Were you there at Calvary Chapel?

This past Sunday, I visited Calvary Chapel in Clearfield, Utah.

A bit of information about Calvary Chapel. Calvary Chapel was founded by Chuck Smith, a pastor in the Foursquare Church. (I did a blog about them earlier. Go check it out.) He believed the Holy Spirit gave him the gift of prophecy to start a new Christian organization which would shepherd many flocks. He began Calvary Chapel, which had elements from the hippie movement involved in it, in the 1960's following a split with the Foursquare Church.

A major setback in Calvary Chapel's history came in the 1980's when Smith prophesied that Christ would return by 1981 and the Great Tribulation would begin and last up until 1988. When this failed to happen, many left the Church, though it has still continued on.

Though I mentioned it was born out of the 1960's and the hippie movement, Calvary Chapel still maintains fairly conservative Christian doctrine. They like to think of themselves as an Evangelical church that is part way between fundamentalism and Pentecostalism. They are fundamentalist in that they believe in the Bible is inerrant and take a more literal approach to it. They are Pentecostal in that they believe in gifts from the Holy Spirit.

Beliefs and practices of Calvary Chapel:

• They like to view themselves more as a fellowship of churches than a denomination. Honestly, given that they have set doctrine, I don't see how they are not a denomination. But I very well could be missing a key distinction.
• They believe in the Trinity.
• Believe that Christ is the Messiah and Savior of mankind. He is the second person in the Trinity fully God and man.
• Mankind is totally depraved with no goodness in him. A result of the Fall of Adam.
• Mankind is saved only by God's grace. No works can save man.
• God has predestined who will and will not be saved, but the individual still has to accept God's gift.
• Christ died for the whole world, not just for the elect.
• Mankind can resist God's grace.
• They believe the saints shall endure to the end, but the world is full of sinful people who lead deviant lifestyles and call themselves Christians.
• Believe in spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, faith healing, prophecy, etc.
• Believe in baptism in the Holy Spirit, meaning the Holy Spirit comes over them and fills them with grace.
• Believe that baptism is an outward sign of being born again in Christ for believers only. Done by immersion.
• Communion is practiced. Symbolic of the body and blood of Jesus and his atonement.
• Conservative social values: homosexuality is condemned, abortion considered immoral, women are not made pastors, etc.

So, what was Calvary Chapel like?

Atmosphere:

Calvary Chapel in Clearfield is literally a tiny chapel in a subdivision. It's quaint on the outside. Not much to it structurally. The cross on top is gorgeous with the trees framing it as you stand in front of the entrance.

The interior is pretty much what I've come to expect from Evangelical chapels. A bunch of chairs lined up in rows facing a stage with a live band, a pulpit in the center, and a screen to project the song lyrics onto. There weren't many decorations to speak of. There were a couple maps on the wall, one of which had a picture of the Mediterranean and what looked like Paul's journeys. The second map was of the Holy Land and looked to be modern and ancient superimposed on each other. In front, where you typically see a cross in chapels, there was the logo of Calvary Chapel, a stylized outline of a dove representing the Holy Spirit.

Overall, it was a fairly simple and typical Evangelical chapel. Nothing of real note to it.

The People:

The people were pretty nice. So many of them came up to us and introduced themselves. They were all very warm and friendly with each other. They seemed to be from diverse walks of life. Some with tattoos, some in suits, a few wearing Christian themed t-shirts. One woman was singing the hymns and signing them in ASL to herself. I thought that was pretty cool to see.

Overall, fairly nice and energetic people of diverse backgrounds.

The Service:

I am glad that this is the last Evangelical service I am attending for the year, as I am getting strong deja vu with the description of the services. It was the same as the others in format: contemporary Christian rock music for the first portion, a couple prayers with some announcements, then a sermon.

The music was the most noteworthy part. It just kept going. We sang songs for the first 45 minutes with only announcements and a few brief words between the songs. The words were kind of degrading at times, with the man saying them saying things like, "We are filthy," and "We have nothing to offer you, God." He would then follow that up with something like, "But you love us, Lord."

There was then a sermon, as I mentioned, and then a blessing over the congregation before being dismissed. In all, it was only an hour and a half, but the lengthy music at the beginning made it feel a lot longer. I much prefer churches with only one or two hymns at the beginning.

Overall, pretty typical Evangelical service. Not much more to say other than what I have said.

The Message:

The sermon was interesting. It lacked structure, which is a common trend. I find with most churches the sermon is either completely written out and planned down to the smallest details, or it is completely free form with no structure at all. This congregation chose the latter. It began with him reading the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, then it went off on many unrelated topics.

