Assemblies of God

[sanctamaria17]

He’s very respectful of my faith, his mom actually agrees with me about my faith more than he does (she says Confession is a very good idea). I just wanted to know about his so if I ever was invited to his church, I’d know what to expect (I would be cautious and go as an observer only). My boyfriend is not extreme at all though, he’s simply a practicing Christian who tries to live according to God and he likes to have concrete facts, rather than emotions.

 

[Syele]

I used to attend that church. Then, I left because they told me I am not saved, because I do not have the gift of speaking in tongues. They also told me that I am demon possesed, because I am epileptic, that is a nerological disorder.

I know about the tongues doctrine… it annoys me, but there aren’t that many church options in this small town. ON the upsie, the pastor is not so hardcore on it being a requirement to be saved like most AoG tend to be.

I’m sorry to hear that about the epilepsy.

 

[cristian84]

I left the Catholic Church and started attending an AG church, later after much study of History, Scripture, and the Early Church and much Prayer I came back home to the Catholic Church. First I will say that my experience at the AG church was great, I learned a lot and developed my faith and desire for Christ and truth, which eventually lead me back to the Catholic Church. What I would say is that while Pastors/members of the AG churches are great at applying the bible to everyday life and teaching scripture from a very practical stance and in some cases great teaching. They are lacking in Doctrine and Theological understanding. What I mean is, there are things that we can learn from them but they also have a lot to learn. When it comes to understaning the History of Scripture and of Christianity along with Christian teaching (doctrine) throughout the last 2000 years, most are very uninformed or misinformed. They really stick to some basic doctrines and rely on the holy spirit to clear any issues up for them. The problem with that is anyone can say the “holy spirit revealed this or that” or “God told me” or “God showed me” and be convinced and still be completely wrong.

They have four “Defining Truths” as Assemblies of God. which are 1. Salvation through Christ 2. Divine Healing 3. Baptism in the Holy Spirit 4. The Second Coming of Christ.

Something to keep in mind is that AG churches can and in many cases will differ from each other in practical experiences. What I mean is you may enter a church and they may be speaking in tongues and everyone is doing there own thing, And during the preaching the emphasis could be real emotional. On the other hand some churches may have very little speaking in tongues and the teaching can be very practical. It all depends on the church and primarily the Pastors. Here is a link to the official AG website that summarize some of there teachings.

ag.org/top/Beliefs/index.cfm

I would agree that some members of the AoG are a lot more willing to talk with you and dialogue about scripture and truth than many other Christians; Because of there sincere desire for truth and love of the word of God.

 

[awantz]

I know about the tongues doctrine… it annoys me, but there aren’t that many church options in this small town. ON the upsie, the pastor is not so hardcore on it being a requirement to be saved like most AoG tend to be.

I’m sorry to hear that about the epilepsy.

Thanks!

 

[MariaG]

He’s very respectful of my faith, his mom actually agrees with me about my faith more than he does (she says Confession is a very good idea). I just wanted to know about his so if I ever was invited to his church, I’d know what to expect (I would be cautious and go as an observer only). My boyfriend is not extreme at all though, he’s simply a practicing Christian who tries to live according to God and he likes to have concrete facts, rather than emotions.

I would read Corinthians where Paul sets out specific instruction on how tongues are supposed to be used during a service.

If you have people jumping up and interupting others, you can talk to your BF about how this is unbiblical to do.

I used to go to an AoG and found it very uplifting and emotion charged. BUT they also spend alot of time on bible studies, which is probably attracts your BF. I find that Sunday services are really a lot of worship singing, a little tongues, and alot of scripture study. “Open you bibles to …” the sermon can last for an hour and a half going over just a few bible verses and getting into the history, meaning of words and their interpretation.

Of course every pastor can bring their own “flavor” but that was the flavor of mine.

God Bless,
Maria

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

A challenge you may want to keep under your hat. Find a tape in a language that is not likely to be known in your area. Seek out those in their church that claim to have the gift of interpretation. Play the tape for them and ask them what the interpretation is. You will not find a single person who does not already know that language who will get the interpretation right, not even close.

Now read I cor 14:28

 

[Syele]

A challenge you may want to keep under your hat. Find a tape in a language that is not likely to be known in your area. Seek out those in their church that claim to have the gift of interpretation. Play the tape for them and ask them what the interpretation is. You will not find a single person who does not already know that language who will get the interpretation right, not even close.

