MadHermit

One of the great breakthroughs in modern evangelical spirituality is their discovery that early church fathers and ancient Christian monks who spent their whole lives seeking God's face and becoming prayer warriors have lessons to teach modern Christians. It's so sad that posters like Yown and Shiloh fall under the umbrella of one of Jesus' greatest pet peeves--unteachability. One would hope that the assessment of the leading evangelical journal in the world that CofD is one of the top 10 Christian books of the 29th century would arouse Fundamentalist curiosity about its merits. But they are typically closed-minded to learning from Christians from different traditions and they lack the spiritual integrity to actually read it for constructive discussion and thus they illustrate why the typical denizens of this site are the worst conceivable exemplars of the pursuit of Christian unity. Foster is one of my favorite Christian authors because his insights are based on an advanced grasp of Scripture, a thorough knowledge of the whole history of Christian spirituality, and most importantly, a life devoted to prayer disciplines. If you like C of D, you might also check out his book "Prayer," which discusses the 22 types of prayer and grounds them in both Scripture and tradition. Other books on prayer may be a better read for some due to their sensationalistic stories, but Foster's book on prayer is in my view the most mature and well-informed. Well do fundamentalist posters here illustrate Sir Winston Churchill's definition of a fanatic: "A fanatic is one who won't change his mind and won't change the subject." They lack the courtesy to respect the OP's guideline that the discussion sequentially follow the topical outline and they love to derail the thread by attacking Richard Foster, whose books are mostly relevant to the later issues specified by the OP. And Yown's bigotry knows no bounds. He falsely stereotypes all Methodists as godless liberals, when in fact most Methodists are solidly conservative, evangelical, Bible-believing Christians.

In typical fundamentalist fashion, Yown and his ilk attack books they haven't read and don't understand and post false and slanderous reviews that give them an excuse to avoid the thrill of learning firsthand why "Christianity Today" rated "A Celebration of Discipline" one of the top 10 Christian books of the 20th century. These critics lack the integrity to engage a ground-breaking spiritual work by pondering its specific insights and recommendations. How ironic that a site like Worthy aspires to be a uniting force in Christendom, but instead inspires such godless and unfair vitriol. If an evangelical journal like "Christanity Today" rates Foster's book one of the top 10 Christian books of the 20th century, it certainly deserves treatment on a site with this one's stated purpose. Sigh! Let's move on to (2). (2) Better still, restore 19th century-style class meetings as requirements for church membership. By 1870 40% of all Americans (That's "all Americans," not "American Christians") were Methodist. To be a Methodist you had to attend a weekly Class Meeting. Class Meetings required church members to give a weekly account of their inner life (thoughts, temptations, faith peace, joy, etc.) and outer life (external events relevant to their spirituality) during the past week. This discipline was used to help Methodists mature and grow in their faith. Class members would then counsel each other and pray for each other to address character flaws and flaws in the life of faith. Then in the early 1900s, Methodism was gaining respectability and members were more private about their personal lives. So they resented the Class Meeting requirement and decided at their national conference to make it optional. This decision was in effect a way to abolish the practice. Methodism has been in a slow, steady decline ever since. Spiritual disciplines and accountability are essential for spiritual growth.

Your glib cliched response illustrates why churches can't upgrade their promotion of spirituality! Yes, faith comes by hearing, but today's Christians don't spend enough time meditating in holy silence to hear anything directly from God. That's the reason for Jesus' frequent admonition, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Most Christians today are not attuned to spiritual hearing. Yes, hearing comes by God's word, but by "God's Word" Paul does not have our Scriptures in mind. His reference is the divinely imparted Word that is mediated through anointed preaching to those who are sufficiently prayed up to hear it. In other words, there is no substitute for the right spiritual disciplines. That is why every believer should read Richard Foster's top selling masterpiece, "The Celebration of Discipline."