As such, I will present this sermon in bullet points of topics addressed, and then discuss one peculiarity I found at the end.

• God promises happiness unaffected by circumstances.
• We are totally dependent on God.
• Before God, we are in abject poverty.
• You are bad, you should mourn your sins daily.
• Mourn your sins as King David did after he sinned with Bathsheba.
• There is unhealthy grief, like when men are ending their addiction to porn and are grieving the loss of it like it was their best friend. (I'm going to be honest, that one almost made me laugh.)
• Raising of Lazarus.
• You should feel like dirt and endure God's wrath without anyone keeping you from fully experiencing your godly sorrow when you sin.
• And then, all of this was followed up with the contradictory statement, "God doesn't want us to feel like dog meat our whole lives. He wants us to feel joy." This is in complete contrast to everything else mentioned above.

One thing that struck me though was the pastor told a story that my friend immediately recognized as a story from the internet. I looked the story up and sure enough, it is floating around the internet. The story is of a man standing in line at Burger King (retold as McDonalds in the pastor's version). There's a mother with her son behind him. The son is using foul language demanding the mother buy him an apple pie. The man is frustrated and outraged, so he buys all the apple pies just so the boy can't have any. In the pastor's story, there is an additional detail of the man giving the boy a pie after the boy starts behaving.

Now, it appears that this is a real story as all the sources I'm seeing of it put it in Canada and remain fairly consistent. I have no problem with the pastor telling this story, except he was trying to pass it off as something that happened to him. I hadn't heard this story, so I didn't think about it much. But once my friend told me it was on the internet, I suddenly questioned all the stories this pastor was telling as examples of his points. 

Why would you lie about a story like that when it's so easy to prove it didn't happen to you? It's very interesting seeing someone who's supposedly a man of God, up in a pulpit telling people how wicked

they are, meanwhile, he's needlessly lying about a life story. It does raise up some flags as I am 100% certain lying is a sin in every branch of Christianity. If you're willing to deceive everyone about something so small, then it's not hard to envision you lying about something major. I have no proof that he is. But it does make me question things.

Overall, the sermon was a huge guilt trip mixed in with Bible verses and stories about the pastor's life, which I question, that illustrate his points.

Overall Experience:

This church was truly what it claimed to be, a hybrid of the fundamentalist and Pentecostal traditions. It was a good way to end my visits to the Evangelical churches as it was full of the guilt and hell fire sermons I've seen in the fundamentalist churches and also filled with the contemporary worship and music of the modern Evangelical movement.

I wouldn't return to this church. It's more of the same, plus a lot of guilt, and a pastor I don't trust.

Additional Notes:

Due to some things going on this weekend, I will not be visiting a church, but don't worry. I will be doing a blog on a special event happening in my city, the Ogden LDS Temple open house. For those of you who have wondered what a Mormon temple is like inside, I will be describing my experience inside one.

I am also working on getting some interesting new religious traditions in the upcoming blogs, including a Heathen service, a Satanist one, Mennonites, Thai Buddhists, and much more. We're almost to the final ten churches, so be prepared for some fun!

Until next time, peace be with you.

Speaking in tongues and seeking God's reward

Yesterday, I went to New Beginnings Apostolic Church, a member of the United Pentecostal Church International, which is a Oneness Pentecostal church. What was my time like among the Oneness Pentecostals? Was I washed in the Spirit?

Atmosphere:

New Beginnings Apostolic Church is located in the small city of Clearfield, Utah. Coincidentally, I used to have a job at an employer in the strip mall where it is located. An odd thing about this strip mall is that there are four churches located in it, two Spanish speaking churches, and two English speaking ones. My friend, Austin, jokingly referred to it as the Sacred Strip Mall. I thought this was a cute designation for it. Here is one of the Spanish speaking churches in the strip mall.

The church we were after was located on the south side of the complex. It was a humble space with a simple sign out front.

And of course, there was a little sandwich board sign letting people know where the church was a little more easily out in front.

I wasn't able to get any pictures of the interior, so I will do my best to describe it. When you first entered, there was a small entryway with little to no decoration. There is a large, metal watering trough off in a corner that is used for baptisms. to the right of the entryway was a small hallway leading to the chapel.

The chapel was on the smaller side with about five or six rows of fold out chairs arranged so there was an aisle down the center. There was a drum set in front on the right side with an acoustic screen around it so that it wasn't too loud for the congregation. On the left side there was a keyboard and between them, a wooden pulpit. Arranged in various places were fake plants of various kinds, and on either side of the wall behind the pulpit were two floral wreathes.

