A Missionary to Pentecostals
I am not a Reformer, I am a Missionary
I recently decided that I no longer wanted to be in communion with any Pentecostal church. This was a quiet decision that I am sharing for the first time publicly with you. I no longer attend Pentecostal worship services. I am not a member of any Pentecostal organization, ecclesiastical or otherwise. You might have noticed the change to my bio on this blog from “Conflicted Pentecostal” to “Ex-Pentecostal Christian who writes about the good, the bad, and the ugly of church life.”
After leaving church and not practicing Christianity from 2020 to 2023, I found my way back to Christian faith at a local Pentecostal church. Although I have a history of working and worshipping with many different Christian denominations, Pentecostalism was the faith of my mothers and fathers. It was the easiest on-ramp for me to come back to practicing faith because I knew the people, the worship style, the vocabulary, etc. Even when I went back to the Pentecostal church, I still felt like a nomad. Spiritually homeless. I don’t blame the local church.
The local church and pastor welcomed me back, invited me to be involved, and really saw me through some tough times as I regained my footing in life and in faith. They treated me and my family well. For that I am eternally grateful. But the underlying beliefs and messages that shape the culture of Pentecostalism made it hard for me to find the true integration I was seeking in life. The incongruity of their beliefs about millennialism, the rapture, eternal punishment, and human sexuality along with their high tolerance of Christian nationalism and Zionism made it impossible for me to say that “these are my people.”
As a bit of a confession: it is growing difficult for me to say that as a movement Pentecostalism is even Church, with a capital C. I think there are arguments to be made for Pentecostal inclusion in the broader body of Christ and would never claim any single member is not “in Christ.” I have spent my life making those arguments. But right now after experiencing the most apocalyptic times I have experienced as a fully developed adult, I must admit it is increasingly more difficult for me to consider them church in the light of their inception, vision for the world, and their political and cultural entanglements; entanglements that they view necessary to their convictions as believers.
I recently found my way to mainline Protestantism and have been worshiping and serving in a Presbyterian church. Going to worship services that are not encumbered by emotionally driven coercion, lengthy personality driven sermons, and high intensity altar calls has been more than a relief—it has been edifying. Knowing that I am participating in a liturgy along with multitudes of saints before and after me is integrating. Hearing sermons from those who I can tell have been exposed to solid theological education and who quote the words of church mothers and fathers past and present is relatable. Worshiping in a way where I feel like I am participating in the re-telling of the Biblical story of the triune God is meaningful. I am growing spiritually and can feel it. New spiritual muscles are aching as they are stretched and strengthened.
Vocationally, I have a pattern of attempting to reform the Pentecostal church. At the height of my influence in the Church of God, I was elected to boards and committees where I acted on my convictions and tried to bring meaningful change. And I did. In the early 2000s at the Church of God International General Assembly, as an Ordained Bishop, it was I who called and successfully argued for a point of order against our moderator and International Bishop that led to the immediate vote to reduce the amounts of money the denomination was requiring the churches to pay. This change in funding completely reformed how the denomination now functions. Besides that, though, I have invested a lot of emotional and mental energy in writing pieces, engaging in conversations, and creating content that I hoped would help change a few of their unchristian, and even antichrist, views and practices. I felt led to do so. Many therapists and mentors have noted my compulsion to bring reform and have encouraged me to explore why I still felt this burden to somehow change this movement in which I no longer had any real investment.
I did it because I love the people. I stayed Pentecostal for so many years not because of the beliefs or the polity, but because of the people. Some of them, many of them, are the best! They represent the people on the other side of the tracks. Salt of the earth kind of people. Unfortunately, though, they have primarily come to understand their faith through the opinions of their teachers and preachers more than through the Bible or Chrisitan tradition. They are ignorant of much of the bigger ideas and bigger history that is part and partial to Christianity. I don’t mean ignorance pejoratively. Like it or not, Pentecostalism largely behaves like a cult. This is a conclusion I have drawn after decades of observation.
I wanted the people I love who did not know any better to have a church that was safer for them grow spiritually. I wanted them to see the unique opportunity they have as a spirit-led movement to bring about actual change in the world that made the world better for them and their children. And, I guess in some way, I wanted to see them latch on to the things that make them a meaningful part of Christ’s body without the doctrinal cancers that erode their moral platforms. But I am no spiritual oncologist.
Thus, a switch has gone off in my soul. I no longer feel compelled to change Pentecostals. I feel more like evangelizing them. I am not a reformer; I am a missionary. Which, I think, confuses some of my readers. For instance, I recently wrote a post for social media about the President in which I employed language and metaphors in ways unique to Pentecostal dispensationalism, such as “antichrist” and “beast.” It is ultimate Christianese, I realize this. To my non-Christian friends and my non-Pentecostal peers it probably made no sense. But I did it missionally to speak their language.
I hope that in doing so the readers or my writing may hear it and see more clearly the error of their doctrines. That they too will want to come out from under the burden of unnecessary religious legal codes, unbiblical eschatology, and unethical political entanglements. I realize that most of my Pentecostal friends will be offended, even by this writing, that I see Pentecostals as needing to be saved, not from God as much as from themselves. But I can tell you that the pews of Pentecostal churches are full of people experiencing a cognitive dissonance between what they know in their hearts to be right and what is presented from the pulpits and stages every week. I know because they talk to me. And most don’t leave because of the cultic fear instilled in them.
To those I say: you can leave. There are churches everywhere who preach and teach Christ, crucified, risen, and coming again that aren’t teaching newfangled doctrines about the end of the world or spiritual gifts. Churches that teach the gospel, that teach peace, that teach love, forgiveness, and acceptance are out there. And sadly, their pews have grown empty. Because the real gospel hardly draws a crowd these days. Nevertheless, there is room at the table for you. Come out.