know what it was. But it was very beautiful, hopeful and anointed, and we began to interpret the gift of tongues when uttered.There is some confusion here though with people. Paul also writes about the "gift of faith" in that section, but suggests not all have it!Well, all believers have faith and it is a gift, but Paul is not referring to that there, imo. He is saying some are given an extra gift of faith to beleive when faith would normally be harder to hold onto.My experience is that all can, potentially, pray and sing "in the spirit" at their will even, but that sometimes comes a special tongue, which is not directed towards God, but really comes from God towards men, and must be interpreted, and then is like prophecy.But maybe I've gone too far here....?just some ideas on how maybe what is occuring as far as the tongues can turn from something that is a burden to something beautiful and even godly in your eyes, and more importantly is in God's eyes too.

I'm probably going to set a record for most posts in a row on a thread, but just want to say, that was a great post there and very encouraging.I didn't come into that way, the more the spectacular thing, but the way God can sort of gently invade someone's life gradually with their permission and interest, of course, gives me a lot of hope for some reason, maybe for my kids, maybe for myself to grow. I don't know, but your post somehow did something for me.Thanks.

I am familiar with voodoo, and some occultic practices. It's not the same although there are certain parrallels in any spiritual tradition because if it is something "real", there are basic principles that have to be exercised.The difference is the people involved in the Christian spiritual manifestations are perfectly lucid, except some may be drunk in the spirit.The camp meetings that sparked the 2nd Great Awakening though are not induced in the way the shamans did.I've seen this stuff impact people in the same way without them knowing anything about what happened, no suggestions, no music, nada.Once a friend of mine was very "drunk in the Spirit" after leaving a conference and on the way home, stopped at a convenience store, and just bumped into a lady, and she fell over in the Spirit in the same state. Nothing said to her. Nothing suggested, and by on the way home, I mean hundreds of miles on the way home.I prayed with someone, and felt led to tell him that I knew he was receiving it, and he really didn't feel or sense anything, and I just felt like telling him he got it, and I am sure the manifestation will show up sometime.About a month later, he said the Spirit of God just came over him in a way he had never experienced before. He said it literally just shook him, very hard, and all the people around him weren't experiencing anything like that at all.There was nothing to put his mind in that state. He was in a church meeting, but it wasn't a worship service, and not the sort of meeting where that kind of thing happened.It lasted a few hours where he shook, cried, and I am not sure what else.I was at a meeting, and though I have witnessed some real physical miracles, I received an emotional healing, but very unusual. The presence of the Spirit came over me, and I just wept for 2 days. I could not stop. I didn't think you could weep that long.The Presence of the Spirit came over so heavily in a series of meetings at the same church that the Spirit of God knocked me down on the ground outside when it was very, very cold (in Canada), and I just laughed and felt the glorious presence of God, and could not get up and told everyone to just go ahead, and despite it being very cold outside, such that I was wondering if maybe it was dangerous, but I just laid there completely warm.You have to realize that earlier when it was still day-time, we were hurrying because it was really cold, and now late at night, it was supposedly much colder, but not for me.Call it psychological if you want, but the fact is the Spirit of God doesn't need all that drum-beating, drugs sometimes, excessive physical dancing or trauma to induce a state of mind, though dancing is fine.No, He will just graciously usher you in the door while others are devising all sorts of wild ways to climb up the walls and break into the spiritual arena.This message has been edited by randman, 06-25-2005 05:45 AMThis message has been edited by randman, 06-25-2005 05:48 AMThis message has been edited by randman, 06-25-2005 05:53 AM

