Monday, May 6, 2013

#274-The Pray Cry



ApoPento's excel at many fine activities in comparison to other Christians. One of them is crying. We love crying. We need it. It's an addiction. There are five times as many criers per capita within the UPC as there are in other denominations. Some call this the work of the Holy Ghost that other denominations do not experience because they don't have the Holy Ghost. Other, more optimistic people, call the excessive crying "catharsis." Others call this "being a cry baby."

I call it: Being a cry baby with a Purpose!

Feeling bad? How about an altar cry?
Feeling good? Dance, and then cry after excessive energy use.
Have you heard a song that says God wants to kiss you? Have a cry.
Minor chords in the worship song? Close your eyes, look up to the ceiling and have a cry.
Did you touch someone else inappropriately? Have an altar cry.
Did someone touch you inappropriately? Have an altar cry and then blame the dude.
Did you get caught doing something that gets you kicked off the platform? Have an altar cry.
Are you a pastor? Then Don't cry. Be a man!
Are you an evangelist? Passionately cry during the sermon to get others to have a good altar cry.
Are you a woman? Have a cry.
Are you thrice divorced and possibly crazy? Here's an altar cry for you. Once a week, for three straight months.

I remember being a pentecostal youth. I'd go up to those jungle altar calls scared as heck as what I would encounter. But I also knew that if I didn't up to the Jungle-Call, people would like at me as rebellious, which was the last thing I needed.....

So I'd get real pissy that I didn't know how to play instruments to excuse me from the jungle altar call and then slide, all slowly up to the altar, waiting & knowing exactly what was going to come next....

And Boom! The masses were upon, little, confused me. Praying for my breakthrough.

And in my heart of hearts, I would wonder, what can I do to get these weirdo's off me?

True story.

And so like, what can you do when you're surrounded by the Holy Roman Empire of Altar Calls Heroes? How to get these vampires off you....

You could...

Option A) Dance
Option B) Cry
Option C) Speak in Tongues

The weird thing is all three are not equal.

In fact.... If you were to settle on speaking in tongues, it was expected that you add something else into the mix. Some kind of emotion. Because speaking in tongues without emotion made you seem autistic and psychopathic. So you had to speak in tongues and do something else.

The same goes for dancing. Unless you can dance for like 15 minutes straight. If not, prepare to be bombarded again.

Yet, having a good Pray Cry at the altar was sufficient all in it's own. No need to dance. No need to speak in tongues. Just have yourself a cry there and you'll be good... The altar vampires won't deal with you too long after....

But here's where it gets weird...

I remember being at Youth Congress some years back.... and I was a confused, hurt dude. I had just gotten out of a break-up. And I also remember that being all of 21 years old that I knew needed to grow-up and stop caring so much about break-ups. Yet, I had grown up in a religion that coddled emotions and having emotional outbursts....

She broke up with me on the phone just before the night service.

I was hurt. Didn't tell anyone though. Went through the motions during the service. I don't even remember the sermon or who preached it. But I do remember the altar call.....

And I remember just sitting down in my seat and praying real nice and kinda choking up to God about whatever it was that I thought the service was about......

And badda-bing-badda-boom, five minutes later, I'm having a Pray-Cry.

And by now, a pray-cry thing was not to be expected out of me. Since I was 21 and supposed to be all grown up. And yet there I was having a pray-cry and then these peeps starting surrounding me and I'm all embarrassed because I know deep down that I'm just crying because my heart's overly-reacting to a stupid break-up and yet now all my friends are gathered around me using me as their excuse why they don't have to pray since they're so focused on my pray-cry going on....

And thinking about the whole scene made me cry even more.... In fact, I started bawling... partially out of embarrassment. Partially out of break-up.... and partially just because it felt really really satisfying to have a pray-cry right there at that particular service at Youth Congress.....

And like I'm just bawling...rivers, floods, tsunami's... whatever it was falling out of my eyes, it wasn't healthy.