I've followed Paul's advice here. Of course, this is just Paul's nonbinding opinion, but the verse raises 2 interesting theological questions: (1) What are the criteria for dismissing a biblical teaching on the grounds that it is just "an opinion" as opposed to God's Word? (2) On what basis can we dismiss biblical teaching that we don't like on the grounds that it is biased by cultural conditioning and therefore does not apply to modern times (e. g. the need for women to wear veils in church, the prohibition against men allowing their hair to grow long (But hey, what about Samson?). and Paul's command for believers to greet each other with a holy kiss)?

But as a whole churches don't rely on the Holy Spirit in practice. So we need practical strategies that help make such reliance a reality and A(1) is an important step in that direction.

1. Make regular attendance of a small prayer group a requirement for church membership. I have learned over many years that regular small prayer groups are far more powerful and effective than either prayer during the Sunday service or telephone prayer chains. Though retired, I continue to attend a small interdenominational prayer group that I started prior to retirement. We have seen the blind receive a healing touch, huge blood clots vanish, needy souls given up for dead by doctors healed, and broken families receive a measure of reconciliation or at least unexpected help to minimize the tensions. These results are far more impressive than what I have observed from Sunday service prayers and telephone prayer chains. I'm not sure I fully understand why. Perhaps the very act of inconveniencing oneself on a snowy week night to participate in group prayer is already an act of faith that helps make a decisive difference. Also, prior to our oral petitions, we take time to strengthen each other by sharing testimonies and we enter a holy silence to still our minds, to place the needy under God's loving and protective care, and to receive all the grace, power, and guidance we need to pray more effectively and, where necessary, to be part of the answer to our petitions which are the subjects of our oral prayers later. Believers attend Sunday services for reasons other than prayer and pastors find it very hard to induce members to join a regular prayer group. Sermons can fire people up to pray for revival, but prayer meetings for this purpose usually quickly peter out. As for telephone prayer chains, it is too easy to lay the phoned in request aside and give I only perfunctory prayer attention. It is for this reason that membership in a regular weekly small prayer group might be needed as a requirement for church membership. I say this with trepidation, fully aware that any church that tries to implement this policy will lose many members who are unwilling to pay this price. For this reason, I never tried to enforce this membership criterion in any church that I've pastored. But the subject of this thread is how church's can promote spiritual growth in their members and I think we need some sadly and inevitably smaller churches with this level of commitment.

Almost all churches need to find new ways to upgrade congregational spirituality. But what concrete steps can and should they take to achieve this goal? As a retired pastor, I have come to certain conclusions about how we do church and I want to share some simple and practical ideas that might best promote spiritual growth in a congregation. I have left out doctrinally divisive themes because I want to focus on strategies whose appeal crosses denominational lines. Please don't comment on B or C below until A has been thoroughly explored. Examine A-C and feel free to suggest other practical and realistic strategies that I have omitted. A. Corporate Spirituality Apart from the Sunday Service: 1. Make regular attendance of a small prayer group a membership requirement. 2. Better still, restore 19th century-style Methodist class meetings as requirements for church membership. 3. Sponsor these forms of community outreach: a weekly soup kitchen for the poor, a monthly service at a local assisted living facility or nursing home, an advertised monthly potluck dinner and movie night featuring Christian movies or Hollywood movies on spiritual themes with a brief discussion period afterwards. B. The Structure of Sunday Worship Services: 1. Serve Holy Communion twice a month and make an extended period of holy silence for confession and listening for divine guidance a regular part of the Communion service. 2. Require at least some of church music to express the sermon's theme. 3. Regularly observe the Lent and Advent seasons by creating worship services with appropriate themes, music, and rituals appropriate to both seasons. C. The Enrichment and Expansion of the Preaching Ministry: 1. Require pastors to accept preaching mentors or mentoring groups. 2. Actively train lay preachers and create opportnnties for them to preach on Sunday morning or at other services.

