Response to Comment on " Flashbacks"

Just a quick response to Steve Heye's comment under my "Flashbacks" blog.

The query was this:

"I've been doing some research into the charismatic movement but I cannot find anyone who is willing to tell me about the charismatic movement in the Methodist church, and I wondered if you would mind helping me by telling me a bit about the church you were in, and where it was and what they did. If you think this will be too painful for you, I don't want to press you or anything. But it would help me a lot in my research if you would say something about it. "

My History may be slightly inaccurate on the methodist church as I have not been looking into it much as of late so I do apologise beforehand

It was founded by John Wesley. Now the Methodist is generally accepted as being very conservative in nature. John Wesley lived his life close to the word of God and was very methodical in his living. He would wake up at 4am to pray and would go to sleep the same time every night. He had structure in everything he did. Hence when he started up a revival, people who fell under his preaching became known as methodists.

I would think in my church and in other churches the same seemed to happen. We had the older congregation who resorted to hym's and "old style" church which seemed to be have been the same since the middle ages.

Yet, the youth in any church will get bored with this and look for more excitement.People get bored today too quickly. The church try to keep up with the world finding other ways to draw people in. The want to make God more personal .

It all started at our church when I came back from YWAM(Youth With A Mission), a mission group of all denonimations spread around the world. I had done my 6 month stint here in South Africa. Our Youth Leader had come from there aswell.

Now before I went I was strict in the word reading it daily and diligently. I believed strongly in evangelism and did not think much of the charismatic movement such as tongues, being slain in the spirit, etc. When I went to YWAM a whole other side was shown to me. People jumping, shouting, talking in tongues, falling over. This scared me a bit! I resisted all of this and carried on following the God I knew in the bible. Eventually I gave into this.

My youth leader and myself introduced this to the youth and it seemed to take off like a bomb. Seemed like (as it always does) that a revival was upon us. People in our youth were being slain in the spirit and were talking in tongues. This then creeped into the older congregation(those who were open to it)

It seemed to make us more accepted amongst more charismatic churches in the aread and therefore had youth rallies and met regularlily.

I found this is when I began to struggle in my faith. I couldnt seem to connect with God. It felt like that unless I had a physical reaction God was not moving. I could not figure out if I was really under the spirit or wether I was doing it myself.

One thing I definatly noticed was that people began to stop reading their bibles and relied more on what God was saying to them or how they were feeling. The doctrine seemed to step in that we needed to rely on the spirit.

There is no doubt that many churches such as the methodists are very hard at heart, black and white, bible bashing christians who need to break free in the grace of God but on the other end it seems that many churches are forgetting God's word and are moving into this realm of feeling and emotion and relying on what they "feel". A mans mind and heart is a dangerous playground and people need to be careful.

I dont know if I answered your question and I can expand more on what happened in these meetings and "soaking sessions" as we used to call them .

Anyway, Ill delve a little more into this subject after giving it a bit more thought