Stuff Apostolics Like

Note: The next week or so should be quite fun on SAL, complete  with posts on holy magic hair (something I have a deep affinity for), and Holy Ghost bumper cars (see if you can figure that one out). And if all goes all, even a brief discourse on the apostolic affection for the constitution/founding fathers. Preface 1: The author of this post does not deny that prayers of intervention and prophesy do occur in church. My guess is this kind of prayer occurs much more commonly than that this post is writing about. Preface 2: If you have never had anything close to the occurrence that is discussed in this post, consider yourself very blessed and pursue with all diligence to help out your church all the more so, because your church is a very very good church. But as to the topic at hand, let us descend into the abyss... Confrontation within church is a very sensitive subject. I do not know if the difficulty is due to it being a church matter, or ...

It's late, so for now I'll just go with a brief post... I may have alluded to this concept in prior posts, and I know that we have definitely discussed how we do need music at altar call (God forbid we pray in silence and don't have certain chords on a keyboard directing many of our emotions)...but let's get to the biggest benefit of all in regards to the Worship music at the altar: It allows us something to do at the altar when we are done praying but don't want to look like a non-praying heathen. To not be committed at altar call is to church as pedophilia is to upper-middle class suburbs. Luckily, clapping and singing to the worship song at altar call is a safe zone. Church saints metaphorically beat your head over with a cane with their eyes of scorn if you vacate the altar premises prematurely.   But they cannot touch you with their judgments if you are seen participating in the musical choruses which protrude from the platform.  (note: I do ...

  You know those moments when you’re driving and some person in the car next to you reminds you of a face from decades ago. And then your mind aimlessly rambles on it’s way conjecturing images of what that person is doing these days, and then inevitably settles on blurry memories of that person in the past? Well I had one of those occasions today. Except it was not about a specific person, but rather my church. My church, back in the day, was one of those churches that never had a dull moment. God was either rocking the socks of the place, or, if He was seemingly absent, we would witness 2-3 scandals in His stead which was just as entertaining and fulfilling for the gossip rings. Most of the time, it revolved around either adulatory, people leaving church, or teenagers rebelliously going to movie theaters. But every now and then, one of the scandals revolved around a polemic against the modern novelty and/or favorite children’s trend of that era. Let me give you an example: O...

A few weeks ago a friend of mine sent me a late night text. She was house-sitting and became worried when she noticed that a closet door had opened all on its own. Calmly, and with nary a pause, I responded that we don’t believe in ghosts; it could either be a demon or a vagabond child star from the 80’s—either way her only recourse was to rebuke it. She was encouraged by the answer, her fears allayed, and that was the end of it. What you just read was a typical experience among Pentecostals; where “the world” ascribes spooky, seemingly supernatural phenomena to ghosts, Pentecostals know better and correctly identify the work of satan’s minions. I must admit that, raised under the influence of my Arabic Greek Orthodox Grandmother’s superstitions as a child, it took me some time replace her foolish mysticism with the hard, fact-based, theologically rigorous rationalism of Pentecostal doctrine when I encountered it as a teenager. In places like campouts or sleepovers I was regularly ...

Oh what joys our generation has found in this new age to which we live. The spirit of our times is ultimately defined by that of social networking. We even find ourselves paying more attention to our virtual identity than our physical identity, so much so that we find ourselves checking our facebook on our iPhones many a time throughout an evening hanging out with friends. But what makes us different in our facebooking in contrast to that of how the world experiences facebook? Other than the exorbitant amount of photo-shoots which we partake in, and our desire to make our photographs look as professional as possible with our 200 dollar wal-mart/best buy camera (although the number of semi-professional photographers amongst apostolics has been on the rise as well), I offer one other option:   That of facebook stalking.... And not necessarily facebook stalking of investigating the statuses and comments and uploaded photos of a potential mate (of which I assume we are all g...

Somewhere in the heart of each gospel is one of my favorite stories. The story goes like this: Jesus goes into temple, looks around, gets very very angry and just starts going all Hurricane Katrina on the place. He breaks out a whip and starts whipping the life of out the place and everyone in it. Now, I want to first know why Jesus had a whip to begin with. Because quite frankly, Jesus went into Chuck Norris territory when he pulled that stunt. Seriously, before the whole beating the life out people in the Temple courtyard,  Jesus was kind of passive. He would get mad, but never brought down the hellfire.  So then we get this Rambo Jesus whipping people. Why? Because He is God that’s why. Don't believe me? Well how about some  real photographic evidence: Okay, that rant really does not have much to do with this post. But I was just  trying to think about any biblical comparison to what we experience in the “lobby.” And in a way the Temple courtyard where the “J...

Oh the legacy of being an usher. What more can we say of you that has already not be said ye usher? (excuse my use of King James English as I have been hopelessly bound to reading Moby Dick as of late) Ye ushers protect our temple’s treasury from the attacks of the bawler, thief, and demoniac forces to which we are so accustomed. Where would we be without you ushers? Perhaps, without the usher, upon the giving of our monetary gifts and tithes, our church would be found under continuous attack of Somalian pirates and other such scoundrels   wherein our plight would results in immediate bankruptcy unable to properly fund the salaries of our pastors, elders, and electrical bills therein. For in the bowels of self sufficiency as a church, we need but a few valiant characters of ill-repute who find their calling not in the praise of the congregation en mass, but rather in the calling of justice and the protection of funds therein. But seriously, who are they that possess the myst...