Given that this church clearly doesn't have a lot of funds, I think they've done a good job creating a warm and homey feeling chapel.

The People:

The people of this church were quite interesting. They were quite warm and welcoming to us. All the members went out of their way to introduce themselves to us and even made small talk. But they also seemed very suspicious of us. When we first walked towards the building, there were two guys standing in front of the door talking. They stopped talking and looked at us awkwardly for several seconds. I wanted to get in, but the guy wouldn't move from in front of the door. He then said, "Are you guys in the right place?"

I responded with, "Yes, we're here for the service."

After I said that, his demeanor changed and he welcomed us in. A couple young ladies came and gave us visitor's cards and told us a bit about the service. I made small talk with one and talked about how I once had to help a friend suddenly move due to an unforeseen tragedy. She responded by saying imagine the blessing coming to you for doing that.

I know she was being kind and meant well, but I have never liked this mentality. I don't believe in doing good things because you expect some kind of reward out of it. If you do, I feel you miss the entire point. You should do good things because they are good and the right thing to do.

When I walked in, I felt all eyes were on me and they were wondering who I was, why I was in their chapel, and that they didn't want me there. But to my face, they were very nice and kind and didn't say anything to indicate what I very strongly felt from their body language.

As I walked in, I saw many of the people there were kneeling facing the seats of their fold out chairs. Some were chanting things like, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus." Others were silent.

I got quite the impression from just walking into the chapel that these people took their faith very seriously.

The Service:

The service started out with the pastor saying a few words. He had a fire and passion about everything he was saying. As he was speaking, a young woman played music on the keyboard. I don't remember much of what was said at this point in the service before they went into their first hymn for which we all stood.

The hymn was called, "Welcome Holy Spirit." The music in general was very alive and upbeat, but quite repetitive. I wonder if they use it much like a mantra, or if the music is just repetitive for the sake of being repetitive. After singing the first hymn, they sang a hymn called, "Can't Nobody Do Me Like Jesus." This again was uplifting and peppy, yet repetitive. The pastor stood in front of the children and danced a little with them. I found that quite charming and cute.

Afterward there was another little speech. The speech included him stating that they were the one true faith on earth and that they had to go out and convert every single person to the Gospel and that Satan was working hard against them.

There were a few announcements, one of which included going to a member's new house after the service and blessing it with olive oil to cast out any of the demons that may live there. I found this quite interesting. I'm noticing a trend among Pentecostals that they seem to believe they are involved in some literal battle with real demons.

They then sang another hymn filled with the same passion that I saw before with people jumping around, dancing, shouting out, arms raised to the air, crying, etc.

Towards the end of the song, and for a while afterward, one woman spoke in tongues. It was an interesting phenomenon to watch. Everyone in the congregation continued on as if nothing was happening, but the woman kept shouting out gibberish with her arms raised up and crying. I still don't really know what to make of it.

The pastor then talked about why he got saved and why everyone needs to get saved, because he fears Hell. He says that he serves God because he knows what the alternative is and fears going to Hell. Again, much like the statement above, I don't find this a good motivation for doing good. It's self serving and not filled with love or compassion.

Afterward, the assistant pastor, coincidentally, an old coworker of mine, got up and delivered the main sermon. See "The Message" portion for that.

After the sermon, the young lady came up and played piano again while another girl accompanied her on drums. The pastor said a few words. He then invited people to come up to the bench, which he referred to as an altar, and confess their sins to the Lord and come before him in a spirit of prayer.

The people came up to the altar or knelt down in front of their chairs, their faces towards their seats. The people prayed in many different ways, some were silent, some chanting the name of Jesus, some speaking in tongues, many of them crying. It was moving to watch but also oddly disturbing. I can't put my finger on why, but there was something about watching this experience that was quite unsettling to me. I felt this overwhelming urge to approach a few of them and ask them what it was in their life that they were trying to fill because a few of them, but one man in particular, I saw a lot of pain and sadness his prayer as he knelt there sobbing into his chair.

The service ended with another hymn. I really enjoyed the music, and the community seemed very close to each other, but overall, the service didn't move me, but instead made me just itch to leave as soon as possible mostly because of the message.

The Message:

The assistant pastor gave the message. It seemed as though it would be coherent as for the first ten minutes or so, he was talking about the passion of Jesus and what it meant to sinners. But it quickly disintegrated into a free form of unrelated topics. The sermon was long, lasting nearly an hour and a half.

Much of the sermon seemed dedicated to boasting about how wonderful their church was, and how horribly wrong the Mormons were. I don't think this is the best way to bring converts to your faith, by openly bashing another from the pulpit.

