Charismatic Churches

Appearing bleary-eyed and blinkered on a Sunday morning, suffering from Saturday night's shenanigans, you quickly adorn a pair of shade to cope with any streams of sunlight. Circumventing the streets in drunken disorientation, you try to find a fry-up to pacify that imminent hangover. Crawling by the local church, your insides start to reel from the noise and excitement blazing forth from inside the building. As yet another tambourine crashes and an earth-shattering chorus reaches its crescendo, clutching at your stomach, you may wonder how anybody can muster up this amount of energy on a Sunday morning.

There's a chance that the church in question could be a charismatic church, and it's precisely this level of energy that attracted Peter Vella, 27 (not his real name) to the charismatic church he attended in California, back in his late teens. He found the church to be a refreshing contrast to the more traditional church he'd grown up in: "Although I heard plenty of talk or sermons on what it means to be in a relationship with God, I didn't see much evidence of that around me and I certainly didn't feel it as a reality in myself. I knew there had to be something more." His search led him to a charismatic church where the worship was livelier and the congregation appeared to have a freer and more spiritual connection to God.

The word charismatic comes from the Greek word charismata, which refers to the gifts of the spirit - in this context, the Holy Spirit. Charismatic churches differ from more traditional churches in that they believe the gifts, power and baptism in the Holy Spirit are as real and relevant now as they were in the early church. Many that attend believe in modern-day miracles and healings comparable to those in The New Testament, wishing to be in a church that has more emphasis on spiritual exploration and less on established religion, where they're not just standing stiffly behind a pew singing hymns solemnly.
Initially, Peter had a positive time at the church and felt he was discovering a deeper, more enriched and spiritual relationship with God. He was also inspired by the real interaction with God that people genuinely wanted to have. He remembers some of the people he met fondly: "A lot of the people there had authentic, personal relationships with God, they were a tremendous blessing and positive influence on me."
Peter threw himself into leading the college ministry. However, cracks began to appear when his friend and colleague, the head college minister began to raise questions about how the pastoral staff were dealing with finances. (Pastors are effectively the leaders of the church). "He had concerns about specific transactions that were documented in a very questionable way, and certainly not within the bounds of basic, moral stewardship of finances."
As the college minister investigated further he was ordered to stop and was told that to disobey the leadership of the church was "challenging God's anointed leadership, which God would curse him for." After the minister obeyed, he was fired, with no severance pay and was publicly branded a ‘troublemaker' and ‘liar' by the senior pastor, who also said he was ‘trying to oust the senior pastor and take over the church.'
Peter could see that manipulation and control were being wielded in the church and that the senior pastor's delusions were overtaking him to the point where if anybody challenged him, ‘the anointed leader', they were in effect inviting curses upon themselves. Peter left: "It left me feeling ugh. I've had no desire to step inside an institutional church since."

Hattie Gilbert, 63 (not her real name) also had a negative experience involving ‘God's anointed.' Hattie and her husband Michael, 66 and their daughter Sarah, 35, used to attend a charismatic church in the south west of England. The blurbs on the website are welcoming and inviting; littered with exclamation marks and the adjective ‘awesome', there are many references to the church's love of the creative arts and its overall vision to reach people and save non-believers.
At first, Hattie enjoyed the church but soon found that disagreements with the two pastors, a husband and wife, proved to be a problem. Hattie expressed some concerns about how a personal matter involving her family was being handled within the church. At this point, the husband Tom (not his real name) accused Hattie of having concerns that ‘lay at the occult door and witchcraft.' Deeply troubled, the family left, hurt by people they had initially respected. When Michael bumped into the wife, Sally (not her real name) in town, he was told: "If you speak God's anointed, things could go very badly for you." On one occasion, Hattie told Tom that he was being ‘insensitive'. He replied that ‘Jesus was insensitive too.' Whether Jesus accused people of witchcraft or not, is something we may never know.
Ian Howarth, director of the Cult Information Organisation, sees some fundamental problems within charismatic churches in comparison to traditional churches. "The congregation can become pre-occupied or caught up in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, it can become out-of-balance and there's more emphasis placed on that, than what's really going on. The congregation can be too faithful and the leaders are often lifted up onto a pedestal and treated as though they're gods." Howarth also noted that there is often no deacon or elder, as there is in a Baptist church, to hold people accountable for their actions.

When looking back on what went wrong, Peter concedes that one of the fundamental problems was the lack of accountability. "There was no internal or external structure for investigation." Peter also believes there is a danger that charismatic churches can fall into the trap of treating the church as though it's a business. "If the goal becomes having a thriving church, people will be asked to work or volunteer more for the church, bring more people, or tithe more money. Because if these people don't do these things, it is deemed that the institution will suffer." Peter added: "Though the church may have been initially formed with the intent of honouring God, it can easily end up needing to serve itself - the bigger the church, the bigger the machine that needs maintenance and attention. Therefore, if you're not with us, you're against us." The church that Hattie used to attend, runs ‘wealth creation' courses designed to ‘empower Christians to create wealth and establish the Church as the head in business.'

Hattie is happy attending another church but wishes there was a proper authority to complain to. The Evangelical Alliance deals with complaints, ensuring churches are regulated, but there is little they can do if a church isn't affiliated to its organisation.

Peter is still looking for a church that practises the "simplicity of an ordinary life lived wholly in Jesus and learning what it is to walk that daily." His quest continues.