I recently read an article that Pastor Dorothy gave me from a small community magazine that circulates in Ottawa. It was written by a gentleman called Martin Holock who attended one of our services last year (some time in late summer or fall, I believe) and I would like to share excerpts of it with you and hear what you think and have to say about it. You can read the article in it's entirety HERE and I believe the article is on page 14.
The title was huge and catchy: CULT FOLLOWING
Subtitle: Born Again at Woodvale Pentecostal Church
This month’s excursion is to the west-end home of evangelical christians, Woodvale Pentecostal Church. You know the frightening version of Jesus Camp believers you’ve heard about who are into speaking in tongues and performing exorcisms? Those are Pentecostals and they are super popular.
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Pentecostals love a big crowd, so they’ve had to build massive buildings to hold them. A lot of these mega-churches across the US and in Toronto are Pentecostal, and they see a huge regular attendance. While many other denominations are experiencing a drop in Sunday crowds, places like Woodvale, where I have to park blocks away in a lot guided by ushers, are thriving.
When I finally walk in, still 10 minutes early, I’m greeted with a handshake at every door along the way and there are already hundreds of folks singing the words projected on a slide above. I grab a pew at the back to take in as much of the action as I can.
The music’s pretty cheesy, but I mouth along anyway. I’m putting on the best Christ-loving mask I can muster. A black guy with dreadlocks is singing at the grand piano, and 4 other neatly dressed young singers wave their hands and pour out their hearts accompanied by a full electric band. People of all shades and ages keep arriving and, pretty soon, folks are dancing.
It’s a show - it really is. The music, the audience, the vibe. The closest comparison in my experience is a folk music festival. The quality of the music is mediocre, but the people who are into it are deeply, heavily feeling it. Only here it’s not stoned hippie moms and acoustic Dylan covers; it’s three or four songs repeated soulfully until you don’t even need the video prompts anymore.
Early on, the congregation is proud to present some of its friends to be baptized. The first talks as unironically as possible about “coming out of the closet” as a Christian and sharing his faith with the world. There’s another guy who’s loved Jesus since he was six. The last is a 20-something redheaded woman who talks evasively about the craziness she got up to as a teen and how Jesus helped her through. It’s probably wrong to say I’m looking forward to seeing her get dunked, live on the screens they’re now using to show the action on stage, but whatever. She’s pretty hot.
The children are then dismissed, and straggling spectators find their seats and get into position. The band is playing again. A few bouncer-looking types stroll up and down the aisles, monitoring us. Cal me suspicious, but I swear they’re identifying newcomers like me, for God only knows what purpose.
All I know is that a minute later, a single middle-aged woman is standing next to me, singing enthusiastically and chanting, “Thank you Jesus, thank you. Praise Jesus.” over and over. Seconds later, and throughout the service, this secret spy chick is whispering in tongues. “S h a k a l a s h a k a t a t a t a a a. M i s h a k a s h a k a l a s h a a... Praise Jesus. Thank you Jesus.”
Just act natural... Oh yeah, seen this *expletive* a thousand times... Yep, just some everyday tongue-talkin’... A real front-row shaker, dive-into-it type like this would usually be by the stage with the graying grandma who’s scooping up the spirit from the air in front of her, washing it all over her like she’s shampooing with it. The bouncers have fingered me and sent this shakalak woman here, I’m sure of it. There’s another single guy ahead of me, and lonely ladies all over. Why didn’t she go to one of them?
Another feature of Pentecostal Churches is the God and Country routine. The service this week is about putting the Extra into Ordinary, and being filled with the Spirit like the saints in the book of Acts, but there are other, more political suggestions. Many times the phrase, “God keep our land glorious and free” is repeated. The oh-so-energetic and inspired Pastor Mark Scarr even declares at one point, as be bounces across the stage, “It’s not up to the world to influence the Church. It’s up to the church to influence the world!!”
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Ironically, it’s a big,enthralled crowd that gives them that personal feeling. And here at Woodvale, there’s definitely a crowd. We’re talking two floors of packed pews, probably around a thousand people, maybe more. And every single one of them is singing along. At least, unlike Catholics and Anglicans where the only passion of Christ is the bleeding Jesus pictures on the walls, here it’s pouring off the stage and dripping down the aisles.
This is no special Sunday. These thousand people, of all walks and colors, are here every week. Christmas, Easter and Pentecost (50 days after Easter), are even more ridiculously packed with donating disciples. Woodvale has had to relocate or renovate many times in it’s 50 year existence, and they’re still regularly at capacity. And with a fanbase like this, and spreading worldwide popularity (huge among Africans, Latin Americans and Pacific-rim Asians, especially Koreans), these guys aren’t going away anytime soon, so you’d better find a way to live with them.
