because I couldn't share half of what I felt watching and thought while watching the movie. But I will share a little information about the movie--with a little help from Wikipedia.Jesus Camp is a 2006 documentary directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing about a Pentecostal summer camp for children who spend their summers learning and practicing their "prophetic gifts" and being taught that they can "take back American for Christ." According to the distributor, it "doesn't come with any prepackaged point of view" and tries to be "an honest and impartial depiction of one faction of the evangelical Christian community."
I've watched "Jesus Camp" many times! I sort of just can't get enough of it. Because every time I watch it I walk away with something new. Last night, as I was watching I caught myself saying the "Pledge to the Christian Flag" and the "Pledge to the Bible" with the children, Vince told me that I do that every time I watch it--I was unaware of this. But it made me remember what it was like for me to be a part of a pentecostal setting.
Although my mother's side of the family is really Catholic (and I am an active Catholic) my father's family is very much into the Assemblies of God (AG) faith. Throughout my childhood I was very involved in the AG church. Which I don't necessarily see as a bad thing. I was a committed member of our church's Royal Rangers outpost--which is like an AG version of Boy Scouts, I was in this Bible Quiz Challenge team, I was in choir (which is where I learned how to sing like no other), and I was on the drama team.
At a young age, I was taught that there were two types of people: those who loved Jesus and those who didn't. Those who didn't would go straight to hell and those who loved Jesus should actively show it. I did.
There is one scene in the beginning of the movie that brings me to tears. It is when the children's minister is preaching and then all the children begin to speak in tongues and "fall in the Spirit." I am brought to tears because it reminds me of a time when I was 10 years old. We had this amazing speaker at our church who worked primarily with youth. He did a 4 consecutive day series of just offering God's word and letting the Spirit pour out. Every night was filled with teenagers and children speaking in tongues and falling in the Spirit. On the third night, I spoke in tongues for my first time and "fell in the Spirit." It was an amazing feeling as I laid there on the ground with words coming out of my mouth that I couldn't understand. I think back now and I think that at age 10 I didn't know what was going on--not to say that the experience wasn't genuine and real, but I'm sure I didn't understand why I was speaking in tongues or why I was "falling in the Spirit."
The next night a young woman was exorcised at the altar. It was the first exorcism I had ever scene. I was horrified at age 10 at what I saw. It was like nothing I had seen before. Little did I know that 8 years later I would be getting an exorcism...at the same church, by the same pastor.
At a young age, I was taught that there were two types of people: those who loved Jesus and those who didn't. Those who didn't would go straight to hell and those who loved Jesus should actively show it. I did.
There is one scene in the beginning of the movie that brings me to tears. It is when the children's minister is preaching and then all the children begin to speak in tongues and "fall in the Spirit." I am brought to tears because it reminds me of a time when I was 10 years old. We had this amazing speaker at our church who worked primarily with youth. He did a 4 consecutive day series of just offering God's word and letting the Spirit pour out. Every night was filled with teenagers and children speaking in tongues and falling in the Spirit. On the third night, I spoke in tongues for my first time and "fell in the Spirit." It was an amazing feeling as I laid there on the ground with words coming out of my mouth that I couldn't understand. I think back now and I think that at age 10 I didn't know what was going on--not to say that the experience wasn't genuine and real, but I'm sure I didn't understand why I was speaking in tongues or why I was "falling in the Spirit."
The next night a young woman was exorcised at the altar. It was the first exorcism I had ever scene. I was horrified at age 10 at what I saw. It was like nothing I had seen before. Little did I know that 8 years later I would be getting an exorcism...at the same church, by the same pastor.
Thanks for this unexpected glimpse into your childhood. I still remember when we were doing the ex-gay Chalk Talk at Equality Ride training and I saw "exorcism" written on the wall.
ReplyDeleteMy kids went to the camps like that. Now I see that we (as grown-ups and their parents) were wrong to indoctrinate them so young. Sometimes I wish things worked as simply as I thought they did back then. I do miss the security of it all, but finally I see that we, as fundamentalists, were all wrong.
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