Tonight at the weekly Woman's Prayer Meet, we touched on praise and worship, which means the singing and praying and raising up the hands and speaking in tongues. I am no stranger to praise and worship, but it is still a strange concept to me.
I first got introduced to praise and worship in my first relationship. I just finished my 'O' levels, and entered a new school. I studied in a convent, with four years of cathechism, and before that, my cousin brought me to a Catholic church, hence at that point in time, the only kind of church service I knew was the Catholic mass and the Catholic way of praying.
Then I got to know a guy, a fellow schoolmate, who is the son of a pastor in a charismatic Christian church. He brought me to his church, and that was the first time I came across praise and worship. I was so overwhelmed then as I did not know what everyone was doing. All I remembered was strange gestures, strange language and people falling and shaking all over.
At that point in time, I thought I went into a cult with the devil possessing these people. Yes I know, I was ignorant, and for any Christian out there who wanted to fire me off, please bear in mind I was not yet seventeen, and first time I experienced something like that, so the experience was scary and overwhelming.
Furthermore, the church service was draggy. Sorry for using the word draggy, but that time I really thought it was! The service would start around eleven in the morning, where there would be singing and all the "chanting", which would last for around an hour or so. Even the singing I was not used to it then, as the Catholic was was the traditional solumn hymns, whereas the singing there was more to rock music.
After that would be the sermon. The pastor was really charismatic and brought the message across. That would last for another hour. Then more praise and worship, and the "chanting" began again. This time round, the pastor would call people with problems out, and these people would be prayed over, and then they would start falling and shaking on the floor. This would last for another hour or longer.
Hence, the entire service averaged three hours. It was the longest church service I ever attended! I was really not used to that so just as well things did not work out between that guy and I as I was really not comfortable with that kind of intensive praise and worship.
Two years back, I attended a Conversion Experience Retreat, conducted by our newly ordained Archbishop. Of course he was not the Archbishop then. All the time I was a Catholic, I always thought Catholic masses are traditional and more solemn. But when I went for the retreat, there was massive praise and worship. The choir was singing like rock stars and there were lots of speaking in tongues, and the priest went around to each and everyone, put his hand on their heads, and most of them just fell.
For some reason, maybe because I am much older, I found this experience refreshing. Even though I still find a long praise and worship session too intensive for me, I am now ready to welcome it into my prayer life.
Hence when today's session was on a mini praise and worship, I was actually receptive. And I found I could speak in tongues more easily, even though I still could not understand a single word of what I was saying.
Hopefully I can start incorporating praying in tongues and praise and worship more into my own prayer life. Then perhaps God can talk to me for once?
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