A heart-wrenching predicament! I will respond to both issues separately: (1) Your Daughter's Desperate Situation: I retired as pastor from my church 3 years ago, but continue my membership in a small prayer group that meets every Monday for 2 hours. For about 4 years, we have been praying for a member's daughter with issues even more severe than your daughter's, issue complicated by severe mental illness. Our prayers have brought occasional improvements in her situation, followed by severe relapses. But we persevered with our intercession and this has paid off wondrously. Whereas previously this gal was too unstable and violent to live at home, now she has gained sufficient mental stability to do so. Secondly, whereas in the past she would always refuse her essential medications (substituting addictive drugs for medications), now she has overcome her drug habit and faithfully takes her medications. ASnd third, whereas she always refused counseling or therapy, now she regularly attends counseling and 12-Step groups, where she is making healthier friendships. Our little prayer group has also witnessed miraculous healings, including blindness, blood clots, and a healing touch for a stroke case so severe that doctors guaranteed the death was imminent. Do you attend a regular prayer group composed of people of faith who get results for their intercession? If you don't or if your church only has prayer groups that seem to just go through the motions and are little more than an emotonal support group, it is worth your while to call different churches and explore other prayer groups to see if you can find one composed of people with faith that makes the decisive different. (2) I'm sure you have seen a doctor about your insomnia and have googled articles on various strategies for dealing with it. So I'd make only 2suggestions in addition to joining a prayer group and asking for their intercession about this: (a) Recognize that you can't "try" to believe. The very concept of "trying" unconsciously creates the expectation of inevitable failure. What you can do instead is regular place your need in God's tender care and ask for His protection and will to be done. The relax in the arms of Jesus. (b) Once you have joined the right prayer group, you can rrgularly remind yourself that you can't change the free will of your troubled daughter, but you are doing all that God expects of you by your regular attendance of this group. God is in charge when we regularly participate in the righit prayer group.

I never said that the case for Jesus' house was conclusive. But the case is far superior, for example, than the case for the authenticity of the Barden Tomb, which evangelicals routinely visit and falsely believe to be the site of Jesus' burial. If the ancient tradition about Jesus' house were a legend created centuries later, then we would not expect scientific evidence that it was only occupied around the time of Jesus. I have toured Israel, but persuaded our group to skip Nazareth in favor of nearby Sepphoris, where Josephus and Jesus likely sold their carpentry goods. I think the others in our group were glad we did because the ancient ruins of Sepphoris were awesome. It was only later that the first century dating of this Nazareth house was determined and I wish I had known that at the time.

A case can now be made that Joseph and Mary's house in Nazareth has recently been discovered. For more details google "The House of joseph, the Just in Nazareth" and read the zenit article. Ancient church tradition has long identified this house as Jesus' home, but until recently scholars dismissed this tradition as a legend. Now scientific dating techniques have dated the house back to the early first century. The house was carved out of the rock of a hill. Remnants of a loom have been discovered inside, which Mary may have used to make Jesus' clothes. A large empty space has been detected by sonar inside one of the house's walls. The friend whom I encouraged to join the Bethsaida dig was invited to explore ways to penetrate this hidden space without excessive damage to the house and its walls. So far he hasn't accepted that offer, preferring to continue with the Bethsaida dig. Was this large hidden space a hideout during the failed Jewish revolt against Rome led by Judas the Galilean in 7 AD at nearby Sepphoris, just 3 miles away with a population in Jesus' day of about 25,000? The scholarly consensus is that Joseph died before Jesus began His public ministry. Joseph figures in no story of Jesus' ministry and Jesus entrusts the care of His mother to the Beloved Disciple from the cross, something He would never have done if Joseph was alive to care for his wife. Judas the Galilean recruited Jewish fighters for his revolt from nearby villages like Nazareth. When the Romans crushed this revolt, those captured were crucified and Joseph may have been among them. Is this the original reason why Jesus used the image of cross-bearing as an image of discipleship? These questions are among the most compelling questions to be posed by those want to investigate "the missing years' of Jesus' life.

