Why I am Pentecostal

This is an attempt at a series. I doubt I will post regularly enough on it to be meaningful, but there are some things I want to try and lay out, even in rudimentary form.

I begin with I know best: I am a Pentecostal. I was born into a family that went to a Pentecostal church. My earliest memories are an Assemblies of God church in Leavenworth, KS. My experiences and memories with church have been basically good. Certainly I remember bad examples, but for the most part I grew up loving church, being at church, and seeking God.

My Pentecostal heritage is something I embrace. I have not been one to go on to higher education and then chuck my roots. I have broadened my understanding and theology, but I stick to my Pentecostal roots. I believe in the power of the Spirit. I believe in the gifts of the Spirit. I believe the miraculous still happens today. I speak in tongues. The prophetic is alive and well (and sometimes flaky).

So, I begin with the declaration that as a believer in Jesus Christ, my particular “flavor” happens to be Pentecostal. It does not make me better than any other believer. It does not make me LESS than any other believer. It does, however, powerfully inform my worldview.

Tags:

Assemblies of God, Holy Spirit, Leavenworth, speaking in tongues

Date:

January 15, 2010

Up next:

Before:

11 responses to “Why I am Pentecostal”

James Prather

January 20, 2010 at 12:32 pm

Greetings. You said in your post that you speak in tongues. What language does the Spirit allow you to speak in? I’m honestly curious since I’ve never met anyone who can do that. Is it a different language every time, or is it the same one? Do you use this gift to preach the Gospel to those whom you might not otherwise be able to preach it to (due to a language barrier)?

Peace,

James

1. Tebogo Sewapa
  
  February 6, 2012 at 9:20 am
  
  Amen, brother James, amen! I would like to share with you why i believe the writer of this article is correct. I do not know the writer, but i share the same blessed faith with him/her, the pentecostal faith. As a point of departure let me say to you that Pentecostal faith is nothing but Christian FAITH in its pure form!
  
  I grew up in the Lutheran church here in Africa. I attended Lutheran missionary school in the rural part of South Africa in Limpopo province. We we singing lutheran hymns led by our beloved lutheran pastor’s wife, and sometimes the pastor himself coming to the assembly to read the bible and pray for us. In all this I believe God blessed us for most of the children out of that missinary school we able to finish their studies despite poverty in the area, and are now mostly something. We were being taught the bible and often tested our knowledge of it in front of many. This continued for the whole 7 years of my primary schooling.
  
  While grewing up, a pentecostal evangelist came to our village to have a crusade. In the beginning of his meetings many despised his pentecostal meeting since they knew lutheranism or zionism religion. I remember we were even discouraged to attend these pentecostal meeting since it was believed the evangelist does nothing but demonic. While the rumour went like that, the miracle happened in his meeting. One man who was having a spirit of madness was miracolously healed there. This man was a professional teacher and all in the community knew him. The healing anddeliverance happened and all in the village were amazed by this occurence. Now many people took their sick people and any afflicted person to the meeting. I also ran to these amazing event.
  
  Arriving there, i was amazed by one this: the passion and the love and the boldness the evangelist was having. He was so bold and full of love when he talk. After the meeting he called people who need prayer, and they came. Peole were crying in front as he ask they to confess their sins to God, and as he started to pray over them many cried with loud voices. Mnay gave their lives to the Lord. What really suprised me ist that these meeting was very different to a church setting i know in the Lutheran church. The evangelist spoke with boldness that ‘God has forgiven you of your sins for his word says if you confess your sins to him he will forgive yo’. The evangelist went further and said all wh came to confess their sins to God, and who are not forgiven must go and sin no more. H e told us that we need to attend a church that teaches and believe in the entire bible so we grow in faith. After the meeting the church was launched and the pastor was introduced. The church name became Full Gospel Church of God.
  
  To cut the story short. I was attending the full gospel church since then as i was convinced that it is the church were salvation is taught and the holiness and life style conduct is taught to be strictly in line with the bible. After several months i was baitised in water.
  
  As i was in this church i used to hear people ‘speaking in tongues’, and asking myself the same question you ask: IS THIS REALLY BIBLICAL TONGUES or else? I then tried to do so but i cannot! One day i approached the pastor to ask him what dos that means, and he said to me i have to wait until next week for he is going to teach me on this. As next week sunday came, he opened and taught many verses in Acts and told us that Jesus is the baptiser of the Holy Ghost and fire, and that all who have not yet baptised in the Holy Ghost must tarry in prayer until the Holy Ghost power should come upon then. He told us we must not be confused when others speak in tongues for they do so by the Holy Spirit and when he comes we will also have his power and his gifts as he wills. After preaching he prayed for church and i heard others speaking in tongues. i was amazed for me nothing has not really happened to me.
  
  I then went to the univesity we i was studying, and i remember i met the Seventh Day adventist friend who discouraged me that the church i attend is a false one and all who speak in tongues there are not inspired by the Holy Spirit but be a demon. I was almost leaving the pentecostal church. The friend told me that the true biblical experience of tongues is meant to tell the gospel in a language unknown to a believer but which is the language known to the hearer of the Gospel. He said that true tongues are nothing but a language uknown to the speaker but known by others as an earthly language. He said the purpose to to explain the gospel message. I believed this as he read the book of Acts 2 for me.
  
  I later decided to leave apentecostal church and i was in the adventist church. But one day, God reveald the truth about tongues to me. I remember i was in my room and as i was praying siddenly i heared the blowing wind inside. I was like swimming inside the many waters! Later i was filled inside of me by something like a mighty powerful fire. I now uncontrollable started to speak in other language i do not know, i then speoke in the languages i heard others speaking in my country but unkown to me as i cannot speak then. THIS WAS A MIRACLE. I also statrted to speak in english fluently but the words were not coming from me! After that i knelt down in my knees and asked God to forgive me for i never knew exactly what to speak in tongue mean,and not he gave me this gift. It was when i read the bible i understood what doees speaking in tongues mean.
  