And I keep going. My shoulders trembling... eyes are a wreck...scary red eyes by now.  Hair's messed up somehow. I was a sight to behold that's for sure.... And by now, that creepy youth pastor I had at the time is even gathered above me using me as his excuse to not worry about his own soul, which at the time, was busy trying to collect all the local apo-pretty girls into his hot-tub back home....

Okay, I'm getting carried away....

I guess my point is: I cried a lot and prayed very little that night. It was probably a good half hour's worth of Cry and it was unacceptable. And the thing was, I was doing it for a myriad of reasons... but if I'm being sincere about that moment, it wasn't just "All about God." In fact God and the sad music were the excuse to "let it all out" from everything that I considered stressful in my life.... Sure it was relieving. But I would be dumb to call that a "life-changing moment where I realized God was calling me...."

Except ....

That's what I did:

Afterwards, I told people that "I felt like God definitely had a strong pull on my life now" as a result of that prayer....

(whatever that means)

And when I got back home after congress, that pervert of a youth pastor bragged to my pastor that I had a real time spent with God deep in prayer.....

And my pastor congratulated me on that time where I bawled my eyes out at Youth Congress during a later altar-call pray-time, which caused me to all of a sudden cry again...

But this time was not because he was right to congratulate me.

Rather it was then, with my pastor congratulating me during that last altar-cry that I realized how insincere this whole pray-cry business was....

I realized our pastors were getting reports on how good or bad we were at youth congress based on whether or not someone cried at the altar, even if that youth congress pray-cry was actually due to stupid immaturity  after a minor break-up.

.

11 comments:

  1. Yeah.....and this is why id rather pray in a dark room by myself....nobody around watching or "helping".

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  2. When I was 11 years old I went to the friday night service of a local church camp. They had the typical pomp and circumstance that comes with these types of nights. I went up to the front and everyone got excited because apparently I went up there to seek the holy ghost.
    So they grab me, youth group starts praying, crying, shouting, spitting in my face, telling me things like 'its like a water balloon waiting to explode all over you'. So I'm crying, because I dont know what else to do. I'm mumbling and doing the stuff I think Im supposed to do. But then, all of the sudden they all got excited and started going bananas. They're shouting, jerking me around, patting my back, forcing me to jump up and down. I open my eyes thinking "what the h..." and they all start congratulating me. For getting the holy ghost. Except I didn't. I didn't speak in tongues that night. After that they were so excited they took me back to my church and baptized me. They were all much happier and certain than I was. Then I was told to call my relatives and tell them. I went through all these motions but I never received anything. They just wanted me to so bad that they just rolled with it. I went the next several years allowing them to think I had spoke on tongues and it was like I did. All I had to do was pretend and I fit right in but I always felt like I had this secret.
    But I felt I was put in this position because the people wanted it to happen so bad that they just pretended it had and so then I had to pretend it had. No one asked me. They just congratulated me. And all it took was tears.

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  3. I'm just not a big fan of the one handed head palm/shake. One guy started trying to do it to me, and I just pulled my head loose, stopped praying, put my hands down and just told him "stop shaking my head please". He just stood there for a second trying to comprehend, and replied, "what?" I repeated "stop shaking my head, it doesn't help. I can pray without that". He found someone else a few seconds later.

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  4. I've had many experiances of crying in church services. But it Never was amped up by others around me. I always made a concious choice about how and if I was to respond emotionally. on the other side of the crybaby coin... I've cried alone in my car to a line in a song barely audible that moved me. I didn't even get sweaty or have to jump.

    I've also been in the services going bonkers and said "nope this is some hyped up garbage, ill play bubble breaker for a bit". My times of emotional outbursts were always between me and God no matter if alone or in a room of 400+. It does sound really dumb to say how much I've cried though. I'm a sensitive guy I guess.