I agree that doctrine is important, but it's not all there is to life. The solution for lack of sound doctrine is to add sound doctrine, not try to downplay the moving of the Holy Spirit.The thing in the convenience store was God's doing. That sort of thing is not really up to us, especially that particular event.Paul says to "earnestly covet the best gifts." The way I interpret that is whatever is best for the moment. I don't see him talking about "love" there as a gift. Love is something more important than the "gifts" in that context, and Paul devotes a whole chapter to making that point. Love is really more something we do, although in a larger biblical context, it is true that God's Love is indeed a great gift.The way some try to insert so-called "sound doctrine" is to teach the opposite of what Paul said, and not only to not seek the best gifts, but create doubt as to whether they come from God.You gotta remember we have a perfect biblical example of a charismatic church gone haywire in the Corinthian church. In many respects, they were super-charasmatic, and Paul adds to them sound doctrine and reproof but never by toning down the charismatic part.Imo, most charismatic churches are pretty "dry." It's not that they are too wild in this area, but they aren't moving in it enough.While it is true, something like a miraculous healing is not as important as someone giving their life to Christ, or perhaps even someone's marriage and family being restored, but it's biblical.Jesus had a lot of stuff going on that He didn't leave us a lot of doctrine to explain. Specifically, he cast out a lot of demons, and even today, if you ever wind up casting demons out of some people, it's not like you can go to the biblical book of the New Testament explaining the dos and don'ts or even the theology of it, which is indeed murky.If you've seen it, you know it's real, but evidently God likes us to work out some of this stuff walking it out with Him.Always remember that the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.Just make sure something is the Spirit of God and not something else.My little bit of advice is once you understand the root problems of the stuff you are talking about, you begin to see that same root problem in a lot of evangelical non-charismatic churches as well. There is an immaturity problem in churches, and problems with group-think, and really this can spill over into witchcraft, but that also tends to kill the move of God so the wild manifestations are less.Give me a sovreign outbreak of God's anointing and presence, poorly understood even, anyday than a man trying to present the image of his stream's leaders as real godliness, and all the accompanying doctrinal emphasis. We are only correct and sound to the degree we are like Christ.My sense is unfortunately we have a lot of different images of godliness to try to live up to, but most are off in some manner and don't resemble Jesus, just parts of what He believed. We need more reform to be honest.

Faith, not to belabor the point, but Finney came along much later, decades later in fact. It is true that much of the theology was different, but you have to remember that in all of Church history just about every revival faded, and often error came in.It's the nature of the thing.Jesus did some mighty miracles in places like Caperneum, in modern venacular there was a great revival, but they slipped too, and he upbraided them.We cannot expect to get more from people that the Lord Himself did. It just isn't like that. No matter how strong a revival and work of God is, there is the still "the world", and I tend to think more in terms of the kingdom advancing and creating change in the earth like the mustard seed growing parable, but it's gradual to some extent and not easily noticed all the time. Things like revivals are part of the growth, but not all of the growth.I went to Toronto, and know of many of the places touched by that revival. It was the real deal. It just happened to occur at a Vineyard church and so you got their style featured.In Brownsville, which came from the same revival, tens of thousands of people were saved. That was very much a salvation and repentance revival but with the same stuff going on. It was a classic revival in a lot of ways, but not as geographically strong as Whitfield's and Finney's revivals.I think the same thing is on-going really, just in smaller groups with people being saved, etc,...Basically, my point is that in the Bible and Church history, very wild manifestations have occurred with some frequency, and that it's the nature of God to be a lot weirder than us. Moreover, the move of God in this arena is not so much connected to church doctrines, but creating a deeper relationship with God whether via people getting "saved" or coming into a closer walk.It's an apple and oranges thing. It IS doctrinally sound to call people to a closer walk with Jesus, and for such wild spiritual things to occur.But that doesn't negate or replace the need for solid biblical teaching, and "sound doctrine" is not a system of theology that dismisses wild, spiritual manifestations. It's just not an either/or thing.

Faith, I've read all the criticism or heard it firsthand personally. The criticism is not biblical, imo.Most ministers were oppossed to it, until it happened to them so to speak. The problem is we think we know what God is like, and in our churches present this image of godliness for the people, saying, hey, this is what God is like.So when something comes along that doesn't match that image, we think it cannot be God.Same thing happened in Jesus's ministry. They said, look, He doesn't abide by the religious rules. He presents a different image than us, and so He must do these things by the work of the enemy.That's how they treated Jesus, and really that's how revivals and the Holy Spirit are treated when there is a flood of His presence. Most say they want revival and genuinely mean it, but most probably would not recognize it as something from God initially. That's just the way these things are.God uses the foolish things to confound the wise. To the degree our "sound doctrine" reflects man's wisdon will be the degree often we are unsure of a move of God.Btw, that doesn't have to be anti-intellectualism. It's just we need to balance out religious tradition and our own wisdom with recognizing God's sovreignty.

I'll read the links.

Faith, I haven't finished the 2nd article as I have some family visiting, and now we're heading to the beach.But I wish he was more specific about the man shouting to the audience to "shut up." He makes it sound like it was a demon manifesting.But, and I sort of hate to be critical, but he does the same thing he criticizes all Church leadership of doing, he refuses to name the name of this person he thinks may be a false teacher/prophet.I am left to wonder whom this man was. Is he a false prophet mixed in with a true move, for example? It's just unsatisfying and totally unresolved.I'll finish the rest when we get back and then comment. My general feeling though is that if we were to nitpick Paul's churches and his "ministry" in this manner, looking at what some of his churches did, I think he'd be run out of town too, as a false teacher.Maybe there is more substance to come though in the article...OK, I told my family to wait and read down a couple of paragraphs, and he is probably right, though I wasn't there, and imo, there are some problems with River churches, but the problem, imo, is not that the anointing is fake, but I'll read more, but some misuses.I will get into it more when I return later, though it may be late tonight. I have some criticisms of my own, but it's not with the basic anointing. It's that the anointing is to focus more on Christ, more on God, and not the experience itself. It's fine to explain the experience, but there does tend to be too much focus at times on the experience rather than following the Lord, but we saw the same thing with the "born-again" emphasis in the 70s.Nevertheless, people should still be "born-again." It's just that in some respects it's an on-going state, but that's a theological diversion. I do accept a new birth conversion as real. I think it needs a broader understanding though.This message has been edited by randman, 06-25-2005 02:28 PM

