#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.

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