Now read I cor 14:28

The gift of interpretation is very very rare. I have only ever met one person with it, and it was actually verified that it was accurate.

I agree with 1 cor 14:28. BTW.

 

[Cat]

When I’ve seen the gift of interpretation in operation, it was during church services (in the midst of the congregation). One person gives a message in tongues, and then the interpreter gives the interpretation of that message.

Generally the messages are very basic re-statements of what is in the Bible. I never heard anything shocking or new, just reaffirmations of God’s love for us and admonitions to accept Christ as Savior and Lord.

Admittedly, it’s been many years since I’ve attended Pentecostal worship services.

I realize that there are various kinds of interpretation gifts, but I don’t know about a gift of interpretation that allows the believer to hear any foreign language and know what it means. From what I’ve seen in churches that do a lot of foreign missionary service, that gift is called “LANGUAGE STUDY” and it takes many years and lots of work on the part of the believer.

So Daniel, I think that your challenge is rather more of “test” of the Lord, and I’m not sure that it’s a valid way to determine whether a person has a spiritual gift. We are not to put the Lord to the test.

I have heard of miracles where a believer is given the ability in a specific situation to understand a foreign language, but as soon as the need disappears, the ability disappears.

Daniel, if you have time, please go back to the Queen of Heaven thread. I posted some questions to you. I understand, though, that it’s Easter weekend and you may be very busy. Hopefully you’ll find some time eventually.

 

[colliric]

I would read Corinthians where Paul sets out specific instruction on how tongues are supposed to be used during a service.

If you have people jumping up and interupting others, you can talk to your BF about how this is unbiblical to do.

I used to go to an AoG and found it very uplifting and emotion charged. BUT they also spend alot of time on bible studies, which is probably attracts your BF. I find that Sunday services are really a lot of worship singing, a little tongues, and alot of scripture study. “Open you bibles to …” the sermon can last for an hour and a half going over just a few bible verses and getting into the history, meaning of words and their interpretation.

Of course every pastor can bring their own “flavor” but that was the flavor of mine.

God Bless,
Maria

I attended an AOG church, In australia they rarely identify themself as AOG these days(Just ask Hillsong, that’s an AOG church, the biggest, but I’d put good money on about only 1 in 5 followers knowing it’s AOG), but they are. They’ve blown out their worship times to about 2.5 or 3 hours. 10AM to 1PM.

I found the main problem with AOG churches is the Scripture Study. The first thing is that I found in my congregation that the Gospels did not recieve enough regular attention. Instead from the new testament they tended to focus on the writings of Paul. The bible which is popular for use in AOG churches is the rather terrible, terrible interpretive translation by Eugene Petersen called “The Message”. Even it’s easy reading catholic counterpart, “The Good News Bible:CE” makes it look like it was translated by a high school student. This prevailing practise slowly made me realise why the Catholic Church was right when it so viciously defended the bible from uneducated translators like Tyndale. To AOG it’s Sola Scriptura, only it’s allowed to be altered and added to in translation! ********…

I don’t believe any scripture study should at any time be from a “bible” which knowingly adds it’s own interpretation to the original text. Naturally when I was protestant I used with passion the KJV, with occasional referencing of the NIV and Good News(Catholic version, I was interested in reading the Deutrocanon and couldn’t explain why then) editions. I switched over to the Douay Rheims and started reading the entire thing over again from the correct perspective.

Also when you compair the Catholic mass version of Scripture Study to the AOG version of it. You find that although the Catholic readings and Homily are only about 10 minutes each, It’s far more concise and to the point, and it containes alot more simply the scriptures than the AOG version does. AOG scripture study averaged an hour in my church, Yet most of it was taken up by the Pastor adding his own meaning to the scriptures. And there was only 1 to 2 chapters of the bible discussed for a whole hour(not including the cross referencing to other verses, etc). The catholic study is done much better, 10 minutes of just pure scripture, nothing read into it, just IT. and then a short homily of about 10 minutes relating it to how it would have been interpreted by the Early christians. Far more effective and less chance of “False Christs and false prophets”, I finally understood what that passage really means to me, “guys I can speak for myself. Let me do the talking and less chance of you guys tainting my messages”.

