Sandbars
Gerard's Story of Leaving the United Pentecostal Church
Quizzes
I was a 5th-generation Pentecostal. My great-grandfather pioneered several churches in Louisiana and my grandfather pastored for several decades in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Growing up, I was continually reminded of my "Apostolic heritage" and it became a source of pride for me in some ways. My family was beloved in the church I was raised in - my father was the Sunday School Director and my mother the Music Director - and I saw my parents embody true, loving Christianity on many, many occasions. As a family, we were conservative, but my sister and I were also encouraged to think for ourselves. I remember many discussions about an aspect of a preacher's sermon my parents didn't agree with and scripture was always required to strengthen any argument or position. But, of course, the line was drawn at Apostolic beliefs - those were untenable, unquestionable, and rarely researched.
At the age of eight, I entered UPC's Junior Bible Quizzing and began memorizing 250 scriptures in the book of John. The next year it was "Apostolic Doctrine"; the next year was Acts. I was attracted to the competitiveness it offered and the chance to succeed. What I now realize, however, was that it was also the beginning of the Holy Spirit putting his seal on me, teaching me about God and his word. During the 11 years I quizzed, a conservative estimate is that I memorized around 3500 different scriptures, comprising the entire books of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, I & II Timothy, Titus, and I & II Peter and portions of Psalms, Proverbs, Mark, John, Acts, and Romans. These scriptures impacted me at a very early age but would haunt me later when I began asking answerless questions.
By the time I was in my early teens, I began to question the entire concept of Oneness. It seemed obvious to me that Jesus was not his own Father and the entire point of Oneness theology was lost on me. I simply didn't see it as a heaven or hell issue. The few scriptures that were supplied to support Oneness like "I and my Father are one," and "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is One," didn't seem to refute any notion of a triune God. Although this process was in its infancy, it didn't become a full-fledged dilemma until about five years later. I mostly kept my questions to myself and employed nearly every means possible to convince myself that the "Truth", as it was presented to me, was indeed true.
Immersion?
As a freshman in college, I relocated to the Baton Rouge area to attend LSU and the Denham Springs First Pentecostal Church. There, attempting to affirm the Truth, I connected almost instantly and found myself directing the youth choir, coaching quizzing, leading an on-campus student ministry, and involving myself in nearly every church-sponsored activity. In this church I was immersed in Oneness doctrine on a weekly basis as well as a few unsavory diatribes directed toward people of other faiths, Christian and non-Christian. My trinitarian leanings, no matter how much I attempted to control them, began to surface. Scriptures stood out to me; I questioned everything I heard. Amongst my UPC friends, I became known as "The Trinitarian" and was encouraged to be less vocal about scriptures that disprove Oneness theology "because it might damage my reputation". Questioning Apostolic doctrine was an unwelcome activity but I couldn't damper the insistent questions I faced.
Frequently on Sunday nights I tried to reconcile the night's sermon with scripture, and sometimes that happened with success. Other times, particularly when there had been "tongues and interpretations" that very clearly did not align with Scripture, I was unsuccessful. The entire time I carried a mantle of self-imposed importance, trying to hide my growing disbelief because I was perceived as a leader.
Double Jeopardy
During my five-year duration at Denham Springs, nagging questions that haunted me expanded to include why is there so much venom from the pulpit directed toward Muslims, Catholics, those involved in homosexuality? Why do the "tongues and interpretations" given during service conflict with scripture? Why do we have to use manipulation to convince people to "become saved" (particularly after 9/11)? Why do we only rehash the same scriptures over and over and ignore the ones that challenge Oneness?
I allowed myself to dwell on these questions, but frequently on Sunday nights, when there was a "move of the Spirit" and my emotions ran high, I felt guilty for ever thinking the Apostolic movement was anything less than the God-ordained plan for Christianity. The Sunday night adrenaline rush was a powerful antidote to acting on my questions, but like all emotions, it does little to quiet mental unease.
Granted, I was often curious why God chose the methods he apparently chose for what I was told was his church. Why would God have an interest in whether women wore pants given the myriad of cultures in the world? How does dancing in the Spirit really glorify him? Why would God be anti-TV, but not anti-internet? I certainly understood that man's laws can be markedly different than God's, but I'd been taught that all of the rules and "standards" were at the divine inspiration of God and questioning them was akin to questioning God. I wasn't quite yet ready to question Him, although that time was coming.
The beginning of the end...
In the fall of 2003, some UPC friends invited me to attend a service for college-age young adults at Healing Place Church, a large non-denominational, trinitarian church in South Baton Rouge. I experienced their worship, their fellowship, and their teaching and it was an eye-opening experience. From a child, I had been conditioned to think of non-Apostolic "Christians" as a cold, callous, ill-informed, and dying group of people, yet here was irrefutable evidence to the contrary confronting me. Attendees genuinely worshipped God, and while it lacked the dancing in the Spirit, there was a tangible electricity in the air I'd come to associate with the Spirit. A conversation I'd had two weeks prior flooded my mind: a UPC friend confided in me how ashamed she felt while riding in a car with a Christian, non-UPC coworker. The coworker honestly shared her faith and her genuineness and joy struck my friend, who felt intimidated and insecure in her own faith when compared to her coworker. The coworker's faith was complete and mature, as-is, and without some of the unique things UPC considers vital. As I stood in the enormous sanctuary, filled with non-dress code-abiding trinitarian worshipers, I thought about that conversation. I realized how big the Body of Christ is and how little UPC knows about it. I felt terrified because I was literally watching everything I'd been taught, everything I had come to associate with myself, everything I claimed to be, slowly start to crumble, and I dreaded the thought of communicating this to my family and friends.