  I am now telling you my brother, pentecostals are real!!! I am one and i knew that this is a realy God given ability. Even though not all can have the gift of toungues, but God can baptise everyone in the Holy Ghost and fire and this is a reality to all who repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ!!!
  
  Acts 2:38: ‘Repent,and let everyone of you be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and youn shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost”.
  
  1. Catherine
    
    February 8, 2012 at 3:25 am
    
    @ Tebogo Sewapa: Why do yu pentecostals focus on tongues too much more that other 9 gifts of the Spirit as laid down in 1 Cor 12?
apprentice2jesus

January 20, 2010 at 12:38 pm

As to language, I have no idea. I don’t have any particular interpretation at that point. Mostly it is what we would identify as a prayer language.

ocnbreathesslty

May 7, 2010 at 1:38 pm

Very interesting blog! I was raised AG/Pentecostal. My dad was actually a Southern Baptist preacher and when he went to a revival and began to speak in tongues. That’s when my parents became Pentecostal. They made the switch because tongues wasn’t an accepted thing.

I call myself AG/Pentecostal simply because that is the closest “religion” to what I believe in. Other churches don’t believe that tongues and other miraculous things happen, and some believe that you have to prove it to the highest in their church for it to be considered true.

I look forward to reading the rest of your posts!

Tom

July 29, 2010 at 11:20 pm

Hello Brother,
I was never raised in Church life growing up, at 23 I felt a deep calling to go to church and my wife laughed at me because i went to an Easter Sunday service and told an older lady to turn around and mind her own business when my wife sneezed behind her seating. See I hate people and Life, I could hurt you so fast and not think twice about your feelings or family.
Well I did repent in time and read the bible at home with all my heart to find out who this Jesus and God was. I asked God show me what this bible is about please I begged Him. After one year, I started to a baptist church and I found so many of the men talking about sex and how they wanted to be with the girls in the church after the services. I was shocked since I found out Jesus was so pure and loving and Holy. I went only one time a week since that was all they had for the baptist church. I then went to a pentacostal church and was blown away with the Spirit of God moving in my own prayer life and life in general. The teaching was greater annointed and true to the Words of God then what i had learnt so far. I asked God please show me which church I should go to. Well in the sunday Baptist church they stood up told me and my family right in the middle of the service to leave since I didnt know their hate was tremendous in their hearts towards another church. Well I knew I asked God for an answer, but I never knew the Hate that exisisted between chruch lifes. I guess the same that put Jesus on the Cross???
Understand I was totaly sceptacle of anyone’s teachings who stood on the pulpit, because i told God He had to be the one to show me I trusted no man on this earth.
Well now since 30 years have gone by i volunteer 3x’s a week in the super max prisons in Los Angeles teaching the true Word of God and the Grace shown in my own testamonies over time I share with them. The Blood and the cross was the proof for my salvation, The Word and truth set me free. Up to now I do not speak in tongues, but I do not doubt them at all. I always figured If it is of God then He will give to me the Gift, like at Christmas we go down open the gift wow we never expected it, That is a Gift something you dont ask for!! That is my faithful belief on tongues. I have so many gifts on peace, Joy, Love, Kindness, wisdom, knowledge, etccc. but not yet the tongues. I feel the tongues is the Word’s of God that flows from my lips which I never had prior to believing in My Saviors resurection for my sins. Now I know there is much teaching on it but I do resent someon coming telling me to go dadada over and over when I know it is not in my heart to do this.
I never prepare before i teach in prison in the last 10 years for what i will speak in the prisons, I prepare by praying asking for God’s SPirit directions and wisdom and using my lips to open the ears and hearts of the men who will never walk the city streets again, I speak for 3 hours straight and the men never interupt and always are blessd, It is not about me, It is Christ, If He be lifted up, He will draw all men unot Himself.
It is something when you meet people who paid big money for their Doctorine Phd to preach Gods word and then you see them fail in sharing the truth of God word.
Gal 1:11-12 is my teacher and my tongue.

1. apprentice2jesus
  
  July 31, 2010 at 6:52 am
  
  Tom, blessings on your ministry!
  
Timothy

February 8, 2012 at 3:22 am

@ Tebogo Sewapa: Why do yu pentecostals focus on tongues too much more that other 9 gifts of the Spirit as laid down in 1 Cor 12?

1. Dan
  
  February 8, 2012 at 6:33 am
  
  Short answer is most Pentecostals don’t. Everyone else does. As a pastor, I have people who think I am NOT Pentecostal because of “tongues.” I then point out all the gifts that were flowing on that particular day in one particular service, and then the other gifts that flow through our body during the week.
  
  My question would be: why would anyone focus on just nine or ten examples given in one particular passage?
  
  1. Sanne
    
    May 21, 2014 at 3:02 am
    
    Me and this article, sitting in a tree, L-I—R-N-E-NAG!
Clement

May 16, 2012 at 4:32 am

According to the Bible tongues has two purpose in the new testament church: firstly God uses tongues as an initial evidence that one has been baptised in the Holy Ghost and Fire, secondly they are one of the nine gifts of the Spirit given to the church for edification and for message if interpreted. All who believe that tongues have ceased with the apostolic era they are in error. In the Bible we find that the gifts and operations of the Spirit will not cease until the second coming of Christ. The Holy Ghost is and will work with power in this last ages, and His gifts and operations are active and visible in the church TODAY.