 

[xmydreamsfadex]

i grew up in a AOG church, when not going to a baptist church… sidenote: what a confusing time in my life.
all i remember is being in service and there would always be one woman who would speak in tongues. after she was done another guy would stand up and translate what it meant for us that had no idea what she said.
the pastor was anti-other denominations. they would say it was right to give 10% in the offering. mention of the holy ghost every few seconds. the service was really long, boring and bland. i guess being a teenager and sitting through a two hour service made me hate going there. at least the baptist church was an hour! i remember the youth sponsors wanting to be 13 again. they would try to “rap” with us kids and try their hand at skateboarding. but, i met some cool girls there and some not so cool girls. i also met a youth pastor who, well i won’t mention what he did and lied about it to my parents, wasn’t so great and led me to questioning that church.
7 years later and today i will be joining the one true Church! Praise God for leading me to the CC.

 

[colliric]

i grew up in a AOG church, when not going to a baptist church… sidenote: what a confusing time in my life.
all i remember is being in service and there would always be one woman who would speak in tongues. after she was done another guy would stand up and translate what it meant for us that had no idea what she said.
the pastor was anti-other denominations. they would say it was right to give 10% in the offering. mention of the holy ghost every few seconds. the service was really long, boring and bland. i guess being a teenager and sitting through a two hour service made me hate going there. at least the baptist church was an hour! i remember the youth sponsors wanting to be 13 again. they would try to “rap” with us kids and try their hand at skateboarding. but, i met some cool girls there and some not so cool girls. i also met a youth pastor who, well i won’t mention what he did and lied about it to my parents, wasn’t so great and led me to questioning that church.
7 years later and today i will be joining the one true Church! Praise God for leading me to the CC.

Praise god,

I’m fully joining next year, I made that decision myself because I knew I needed to enquire in september or late last year and when I inquired fully this year I already knew it was very very late and i didn’t know much, it was late feburary and it was too late to do full faith formation programs for this year, So they put me onto next year’s RCIA list and put me into Bible Studies and other youth groups like the CYM(Catholic Youth Minestry).

I’ll now get the time I need to get into the habit of simply going to mass first(something I already did as a protestant, but need to get used to Catholic Mass now), and they’ve put me in a lot of bible study groups and things. I also got a Rosary and lots and lots of books to read.

I never had this process done to me when was protestant and specifically AOG, It was just pick and choose whatever church I wanted to go to, and just go into the deep end. I realized slowly this is not the way to teach people how to be devout faith driven people in a singular faith, the faith of God. This deep end idea breeds continuous schism and that is why there are so many different Pentecostal denominations. One person jumps in, doesn’t like what they see and go and create their own beliefs or go and join another church and do the same thing there too.

I realized really only with the slow process of becoming a Catholic does one come out the other end, highly unlikely of ever joining another Christian Church for a substantial amount of time. Of cause the majority of Catholics are actually cradle catholics and perhaps they may not have a greater understanding that a Convert might gain as an adult. With the catholic church you get put into the baby pool(inquiry), slowly learn how to doggy paddle(initial bible study, learning the basics of mass, learning the basics of Catholic belief), then move on to learning how to freestyle(RCIA) and finally swim comfortably in the Deep End of the pool(Baptism and first communion and confession, etc)

 

[DB_AND_ALI]

**This is possibly why we often only see younger people being attracted to this ‘style’ of worship…hip and trendy. **

Note that this is not the only “style” of worship in AoG churches. The ones in this area, from small to huge, also have less “trendy” services. Also depends on your definition of “younger.”

A huge statistical report from 2004 is at
ag.org/top/about/Statistical_Report_2004.pdf

The largest age group represented consistently in the US churches is the 35-49 group, so I don’t know if that fits your definition of “younger”.In most of the districts, from a brief glance over the info, the percentages for the 25-34 and for the 50-64 group are not hugely different from each other and both are substantially larger usually than the 18-24 numbers.

**I am also not at all surprised that these churches are so vigorous in their recruitment efforts , after all the members pay the salaries of the pastors as well as running costs. **

And they take very seriously the biblical injunction to proselytize. The teaching is definitely there that you may be the only Christian that a particular unbeliever encounters–if you do not witness to them and they are lost, it is at least partially on your shoulders.