An important aspect of a pastoral call are the divine coincidences that provide opportunities for growth an self-discovery. When I was just 16, I was unexpectedly invited twice to preach at a rescue mission, mostly for derelicts. I was a very nervous fire-breathing dragon! What they didn't tell me is that the men were required to sit through the service's hymns and prayers, but could be excused to eat just before the sermon. Of course, the lure was the free meal. It would have been nice if they had explained this to me. Just as I got up to preach, all but about 20 of the 200 men walked out on me! I was crushed because I thought this happened because of my youth! In any case, these opportunities created a burning desire to master the art of preaching to transform. Then was I was 18, I became the president of our church's college and career class. By default, I was expected to conduct the opening exercises of our adult Sunday school session. This meant I led the singing, prayed, and shared a brief reflection before about 700 adults. This was a great and unexpected opportunity for me. I noticed for example, that my prayers were un consciously motivated in part by a desire to gain praise for my eloquence! I finally realized this when a pretty young woman complemented me for a prayer and I felt proud of my performance. Fortunately, the Spirit gently exposed my motive to me, so that I began to learn what it really means to lead worship for the glory of God. Back then, I was very shy one on one, but these opportunities made me completely comfortably before large crowds. After a 12=year career as a Theology professor, I entered full-time ministry and found this a very humbling but rewarding spiritual experience. I do believe that if you're called to preach, your initial flawed efforts will nevertheless exhilarate and challenge you. One lesson I learned about preaching is this: your preaching is only as good as your personal theological library. You need the best commentaries on specific biblical books that display expertise on the nuances of the Hebrew and Greek and on cultural background. Such a library will help prevent you from "shooting your wad" after a couple of years of preaching on various topics. Also, you would be advised to seek out and buy the best books of modern sermon illustrations. The quality of your preaching over time will be greatly effected by how uniquely you bring the text to life with modern stories. So while your attending seminary, make regular browsing trips to the seminary bookstore to see what lights your fire with unique applications of Scripture; and when you're not in seminary make regular trips to the nearest big Christian bookstore for hours of browsing before you decide which books to buy. You won't regret it.

Usually good preachers are also good teachers. The more frequent problem is that good preachers, especially pastors of large churches, often lack the interest and sensitivity to be good pastoral counselors. So they delegate that to lay leaders or assistant pastors. But a newbie like you will have to start in a small church, where it is usually essential that you develop skills in both teaching and counseling as well. This fact highlights the importance of the right seminary or Bible school for you. You need a place with good courses on pastoral care and a good supervised field education program. If inimate connections with your flock's personal problems does not appeal to you, you probably lack a pastoral calling.

Have you ever preached a sermon? A pastoral calling is often confirmed by how you feel after you did so. The important thing is not how good you were. Some of the best pastors were nervous disasters in their first sermon. What matters is how badly you wanted to preach well. The calling comes from a burning passion, but that passion must be tested in the crucible of experience. In other words, God often imparts spiritual gifts and callings when we actively explore different ministry options. Also, have you considered where you might receive your training (Bible school or seminary)? Your decision on this matter may be crucial to the success of your ministry and a confirmation of your calling. You really need to research available options thoroughly. I know many who became disillusioned about their calling by choosing the wrong school for their beliefs and academic level. But do get training in Greek and Hebrew. Otherwise, you will be at the mercy of whatever errors your Bible translation of choice might contain and you won't be able to comfortably use the best resources for Bible study and sermon preparation, which often discuss the relevance of the original languages to the meaning of a text.

"An open rebuke is better than hidden love (Proverbs 27:5)."