    -James

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  5. Actually crying helps your body relieve stress. The theory beind why you cry when your sad is that crying help the body release stress chemicals. Wish I could tell you more but the study was a bit too dry for me so I didn't finish reading it.

    I cry when I pray. I don't know why but maybe it is my way of giving my stress to God? Who know. But I don't like when a group of people come and pray for me, it just distracts me. I also cut my hair and I HATE when I'm praying some random girl from the youth group will come and pray for me and ask God to forgive me because I cut my hair. I hate that.

    I hate when the music minister guy gets upset because people are responding the way he wants them to so he'll start preaching at the people and guilt them into giving a certain response.

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  6. Just found this blog. I think I am your new biggest fan!

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  7. Just Found this blog and I love it ... I finally have a term for this thing you decribed at the altar.."pray-cry" I love it !

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  8. I can relate with this. I have been known to look for something to make me cry just so I can feel something, anything. But there have been many times when I have found myself in church and cried, over something, not the touch of God, but in that despair found comfort in the Lord. I have been a train wreck at the altar because of a break up, and everyone praying with me knew it was because of the break up, and knew it was for someone of the same sex. They didn't pray a demon out, they didn't try to pray the gay away, they earnestly knew my heart was broken and prayed for God to comfort me. One thing that shocked me once was I was at the Pentecostals Church of Memphis, and no one knew me. I went up to the altar during service, and about 25 guys surrounded me praying. They didn't know me, they didn't know what I was going through, but this one guy was praying things over me that were so specific to my situation. I had just been dumped and the guy had cheated on me our whole relationship. I wasn't sad about loosing him, but was sad about being so stupid and deceived. So this guy was specifically praying for that break up and for my heart to be mended. I asked God why if being gay is wrong is this guy knowing what was going on? I digress, that goes into a whole 'nother topic.

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  9. Sounds like you have issues with sincerity. I have personally never had a "pray-cry" as you shallowly discussed. I have at times had things happen in my life that caused me to be emotional and cried out to God to help me through the situation. The scripture says "all things work together for good..." Crying out to God let this work for my good that I can serve you more and on a deeper level. The God I serve has been with me in moments of silly emotional hurt and in tragedy! He knows the number of hairs on my head! He cares for me. As for your youth pastor its unfortunate but there are sickos everywhere! In church and out... That to me isn't a reflection of a whole group. If he is a reflection of the whole church then by definition he would most certinly be a reflection of you since you knew him. I feel your post to be far more of a reaction of dissipointment in people and an emotional outburst then having your heart broken and crying in church! just sayin...

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  10. Sounds like you have issues with sincerity. I have personally never had a "pray-cry" as you shallowly discussed. I have at times had things happen in my life that caused me to be emotional and cried out to God to help me through the situation. The scripture says "all things work together for good..." Crying out to God let this work for my good that I can serve you more and on a deeper level. The God I serve has been with me in moments of silly emotional hurt and in tragedy! He knows the number of hairs on my head! He cares for me. As for your youth pastor its unfortunate but there are sickos everywhere! In church and out... That to me isn't a reflection of a whole group. If he is a reflection of the whole church then by definition he would most certinly be a reflection of you since you knew him. I feel your post to be far more of a reaction of dissipointment in people and an emotional outburst then having your heart broken and crying in church! just sayin...

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  11. 1) You wrote a long paragraph and ended it with " just sayin..."
    2) You described the post as the "pray-cry" being shallowly discussed. I'm curious.... I'm pretty sure each of the pray-cries above infer a longing for a deeper relationship with God and a better understanding of one's current situation.

    3) None of the situations described above are any more or less real than your own authentic that caused you tears. The Holy Ghost works in mysterious ways and quoting a part of Romans 8:28 out of context doesn't make your HG experience any more real than the rest...

    4) Crying happens. And for a lot of us, church and bedrooms became our safety zone to cry. Sometimes God is involved. Do not get arrogant about your holy ghost tears being more real than the tears of others.

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