The Anointing

Today was beautiful. The first non-gloomy, dreary, rained upon day since I’ve been here. So my walk to church this morning was lovely.

I got a bit turned around when walking there, but in the process found the public library and another grocery store, a Tesco express. So church. Yes, I visited the Winchester Baptist Church… read BAPTIST. I was late as I had forgotten what time the service started and got a bit lost, but back to it being a Baptist church.

So, here’s me walking into a nice looking, kind of formal building, their sanctuary is fairly small but has a balcony and choir loft. I’d say about 35-40% of those in attendance were 50+. I squeeze in past some folk and take my seat. I’m sitting there listening to the speaker for a while… he’s speaking on the power and the pain that comes with being a Christian, and all seems to be fairly kosher. He continues on about the suffering that Christians are sure to experience and that while many new Christians look expectantly for the power of God to come upon them, most are surprised by the suffering. But it is when he starts talking about the experience of the power of God that my ears start to perk up… And how the experience of God is manifested in the speaking in tongues (uh-oh). Then he mentions that this is a conservative Baptist church, planted by Charles Spurgeon (very cool) and that they have progressed in inviting him, a Charismatic preacher, to speak to them. It’s here that all the not so subtle wordings he’s been using like “anointing,” “laying on of healing hands,” and such clicked and I think to myself… oi, this is going to be interesting… and sure enough…

He spoke about a famous Charismatic preacher, Smith Wigglesworth (cool name), who raised 14 people from the dead (including his wife for a short moment before she told him that God wanted her and that he should let her go so he did and she went back into death), and warned the congregation about praying to God for that kind of anointing because it comes with a heavy price (e.g. the death of Wigglesworth's beloved wife). About how he healed, by the grace and power of God, the black Labrador retriever of a burly, miner-type skinhead who then as the result of seeing such a healing, got saved and became the youth leader of his former church, and so on. I think the church has a ministry where they go out on the streets periodically and lay on healing hands, and they do this as part of a group of churches that included charismatic, Anglican, Unitarian, etc churches.

To cap it all off, at the end of his talk, he said he was going to do something that he was sure was unusual here: he asked those in the congregation who had need of the power of God, whether for healing, troubles in their lives, etc to stand. Everyone was then to take a hand and lay it on one of those standing close by and pray with him for the power of God to come upon them. There was one girl a seat away who started to break out in sobs at this point and continued even after the service was over. The speaker said he could see with his spirit, the power of God descending from above, coming down from the ceiling as golden 24 karat leaves floating down upon them. He warned that sometimes when a church prays for healing, there is a time when at first there is a surge of sickness so as he closed, he commanded and called out to banish and bind sickness from this church. The girl was still sobbing at the end of the service so after waiting politely for 5 minutes, I decided to do what the guy next to me did… climb over the seats in front and make my way out.

So that was my first, first-hand experience with Pentecostals/Charismatics. I hope I don’t sound callous in my rendition of what I heard and saw, because it was obvious that these people were sincere. I do believe in the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit. I do believe that God heals and is able to perform miracles. I just don’t believe that He still manifests Himself and power in such ways, like speaking in tongues, now. It’s not that He can’t, but that He doesn’t. I’m still debating on whether I should go back next week since this was obviously an atypical Sunday morning service and most of the other churches within walking distance are Catholic. Maybe I can find one that’s close to a bus route…

The rest of my day was spent getting a library card, cooking, and the majority trying to make sense and organize one cohesive schedule from 4 very confusing and sometimes contradictory O & G (or as we call in the States, Ob/Gyn) schedules.

Now for some reading, then bed.