I am a retired pastor and am currently a member of a prayer group at another evangelical church. An earlier prayer group at this church decided to focus on spiritual warfare. They spent much time fasting and praying and were often summoned to intercede in the lives of people victimized by various type of evil influences. The prayer group's members were all exemplary Christians, but their ministry backfired and almost destroyed the church. The group's members were attacked by unusual negative forces in their lives. False accusations of sexual misconduct were leveled, and when the pastor (wrongly) sided with the female accuser against a male leader of the prayer group, that pastor was forced out of the church! Interpersonal interactions were so negative that all but 2 of the 12 members of that spiritual warfare prayer group felt compelled to leave the church. Yet these members were well grounded in the Word, had exemplary character, and had the purest of spiritual motivations to serve God's kingdom. I say this because the demise of this group was an inexplicable and devastating defeat and the church would apparently have been better off never to have started such a group. I am in effect the new leader of the restarted group and our smaller group has seen many answers to prayer, including miracles of healing and mending of broken relationships. I remain wary of further attacks by the Enemy. It would be easy to blame the former group's members for being spiritually too immature to conduct s spiritual warfare group. I can find no warrant for affixing blame to anyone involved. But there is a moral to this story and that moral is the reason I have posted this thread. What is it? The Enemy is very clever and deceitful in sowing discord and a spirit of failure among members of Christ's body. Warfare is just that--warfare, and sometimes it results in battle casualties. But the cause of the Gospel is too great to avoid the battle and sometimes we must humbly admit a lack of clarity about where we went wrong. The alternative (in this case) is to be unacceptably judgmental in a desire find scapegoats for a failure many Christians would deem impossible.

I am a retired pastor and am currently a member of a prayer group at another evangelical church. An earlier prayer group at this church decided to focus on spiritual warfare. They spent much time fasting and praying and were often summoned to intercede in the lives of people victimized by various type of evil influences. The prayer group's members were all exemplary Christians, but their ministry backfired and almost destroyed the church. The group's members were attacked by unusual negative forces in their lives. False accusations of sexual misconduct were leveled, and when the pastor (wrongly) sided with the female accuser against a male leader of the prayer group, that pastor was forced out of the church! Interpersonal interactions were so negative that all but 2 of the 12 members of that spiritual warfare prayer group felt compelled to leave the church. Yet these members were well grounded in the Word, had exemplary character, and had the purest of spiritual motivations to serve God's kingdom. I say this because the demise of this group was an inexplicable and devastating defeat and the church would apparently have been better off never to have started such a group. I am in effect the new leader of the restarted group and our smaller group has seen many answers to prayer, including miracles of healing and mending of broken relationships. I remain wary of further attacks by the Enemy. It would be easy to blame the former group's members for being spiritually too immature to conduct s spiritual warfare group. I can find no warrant for affixing blame to anyone involved. But there is a moral to this story and that moral is the reason I have posted this thread. What is it? The Enemy is very clever and deceitful in sowing discord and a spirit of failure among members of Christ's body. Warfare is just that--warfare, and sometimes it results in battle casualties. But the cause of the Gospel is too great to avoid the battle and sometimes we must humbly admit a lack of clarity about where we went wrong. The alternative (in this case) is to be unacceptably judgmental in a desire find scapegoats for a failure many Christians would deem impossible.

Some sermons are occasionally infused with prophetic inspiration. The resulting impact is explained by Paul: "If all prophesy, an unbeliever or outsider who enters is reproved by all an called to account by all. After the secrets of the heart are exposed, he will bow down before God in worship, declaring, "God is truly in your midst (1 Cor 14:25-26)."

