There is a spiritual topic I’ve struggled with all my life and this one is a huge point that many denominations and individuals are so divided on — the whole realm of the Holy Spirit’s work tongues and interpretations.

Through my formative years, the ability to speak in tongues in and of itself was stressed in children’s and youth groups — and it seemed that those who did so had some sort of magic gift that I really couldn’t grasp.

If there was one bad portion of growing up in the Church of God of Prophecy during a time when the last vestiges of legalism were present, it was the overreliance of tongues and interpretations as the de facto way God spoke in the church. This was a known denominational barrier that the church has slowly begun to overcome…but then, it seemed downright cultish in its overuse.

To a kid like me at the time, it was scary beyond description to see people’s prayers in English transition to an instantaneous loss of their physical and mental faculties, and going crazy with a language I couldn’t understand.

As I got older I read in the Bible about how tongues was the initial evidence of the Holy Spirit indwelling in a person’s life. Cool, so it was legit!

Church camps in the COGOP in Washington were a prime ground for the Holy Spirit to work. I remember having fun at the camps by day and preparing for massive movements of the Spirit at night. Every night you knew someone was going to be healed or their life changed for the better.

During those services, we would all spend some time in worship with a live band rocking the stage and leading us into God’s presence, then we’d hear a good message from the night’s guest speaker that would keep in tune with the camp theme of the year. Then the speaker would always hold an altar call, and those were the most hyped and anticipated moments of the evening.

I remember one evening in a 1994 camp I attended in which one of the kids had prayed for their group leader to be healed of a sickness, and they were. Praise God…the speaker for the night had the kid stand up and pray, and before long others stood up and prayed as well.

It didn’t take long before people began to do the same thing that freaked me out as a kid…speaking in tongues and going a little crazy physically. In the space of about 20 minutes kids were running, jumping, shouting, praying for each other…and others were getting a little out of hand.

I would know, I was one of the out-of-hand ones. I was nine, so I didn’t really know better.

But that was because the Holy Spirit was never fully explained to me or my peers. You see, we were always simply told for years by church staff that the Holy Ghost, as it was called, would give us a greater spiritual power…as if somehow we could connect with God in a way that we couldn’t if we didn’t have this Holy Ghost. It didn’t make sense but all our parents and respected church leaders had it, so we wanted it.

And we wanted it badly.

Back to the Camp scene. I remember my first year at the teen camp we held called Senior Camp in 1997, seeing multiple staff members pray for kids who would boldly proclaim “I want the Holy Ghost!” There was no real clear explanation of how the Holy Spirit worked or why we should desire His leading in our lives in the first place.

It was just the staff member clasping hands with the kid, raising their arm in worship or putting their hand to their forehead…then praying something to the effect of “Fill him with your spirit, Lord” and when they got tired of that, they would tell them “go ahead and receive it, it’s a free gift and it’s right there…you’re so close.”

I wondered if the staff member would get a bit tired of not seeing a result and they’d encourage the camper to “just receive it” without explanation of what was going to happen, how to spiritually open up to receive it. Just receive it so I can move on, dangit.

When that happened to me, I was around 14-15 years old. I had two staff members praying for me at a camp in a prayer line, trying to prod me along as if they could push me into some other spiritual realm. I got tired of not seeing a result, so I did the only thing I knew how to as my way out.

I began to rapidly spit out a series of stuttered letters and elongated vowels — and I was fully in control of myself. I felt bad at first but when everyone around me bought it and I was shocked. Yes, I did it intentionally.

But everyone around me bought it! Hook, line and sinker!

Was this really all it really was, this speaking in tongues? All you do is feel the Lord around you and begin to talk in another language? Is that really the “next level,” that power we were always told about?

Surely that couldn’t be it…or could it? After that turning point at Senior Camp ’99, I would see people in my church I loved and respected speak in tongues on a consistent basis, and I wondered if they simply felt the Lord so strong that they couldn’t put it into words — and that was their way of worship, as weird as it sounded.

It didn’t harm anyone so it must have been okay. So I continued to speak in “tongues” when the situation called for it. As I got older and attended more church camps, and even times at my church in Vancouver, I felt like a spiritual giant praying for my friends and speaking in tongues.

Kids with all sorts of different struggles — bad home life, alcoholism, drugs, sex before marriage, anger, rage, you name it — I’d pray for them in English first, but I’d always seem to run out of words. So there I went in tongues. It was a good crutch, I must admit, and my intent was pure, but then they would start to shake, quiver, or speak in tongues too.

Suffice to say it confused me and really shocked me when on many an occasion, the kid would fall to the floor as if the power of God hit them.

Maybe it did. Maybe the Lord was still working through me…after all me speaking in tongues was well-intended, but I just couldn’t lose myself mentally like everyone else seemed to, and simply “let the Lord take over.”

By the time I graduated high school, turned 18 and eventually left for the military, I wondered what this supposed gift of the Spirit in my life really accomplished. How come I had prayed for so many but seen them fall back into their old lifestyle? What about the ones I just walked up to, thrust my hand on their forehead and began to stutter away? Were they really healed?

Why did I want the Holy Spirit in the first place?

To be continued, in part 2.