The Rebellion of Goatees
My questions coalesced and in October of 2003, over lunch with a close relative who is still UPC, I mustered up the courage and confided that I no longer believed UPC or Apostolic doctrine to be accurate. She shared some of my concerns but asked me to stay, "just in case I was wrong." I promised I'd think it over. You see, I thought I had to stay in UPC and pretend to agree with its doctrine in some sort of inflated, grandiose protection of those whom I led in youth choir, quizzing, and within my own family - evidence of my hypocrisy and denial.
This coincided with a particularly harsh Sunday morning sermon delivered by the Senior Pastor in which some very derogatory comments and gestures were delivered, mocking a very serious sin struggle. I was mortified and personally injured by his insensitivity and abuse of the pulpit. A complete lack of love, tact, and education had finally embodied one too many sermons for me. Incensed by what I had heard, I walked out of the sanctuary during his sermon, went home, and became very emotional. I knew God was leading me out of the UPC, but I was terrified of the unknown, the black hole of ex-UPCism, the shame placed on "backsliders" whose ranks I would all-too-soon join. But I missed the point.
That morning, I realized that I was living a lie - I had acknowledged that the Apostolic doctrine was fundamentally, fatally erred, and my maintenance of its status quo was deceitful and harmful to me and even those around me. In retrospect, I sincerely believe God was confronting me, not over UPC's doctrinal issues, but about my own hypocrisy and denial. I was not yet a believer in Christ and I knew it, and that was terrifying.
I resigned from the Youth Choir, but my resignation was refused. I was deemed "too valuable" to let go. In rebellion, I grew a goatee, wandered in late to church, and sat in the back. I felt very detached, isolated, and confused. You see, my spiritual house had been built on the UPC sandbar of superiority and arrogance, and the rising tide of the Holy Spirit had washed it away. Uncertain where to look for higher ground, I was spiritually homeless. I was unprepared to embrace the doctrines of mainstream Christianity, primarily because I didn't know enough about them and because of the lies I believed regarding them.
Through sheer providence - a testament of God's sovereignty - in February of 2004, I was able to relocate to Memphis, Tennessee. I pounced on the opportunity because I was floundering. While I saw it as a weak excuse to get away from the Denham Springs church, I believe God orchestrated to teach me more about him.
Blinders
In Memphis, I began attending a large, contemporary Baptist church - Germantown Baptist. The pastor, Sam Shaw, was fiery, educated, and tactful and his sermons challenged me to become a better Christian and to know the God who sacrificed his only son for me. Oneness can't acknowledge that God. The emotional hype and manipulation was gone and I was suddenly free to worship God how I felt most comfortable - in my heart. I was surrounded by a body of true believers who lacked the legalistic, conceited disdain of a dress code and the shock of that lasted for several years.
For the first time in my life, I was in a Bible-believing church. I was surrounded by a group of men with biblical names who took special care in discipling me. They did not rush my process out of UPC mindsets. Even though I was physically removed from UPC services, I found it difficult to transition my thoughts and expectations out of UPC doctrines. Scripture after scripture confounded me and I went to the men who discipled me, questioning them about their meanings. Early 2004 was a time of intense growth for me, and it was during this period that God began to open my heart to the answers to the questions I had been asking for years. No, Jesus is not his own Father. No, God is not a jack-in-the-box we can conjure up by chanting "Jesus". Yes, Jesus died for all my sins, past, present, and future. No, the church did not disappear from the earth altogether prior to 1900 (the first instance of speaking in tongues in recorded history). Yes, I can absolutely be assured of my salvation for all eternity. Yes, God predestined me from the foundation of the world to be conformed to the image of his son.
On July 8, 2004, while sitting on my bed one morning quietly doing a devotional in the books of John and Romans, it hit me. The magnitude of God's grace, the depth of his love, the joy of justification, the hope of sanctification, and the reality of being his carefully designed creation suddenly became crystal clear. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I had a Heavenly Father who had been weaving the fabric of my life, even the years spent learning UPC doctrines. I knew that it would all work together, even the disparate pieces today.
On December 4, 2005, I met my future wife in Sunday School, a young lady who embodies the essence of feminine holiness and grace, even though she has never lived by UPC's dress code. She practically oozes the Holy Spirit, even though she has never spoken in tongues. And she walks by her faith on a daily basis, even though she never memorized Apostolic doctrine in Bible Quizzing. She is my hero in the faith.
God continues to reveal his grace to me everyday and I continue to find nuggets of truth hidden in places I never noticed. For example, last week my mentor commented on a verse from Romans 10 I've come to know well, "...if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." "Who raised whom from the dead?" he asked. In the five years since leaving UPC, I'd never thought to ask whom they believe raised Jesus - who was dead - from the grave.
If there is one thing I've learned in my post-UPC years, it's that no church is perfect. As human beings, and collectively as churches, we naturally erect blinders to the things that are challenging or that we perceive as threats. Denial is much easier than confrontation. While I'm certain that the process of ridding me of my blinders will be a lifelong task with which God will deal with me, my story thus far is how God, and only God, used UPC's blinders, Bible Quizzing, to reveal his true character to me.