The official website lists at the top “our mission: evangelism, worship and discipleship.”

Does anyone know the history behind this church ???!

Well, I posted a link to their organizational home page at the beginning of the thread, www.ag.org. I would think that might be a good place to start. Here’s the specific page where they list their history:
ag.org/top/about/history.cfm

Looks like they began as part of the third Great Awakening in the US en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Awakening

Thankyou for the info…they will find it difficult to recruite me. I have noticed that some see it as a special ‘duty’ to witness to catholics , as they see us as ‘unsaved’. I find this attitude rather disturbing as it shows a lack of respect for my beliefs.
Happy Easter to all…

 

[Le_Cracquere]

Thankyou for the info…they will find it difficult to recruite me. I have noticed that some see it as a special ‘duty’ to witness to catholics , as they see us as ‘unsaved’. I find this attitude rather disturbing as it shows a lack of respect for my beliefs.
Happy Easter to all…

Happy Easter right back at you! I was reared in the Church of God, which is sort of a first cousin to the AofG, and I assure you that the members I’ve known in both the denominations tend to respect Catholics’ beliefs pretty well. Now, some of them do have a different idea from Catholics of what constitutes being “saved”; but applying those ideas in their evangelism doesn’t constitute disrespect.

It’s true: the sort of ignorance that certain Catholics display about Christ’s nature, life, death, and resurrection, which many Catholics dismiss as “poor catechesis,” is a far more serious matter to Evangelicals (incl. Pentecostals), who consider knowledge and acceptance of these points diagnostic of who is and isn’t a Christian. But take a reverse example: most Pentecostals see baptism as praiseworthy and highly recommended, but not essential to salvation; thus, many have never gotten around to it. I’ll guess that in many Catholic eyes, being unbaptized disqualifies one to be called “Christian.” Nevertheless, I wouldn’t call that “disrespectful” to Pentecostals; it just means that the two groups differ on what counts as minimal criteria for salvation. If you hold to Catholic criteria, certain Pentecostals are almost certainly “unsaved,” and vice versa. I couldn’t blame either side for thinking the other worthy of evangelisation, no disrespect necessary.

 

[puzzleannie]

When I’ve seen the gift of interpretation in operation, it was during church services (in the midst of the congregation). One person gives a message in tongues, and then the interpreter gives the interpretation of that message.

.

I have seen the gift of tongues in conjuction with interpretation on a few occassions, but not during Mass, because the charistmatic groups I know do not do this during Mass, and have very reverent, correct celebrations. I have seen it during prayer meetings, retreats and healing services (small scale, a few people, not big crowd events). In the healing context one person will speak for a few moments, the other person interprets, usually something to the point about the illness, condition or situation faced by the person who is asking for prayer or asking for healing.

For instance, on one occassion the group was praying about whether or not to keep participating in their home parish, since the new pastor was not congenial to the charismatic movement, or to look for a new parish. After a period of scripture reading and silent prayer, a couple of people spoke–briefly and quietly–in tongues. After more silence, two more people offered interpretations. That was my last prayer meeting with this group but I believe the went over to a neighborhing parish with a pastor who encouraged them to continue.

On another occassion a visitor asked for prayer for a family difficutly–she gave no specifics–during which one member spoke in tongues, another member interpreted, and suggested they get family counselling–nothing dramatic or earth shaking.

 

[Contarini]

So that’s the history: Presbyterian to C&MA to Assemblies of God.

I believe that the Assemblies of God were actually formed by members of a lot of different denominations. However, I think you’re right to highlight the C&MA as one very important parent tradition. Both the C&MA and the AoG come from the “Keswick” branch of the Holiness movement–i.e., they believe in a “deeper life” attainable through the Holy Spirit, but not in the more dogmatic doctrine of sanctification held by the Wesleyan Holiness people (the initial Pentecostals came largely from the more Wesleyan side of things, and this was one of the two big theological divisions within Pentecostalism, the other one being over the doctrine of the Trinity). The C&MA believe(d) in the possibility of divine healing and they taught what was called the “Fourfold Gospel”: Christ as Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King. Note that the four “Defining Truths” of the AoG listed by cristian84 are very similar–the only difference is that sanctification has been replaced by the baptism with the Holy Spirit, which shows a move further away from the holiness movement.

Christ is risen!

Edwin