Jesus preached the Kingdom of God and Paul preached Christ crucified. But how well do we understand Jesus' central theme? Here are 5 points to ponder to get you thinking: (1) In His model prayer, Jesus taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come." Ask your self how you would even recognize it if God answered this petition. (2) Jesus said, "The kingdom of God does not come with signs to be observed. Nor will people say, "Look, here it is!" or 'There it is!" For the kingdom of God is in your midst (Luke 17:20-21)." If Jesus' returns to earth and sets up His millennial kingdom in Israel, wouldn't that involved "signs to be observed?" Wouldn't we be able to say, "Look, there it is?" How should this saying of Jesus affect your eschatology? What did Jesus mean when He said, "The kingdom of God is [already] in your midst?" And when we pray, "Thy kingdom come," how can we reconcile that petition with the fact that God's kingdom is already present? (3) When the disciples ask the risen Lord when the kingdom of God will be established, He replies, "It is not for you to know the times and periods that the Father has set by His own authority (Acts 1:6-5)." So why do so many Christians believe we are living in the last days when Jesus will return and set up His kingdom on earth. Didn't Jesus rule out the possibility of making this determination? (4) When Jesus teaches that "the kingdom of God has drawn near," does He mean that in a temporal or spatial sense? Jesus' word to the wise scribe, "You are not far from the kingdom of God (Mark 12:34)," seems to imply a spatial sense of proximity, but that must be only an analogy. So what does Jesus really mean? (5) The Hebrew/ Aramaic word for "kingdom" ("Malchuth") means both "reign" and "realm." How should this dual nuance affect the answer to question (4)?"

I encouraged a friend and member of the church I pastored before retirement to volunteer to work on the archaeological dig at Bethsaida. The reason Bethsaida's ruins were only recently discovered is that it was originally bordered by a bay that was part of the Sea of Galilee in Jesus' day, but which had long since dried up due to a steady increase of silt. My friend made important discoveries there. One high school volunteer found a coin from 37 BC with the Roman general Mark Anthony's face on one side and Cleopatra's face on the obverse. That coin is priceless. The reason why Bethsaida is a uniquely rich archaeological site is that it was buried by an earthquake around 100 AD, and so, much of it was preserved in mint condition, including an ancient fisherman's house, complete with fishing equipment, a house wine cellar, and a first century oil lamp in mint conidition.

When I was a Methodist pastor, I used to visit Rose, a sweet lady with a devastating disease that attacked her immune system and placed her in need of a "medical dog" (Toedoe). When I visited Rose, I fed Toedoe little doggy treats and she and I became intimate pals. But one Sunday Toedoe was very disappointed in me. Rose came forward to receive Communion with Toedoe riding on top of her wheelchair. When I served Rose Communion, Toedoe looked at me expectantly. What I failed to realize is that our Communion wafers were the same size and shape as the doggy treats I'd feed her. When I didn't give her "a doggy treat" like I seemed to have given her mistress, Toedoe whimpered and groaned in disillusionment! I was sorry to disappoint his sweet little dog and thought to myself, "Maybe I should put a doggy treat on the Communion tray of wafers. But then the Lord put Jesus' saying into my mind, "Don't give what is holy to the dogs." I was reminded that Jesus has a sense of humor and recognized that Jesus didn't have expectant dogs like Toedoe in mind when He said that. A few weeks later, Rose came forward after the service for prayer, but was preceded by Dorla. As I was laying hands on Dorla and praying for her, Toedoe (sitting atop Rose's wheelchair as usual) began barking furiously at me! Toedoe was jealous for Rose's sake and had no concept of "Wait your turn." Toedoe remembered that during my pastoral visits Rose would stop crying and would brighten up when I laid hands on her and prayed for her. On one occasion, when Rose continued weeping as I was praying, Toedoe gave me a stern look and groaned as if to say, "It's your job to cheer up my mistress--and today you failed!" I apologized to Dorla (who just laughed) and layed hands on Rose instead and Toedoe expressed her approval. Back to Matthew 7:6, the earliest interpretation is found in the Didache (The Teaching of the 12 Apostles), which was written during the NT era. The Didache takes Jesus' saying to mean, "Don't serve Communion to unbaptized supplicants." I doubt that this was its original meaning. "Dogs" was Jewish slang for Gentiles. I think what Jesus originally meant was this: Don't share essential spiritual teachings with Gentiles who are not ready to hear it and will only ridicule your teaching.