Another thing he said that upset me was that things in your life go wrong it's because you're seeking after your own desires and not God's desires. That the world is a bad place because of the sin of Adam and Eve, but if you seek after the Kingdom of God, everything in your life will somehow work out. And if God see's his children doing well, often he'll pour out blessings upon them. No one is promised great prosperity but God will provide for them. This is one of the oversimplified messages of modern Christianity I really take issue with and led to my lack of belief. How do you honestly look at the true suffering in this world, people tortured by disease and famine who constantly cry out and trust that God will deliver them, but still they die by the thousands through no fault of their own and say that God honestly provides for all his children if they're faithful to him? Most of the time, the only sin these people committed was being born in the wrong country. Why is it that so many Americans seem to think that God dotes on them with material comforts and is seeking to make their lives as meaningful as possible, but they think this same God neglects the heart wrenching cries of millions of people every day who he will never deliver from their suffering except with the release of death? I don't want to serve a God like that, and I don't want to indulge these ultimately narcissistic tendencies I see in a lot of American Christians in this regard.

I really tried to find something good out of this sermon, but after that, it was really hard for me to see any good in it. All I could see was that religion was about how they felt and what they could get out of doing good and believing in God. Every part of the message had some sort of "this is what's in it for you" angle to it and this really bothered me.

Overall, the message was long and unorganized. The only things that took me out of my boredom during the second half of the sermon were the people responding with, "That's right!" and "Amen!" and applause and shouting.

Overall experience:

I didn't enjoy this experience too much. It brought up a lot of my issues I have with modern Christianity, particularly it's American incarnation. It was all about converting everybody, look how righteous we are, what reward people got for doing good or having adequate faith, or overt and often obscenely grand displays of piety for the sake of being seen. I was very put off by this body and I will not be returning to this church.

Additional comments:

I have yet to decide where I'm going next week. So you're going to just have to wait for the pre-service blog to discover that.

Until next time, peace be with you.

Going to get washed in the Spirit of the Oneness Pentecostals.

The second congregation I'll be visiting this week will be New Beginnings Apostolic Church in Clearfield, Utah. New Beginnings is a member of the United Pentecostal Church International, which is a denomination of a branch of Pentecostalism called Oneness Pentecostalism.

Oneness Pentecostalism varies from other branches of Pentecostal Christianity and indeed mainstream Christianity in one very key way, they do not believe in the Trinity, but rather one God in one person. The way this is explained with them is that God is one person, the Father and the Holy Spirit are the same person, just different titles for them. The Father title refers to God's relationship to mankind, and the Holy Spirit refers to God's active presence in the world.

When it comes to Jesus, they believe that Jesus is a man who had the fullness of God dwelling inside of him from the moment of his incarnation, but that Jesus wasn't God nor a separate person within God, but a man who contained within him the fullness of God.

Like other Christians in the Protestant tradition, they believe that a person must be born again in spirit by accepting Jesus as their personal savior and receive baptism. However, unlike many other Christians of this persuasion, they believe a person can lose this salvation by backsliding back into sin. In other words, they do not believe in the concept of once saved always saved.

Like other Pentecostals, they believe in gifts of the spirit, things like prophecy, faith healing, and most famously, speaking in tongues.

According to the United Pentecostal Church International's website, members are expected to abide by a strict holiness code that includes:

• A very strict interpretation of the Bible and its meaning.
• Not swearing oaths of any kind (except in legal situations which is a matter of debate).
• Practicing evangelism, in other words, proselytizing the faith and promoting it to others.
• Sexual purity, this means no sex outside of marriage, no masturbation, and homosexuality is described as a perverse sin and those involved in it described as being caught in satanic snares. (Fun for me.)
• Abstaining from alcohol and other intoxicants.
• Women not holding positions of leadership. Men being heads of the household and leaders in the community.
• Modest clothing that covers the torso and upper limbs for both sexes. Women also are encouraged not to wear makeup as it promotes lust, and to distinguish herself from men by her dress. Therefore modest dresses and skirts are encouraged. Additionally, women are told that they should keep their hair long, and men told that they should keep their hair short or be bald.
• No use of profanity or vulgar speech.

New Beginnings Apostolic Church is a small congregation. Currently they meet in a rented space in a strip mall. In going through their Facebook page, I found them to be a small, but fairly tight knit community that makes due with what they have, using a rented space for their church, a watering trough or Jacuzzi to perform baptisms, minimal decoration.

This should be an interesting experience for me. I'm not sure how welcoming they will be. We shall see what this meeting holds.

Until next time, peace be with you.