My Story: Introducing the Church Part 3

More Terms/ Specific Cultural Elements

I’m back to bring you more terms and phrases that were specific to our group. Let’s get to it.

Photo by Edwin Andrade on Unsplash

Counseling- it was not voluntary, but a kind of punishment for whatever behavior or struggle The Wolf decided was a problem. There was a time when The Wolf himself would do actual counseling for married couples and individuals, but I never participated in that, so I have little I can speak to on that front. (Until I interview some more people!) For now, I can describe what I experienced. I was confronted for a perceived severe conglomeration of problems (I stood up to The Wolf’s daughter. She often was a bully.) and was ordered into counseling with The Wolf’s son who had a masters degree in counseling, but never got licensed. (To the best of my knowledge.) I will save the details of that story until we get to that point later, but at that time in the church’s history, The Wolf’s son came back from getting his Masters at a major Christian university, and began to “counsel” church members.

There was no confidentiality, even though the son said there would be. He told everything to his dad, and it was common knowledge who was in counseling at The Wolf’s house. (I lived there; that’s how I know… more on that later). People’s issues were openly discussed without any confidentiality. While I was in counseling, my best friend was in the room too, since she married The Wolf’s son, and I was not allowed in a counseling room alone with him, and that added to the separation in our former best friendship, and further sense of shame for me. Counseling was, simply put, humiliating, and I later started calling it “extra special brain washing just for me.” Not only were people forced to do it as a kind of discipline, but also they had to pay for it.

For the next several terms and cultural elements, I’ll just take some time to describe a typical worship service where these things would occur:

Pre Service-We had to be early to be on time. We were not allowed to be late. For a time, the men (presumably because they were head of household) were forced to do pushups if they/their families were late for church. (And if you remember, my roommates and I were forced to dress like clowns because we were late one time.) However, The Wolf and his wife were routinely late (this changed from time to time), coming into the service a good 15 minutes into it because The Wolf did not want to get bogged down with our sin and issues. He wanted to be free from our grossness dragging him down as he was anointed to give God’s word. He actually said this.

Praise and Worship- Fairly long portion of the service of singing. We were influenced by various elements of the charismatic movement, so at times there could be emphasis on the moving of the Holy Spirit, but mostly there were fast songs at the beginning and slow songs at the end. During praise and worship, we were expected to be very expressive and while sometimes that was a genuine expression of love for God, often we were criticized and told to “lift up your countenance” or asked, “Why is your countenance fallen?” if we didn’t seem happy enough for some reason, so there was a lot of pressure to perform during worship.

I do want to say from the outset, though, I did love to worship God from a young age, and I do have memories of true adoration of God, and I think many other fellow members attest to this, as well. I ended up playing violin for church every Sunday for a long time, and I did take it seriously as an act of worship, although I knew I was under extreme scrutiny. It’s a mix. And it’s very difficult to unpack clearly.

The offering Just what you’d expect, except, at one point, we shifted to bringing the offerings forward ourselves, so everyone could see us bringing our money to the offering basket. Then someone, and I can’t remember who it was, I think The Wolf’s son would hold the basket up while we all sang the Doxology. I love singing the Doxology now, but I can still hear The Wolf’s voice in my head saying, “You may be seated,” as a part of the ending after amen because he would walk up to preach while we sang it. I hear it less and less now, but that was drilled into my memories every single Sunday for 25 years.

The Sermon I don’t even know how to discuss this, but for now, to be brief, The Wolf would preach unless he was sick or out of town. And he would preach for a very long time, well over an hour. We knew that we had better respond correctly during the sermon, but what I remember is most of the time not really understanding what he was talking about, but knowing that I had better be serious because he was angry and that meant God was angry. His exegesis was nearly non existent, but he would make every passage of the Bible specifically about us to suit his purposes. We had certain phrases we had to respond to during the sermon. Of course, “amen?” had to be met with a boisterous “AMEN!”Or He would say “Glory!” and we all had to say “Hallelujah! Jesus is Lord.” We had to be emotional at the right times and in the right ways. And we knew where that was. He used God’s word to captivate us for an emotional roller coaster that we rode until we reached the end agreeing with whatever purpose he had for us that week, usually giving, doing, being more.

Going to the Altar- immediately following the sermon, musicians would go play while nearly everyone would usually flood to the front to kneel down at the altar and cry. It was just the floor at the front of whatever building we happened to have a the time. It was an emotional time of response to the “conviction” of the message. If I didn’t feel convicted about something, you can bet I would find something to go forward about because no one wanted to be the only one standing up. By the end of my time there, I remember somewhat defiantly standing and not going to the front.

Altar Call- This was when the gospel was given ( a muddy law/gospel combination), and the altar was open for people to come forward to “get saved.” I also remember by the end of my time thinking that this was not in the Bible and if the Apostle Paul himself came into the church, they would tell him he wasn’t saved because their criteria for saying just the right words and doing everything just right was so over the top. I quickly chided myself for being disrespectful back then for having those thoughts against the leaders.

Closing Song- If no one came forward, we sang a song that was the sad “no one got saved” song, and if someone did, we had a different song that was happier.

That’s all for now. If you can’t tell, I just write a little here and there on this as I am able. For next time, I want to discuss more of what it meant to “get saved” and also what assurance was like in The Church.

For now, I want to close with praising God for the real beauty of the real church. As I wrote this, I thought of the order of worship at my own church and how extremely opposite everything is each Sunday. I am so grateful for what God has done in healing me to be able to see that, and for the true church that God established!