Enoob: "When one draws strength from experience rather than God's Word the priority system is skewed from Biblical directives." False in so many ways! First, when one's honest doubts persuade one that God's Word is an illusion filled with errors, then God's only option in redeeming the lost is to provide a self-authenticating experience of His reality, love, and power. Second, you overlook the thrilling truth that God can speak His Word directly to us through His Spirit, as He did to me. Third, Your comment distorts what God's Word actually teaches: (a) Theological understanding is the booby prize because it provides just enough spirituality to inoculate you against the real thing--spiritual experience: "Are you so foolish? Having started with the [the experience of] the Spirit, are you ending with the flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain (Gal 3:3-4)?" (b) Thus, a plausible explanation of God's Word is not enough. It is not even what is most important: "My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of human wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power (1 Cor 2:4-5)." "I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people, but their power. For the kingdom of God depends not on talk [i. e. not even the talk in God's written Word) but on power (i. e. the power manifested in the experience of the Spirit--1 Cor 4:19-20)."

When I was 16, I endured an epic faith crisis. Through church leaders, I encountered the spiritual shallowness of prominent church leaders. Through diligent Bible study, I sought greater intimacy with God, but instead was appalled by perceived errors in Scripture. The gifts of the Spirit exercised in my church struck me as the product of psychological manipulation and wishful thinking. No one ever endured a more prolonged passionate longing for God to make Himself real than me in those days. Then I made the fateful decision to give God one last chance. I attended a weeklong series of camp meetings in eastern Manitoba. At first, I thought I'd made a big mistake. The services in the large outdoor amphitheater seemed shallow. I tarried at the altar after the services to seek God's face, but found myself resisting the temptation to succumb to an emotional catharsis fueled by wishful thinking. Then on Tuesday, I went for a 7 mile walk on a country road, during which I poured out my doubts and emptiness to God. I was on the brink of agnosticism. In desperation I promised God that if He made Himself real to me, I'd be willing to pay any price to serve Him with all my heart. After my long walk, I was famished, and so, I went to the camp cafeteria to eat. But then I was inspired by the unprecedented impulse to fast instead and put my meal money in the evening offering. I was bored by the evening service and at its conclusion I went forward, alone, to seek God at the front. I waited and waited, depressed, expecting nothing, and determined not to conjure a false mystical experience. Then it happened. I felt a warm breeze, which at first I thought was a natural breeze coming off the nearby lake. I soon realize that this was the supernatural breeze of a Holy Spirit outpouring. I found myself involuntarily speaking in tongues at the top of my voice. More importantly, I was engulfed by wave after wave of liquid love, each more powerful than the last. This became so intense that I feared it would kill me! At 0ne point it seemed like my mind was on the verge of ceasing to exist and be absorbed into God's mind! It was hundreds of times more intense an experience of divine tenderness, sweetness, affection, and power than I have ever experienced before or since. The lights had been dimmed, but a spectator would later tell me she watched in awe as my face glowed radiantly in the dark. A Lutheran pastor took it upon himself to interrupt me and tell me that he didn't believe in speaking in tongues, but I simply touched him gently on the forehead and he just exploded in tongues! God spoke to me through this experience, saying, "You crave answers to many questions, but right now answers aren't good for you. They will cause you to live too much in your head. What I want you to do is just live the big questions until they lead you to the center of my heart." Almost immediately, my grades dramatically improved and at graduation I was awarded scholarships for having the highest GPA in the province of Manitoba. The Spirit had assured me of this honor in the days after my experience. I also received the gift of "the word of knowledge," which I often exercised. More importantly, I fell in love with the Jesus I was disillusioned with and, after my BA, pursued an MDiv (Princeton) and doctorate in NT, Judaism, and Greco-Roman culture (Harvard), so that I could live the big questions just as God commanded me. Hardly a day goes by when I don't draw spiritual nourishment from the memory of that magical life-changing day, even though I long ago severed all ties with Pentecostalism over doctrinal differences. I'm sobered by the realization that, were it not for that fateful appointment with God, I probably would no longer be a Christian.