Faith,Some comments upon reading further. There are legitimate questions, but the central question is if the areas that raise concern are due to the anointing and presence there, or the way leaders behave.My take is it is the latter. One reason is we had a lot of the same stuff occur prior to this major outbreak, but with none of the items people are critical of. Basically, I tend to think what's going on is there are existing problems that are carried over into the "River churches" from people's past.Take the concept of reliance on manipulation, although I saw much, much less of that in places like Toronto that the average church. What is happening is these leaders, often out of Pentacostal circles, are already steeped in questionable practices, and in my experience having observed all of this, and at times have some personal knowledge of friends that know some of these leaders personally, basically the River stuff has improved the area that might be viewed as negative, not caused it.Unfortunately a lot of church culture is not that biblical to start with.On the subject of focussing too much on the experience, that's true at times, as well as the resulting spiritual pride that can develop, but once again, this is more a people problem than a problem with presence and anointing. The same thing happened in some of Paul's churches, but no one today discounts his epistles because they were written by a false leader under a delusional anointing or some such.I remember being at a Catch the Fire conference, and the anointing level was very strong, but I started to feel an oppression, and I knew what it was. They were focussing too much on the experience because that's what the conference was sort of about, but a good thing happened. Someone took to the stage and directed everyone's attention to Jesus, and then the "burden" lifted, and it was back to flat out awesome. It was awesome even when that heaviness came. I just knew something was out of whack.Fortunately, at that time, the leaders of the conference senses that, lifted up the name of Jesus, focussed people on the Lord in worship, and it went very, very well.But in typical fashion, many churches have not had the discernment and sensitivity to do that, and consequently, things get off.But it's that with every movement, denomination, stream, etc,...It's a people problem. It's not the anointing causing that.And the imploring to just drink it in? Is that so much different than asking people to quiet themselves and stay themselves on God in prayer?It's not so different, but I agree that I never liked the emphasis there. I wouldn't say it was heresy because I never saw it become a permanent rule or something, just a technique, overused probably and badly used it seems, and I've got no beef with criticizing that, but once again, that's just men trying to "help" God when they don't probably need to, and thus getting in the way.I gotta go again, but will comment more, but just consider the problems this guy is talking about existed prior. I don't see the River anointing causing them, just that they have not been corrected.

