Worship knocks them down, lifts them up
 

This was in the Saturday Charlotte Observer
http://www.charlotte.com/mobile/story/232342.html

PENTECOSTAL CONFERENCE

Worship knocks them down, lifts them up
Youths fill Bobcats Arena with their faith

KAT GREENE kgreene@charlotteobserver.com

The stage at Bobcats Arena looked much as it does at any other concert. But, as speaker Brent Keating said, "There is only one superstar here tonight, and that's Jesus Christ."


Inside Charlotte Bobcats Arena on Thursday night, 16,000 young people were screaming, crying, rolling on the floor and speaking in tongues.

While many their age were out partying for the night, these kids were gathered for the North American Youth Congress. Held by United Pentecostal Church International, the three-day event that started Wednesday included sermons, community service and a talent show.

"It's a big thing, kind of like the Super Bowl of youth group conventions," said Victor Neal, 18, of Chesapeake, Va.

Kids from all 50 states came to the event, often in chartered buses filled with youth groups and their pastors.

To worship in the Pentecostal sense means you have to really feel God, said Jessica Wallingsford, 16, of Houston.

"You feel it when he's there," she said.

Victor said the event was promoted at his church, where he recently became active. "The atmosphere is amazing," he said. "It makes you jump, it makes you pray, it makes you worship."

During Thursday night's sermon, the crowd pushed toward the stage, reaching their arms up, casting their faces into the bright stage lights.

It was hot and crowded, not unlike a rock concert's mosh pit. But these kids were praying.

Tears and sweat streamed down their faces, and they clung to each other as they became overwhelmed by their emotions.

Many come from broken homes or a bad past, said Donny Willis, assistant to the youth president for United Pentecostal Church International. The kids may not have anyone but their youth pastor to turn to, he said -- and God.

Stephen Sanford, a youth pastor from Little Rock, Ark., said he wanted to bring his youth group here so they don't "go down the wrong path" later. Before he entered the church, he was into drugs, he said. The day he found God, he had been awake for more than 48 hours on crystal meth.

"God started dealing with me," he said, and he decided to go to church. It was the first time he spoke in tongues. He was 19.

His mission, he said, is to keep kids from making the same mistakes he did.

Still, he doesn't expect miracles.

"Despite what we teach them, they're still going to be teenagers," he said.

Pentecostal girls do not cut their hair or wear makeup, but many wore ornate French barrettes. They also wore Jackie Kennedy-like suits -- "popping" the collars, something the kids jokingly call the "Pentecostal Pop."

Long after the sermon ended, they lay on the floor in those suits, writhing and crying.

They didn't get up until security guards asked them to leave.

The title of this thread has always been a most troubling aspect of Pentecostal worship services - for me. Especially knowing that it is also a "gauge" many use to determine the quality of a service.

Even more troubling would be a move toward the dead, liturgical "worship" some seem to prefer.

Do a study in the scripture on the worship critics, and those who objected to emotional displays.

I challenge you to find any who fared well.

How bout this Aposlte Paul fellow?

He demanded that ALL things be done decently and in order..LEST the unlearned think we are crazy.

Decency and order must be defined by Scriptural example, not by the opinions of stuffy, carnal deadheads.

david is the ultimate example of a worshipper in the Scripture.

So very true.


Receiving the Holy Ghost is of absolute importance as is the moving of the spirit etc... I say that because I don't want to be taken as belittling the importance of these things...

The other night I was thinking about our attitude towards the spirit versus the word.

Receiving the Holy Ghost is a birth.
Receiving the Holy Ghost is a beginning.
Receiving the Holy Ghost is where the power comes from.

But it is the word that changes our lives.

Even in the preaching of the word these days we see all too often some generic dissertation on "Revival is here" or "The powers of this world are coming down" etc.

How often do we see a good "rubber meets the road", "one foot in front of the other" teaching that would more likely cause the minister to sit on the edge of the platform that stand on the edge of a pew?

It is a true, reasonable, applicable teaching of the word that lets people know how to seek after the face of God and find His will in their daily lives that gives all that Holy Ghost power something to do.

What good is it to have a 426 Hemi under the hood if there is no transmission (application of the word) to convert all that raw power into movement & growth?

Just my thoughts