Faith, the Bible is pretty clear about what to look for as far as anti-Christ type spirits the author is talking about. First, they will preach a false Christ.Personally, I don't see that going on. In fact, my own experience is most people I have know affected by the "River" anointing become more Christ-like, more like Jesus. I guess here I've been overly combative towards evolutionists, and I may just stay away from the forum as a result, but honestly, this revival anointing or whatever one wants to call it has been a blessing in bringing real character change, real fruit.But it seems those that want to use the "River" to build their own thing or something, pretty much the same standard mistakes made for centuries, get off track some. The refreshing works best to help people develop a renewed prayer life and intimacy with God. It's not really about the power of large corporate meetings, necessarily, but empowering the believer to do whatever he or she is called to do, and to develop a closer walk with the Lord.The power in the anointing is real, just as the author states except I disagree with his claims it is a counterfeit of the Holy Spirit, but what the best part of it is, it involves the healing of the heart, soul, and developing a renewed hunger for Jesus. I have seen that, and that's been my experience.I admit some River churches seem to be off. Right now, we don't attend a "River church", but in my own family, we try to flow in it, and it's been a joy to see my son, 12, receiving and flowing with such a tanglible and strong anointing. My daughter too, 15, has been used of God, and just recently was led to pray for a woman who received a remarkable healing. I think the anointing has a lot to do with that.But pride goes before a fall. Just remember that the same thing happened with Paul's revival churches. Look at the Corinthians.We humans have a way of missing the point and messing things up.The Bible also says to look at the fruit, and I can tell you the fruit has been good in my life and the people I know. The church problems the author talks about are rooted in religious doctrines, not the River anointing itself, imo.The false prophets are the ones in sheeps clothing (appearing respectable or godly, etc,..) but inwardly are ravenous wolves. The part about being ravenous wolves is interesting to me. Imo, it speaks of leaders wanting to control "their sheep." Beware of that mentality. God's people belong to God, not to the leadership of a church.One thing I like about what I have seen with the Rover anointing is that, in general, it lessens the control spirit, which is witchcraft in the Church. I know I am saying the opposite of what your guy is saying, but I have seen the spirit of witchcraft operating mightily, and imo, this anointing is breaking it, beating it back.I think the Pentacostal writer is just not owning up the state that existed prior in the Church. It's a sad state indeed, but the stuff he is talking about suggests there was more godliness and this leads to less godliness.I see it otherwise. Besides, those "River churches" that try to control the "River" for their own purposes, they pretty much dry up.There may be some where the preacher is called to help bring that flow, and so last longer, even when persisting in error, but the whole anointing, if you ask me, is to break the grip of false prophets and false teachings.Lemme put it this way. Most of what is taught to watch out for in false prophets by the Church is a very good description of John the Baptist, Jesus and Paul.Usually, we are told to watch for people that are loners, have no covering, do odd things, break with norms (eating locusts for John the Baptist and eating with sinners for Jesus), etc, etc,....The solution to the problems in the River churches is much the same for all churches. It's the leaven of the Pharissees, the Saducceed, and the Herodians, controlling leaders, and in general all the things Jesus said to watch out for.He didn't really tell us to watch out for those that don't appear respectable, "too spiritual", not under their "covering" which imo can just a be a form of witchcraft.I know I've gone too far talking here, but I am with you to watch out for false teachers, etc,...but make the Bible the source. The Bible is not overly suspicious of wild spiritual manifestations, nor prophets, etc...The controlling spirit, false teaching, anti-Christ areas are easier to spot once you know what to look for. They are specific markers, a false image of Jesus where the image of godliness they advocate does not match the image Jesus is portrayed as in the Bible.If you ask me, the guy wanting to go back to just a few years back, not really the early days of the Assemblies of God, wants a return to worse error and heresy. I guess we cannot get into it here, but Phariseeism is hypocrisy, and the thing he may not realize is the root errors of the Pentacostal River ministers stems not from "the River" per se, but from the existing state of the Church, including Pentacostals.I could bring up far worse stuff committed by AG non-River ministers, and the truth is I could do that for just about every denomination. I won't do it here, but it's a sadder and worse state than people realize, much worse than the "errors" he refers to.

One other thing, the author makes a major error in understanding.It is not heresy, imo, whether one is premillenial, postmillenial, or amillinial. Making such issues, which are very complicated in the Word, into questions of whether one is a "heretic" or not is completely false.Most of Church history, no one believed in the pre-Trib rapture. If he wants to believe it fine. Men like Calvin and Luther were actually post-millenialists.If you accept that Jesus will return, I think you shouldn't demonize a man just because he has a different eschatology than you. The author seems to think disagreeing with the Pre-Trib Rapture is heretical. That is unfounded and incorrect.

OK, I have to add more while reading page 2.First off, he is just wrong claiming all or nearly all River ministries or whatever you want to call employ practices like empty your mouth. I personally conducted a prayer meeting for years with a group of believers where these wild manifestations occurred, and we never did that, not once.He is just looking at large ministries, movement leaders, and yes, there are a lot of issues, but they had these issues before. They may well be copying a technigue they saw in a meeting, just as men of God did before and still do in other doctrinal camps.On the transferable anointing, he's just wrong. Laying on of hands by believers for others to be healed and receive an impartation of the Spirit of God is biblical, and frankly something his own church believes in. Every Pentacostal and Charismatic movement before this world-wide acted in the exact same manner. He's just wrong on that.But I think he misses the heart of the message. The message that of God in giving us a transferable anointing is that we, God's people, can do the work of God in making disciples and ministering to people. We don't have to rely on super-Christians and ministers.He mentions tongues, and I speak in tongues, but the fact speaking in tongues is less emphasized is, imo, evidence the whole thing is more biblical and making more of a correction in the Church than a departure into a counterfeit spirit. Tongues are real and for today. The teaching the gifts went out with the New Testament is bogus since the Bible teaches the imperfect passes away when the perfect comes, which is the coming of Jesus, when we will no longer see through a glass darkly.The idea that the New Testament is somehow more perfect, in terms of being the word of God, than the Old is itself heretical. The covenant is better, but it's all the word of God, and either way, we still see through a glass darkly as long as we need to read the Bible.One day we will see Him face to face.