I’ve been keeping my eyes on a kingdom movement here in Columbus. The church is called Eagle Rock and they are located in Pickerington, Ohio. They hold a yearly conference and this year’s conference is called “Acceleration 2008″. They really didn’t promote this conference in my sphere of influence, so I had no idea who was going to speak or what they were all about. The only thing I knew is that they call themselves an Apostolic network.

Acceleration 2008 is a 3-day conference, so I dropped in the first evening on July 31st, 2008. I felt a little uneasy coming to a new church and not even knowing what the conference was all about. I saw a registration booth for “Guest Ministers” and I thought to myself, “Oh no! Maybe this conference isn’t open to the public! It says ‘Ministers’, so maybe this is a pastor’s conference!” Then I thought to myself, “everyone is called to be a minister, but not everyone is called to be a pastor”. So I realized that even though this might be a conference intended for pastors, I certainly couldn’t be excluded because I am not ordained. I decided not to register myself as a guest minister, but rather secretly slip into the sanctuary, hopefully unnoticed.

Before I went into the sanctuary, I stopped by the bathroom so wash my hands. I had spilled some gasoline on my right hand on my way to the conference and I smelled pretty bad. I came into their bathroom and it was well decorated and well furnished. It wasn’t the type of bland church bathroom to which I have been accustomed. Then I thought to myself, “Oh no! Maybe they are one of those prosperity-teaching churches!” I promptly washed my hands and went out into the lobby. I looked around with a new set of eyes and nearly every man was wearing a nice suit and tie. I had come dressed in a shabby pair of corduroy pants and short sleeve button up shirt. I started to feel really self-conscious and I promptly slipped into the sanctuary.

I noticed a book table to my left, so I checked it out. They were featuring Richard Foster’s book, Celebration of Discipline as well as some other books from a publisher called Chosen. They also had a very pink booth setup for “Gritty Girls” which is apparently a ministry run by the wife of the Apostle of this church. I thought to myself, “That’s a stupid name! Who wants to be a ‘gritty’ girl! Most girls would rather be a ‘pretty’ girl!” Hey, I’m not a girl, so I’m not going to explore why they’re gritty!

I strolled across their sanctuary and found a seat on the left side of the room. On each seat there was an offering envelope. I thought to myself, “Ah ha! Maybe they are a prosperity church!” I don’t have a problem giving money to ministries, I just have a problem when they make outlandish promises about how giving money is the key to getting more money and more stuff. That just doesn’t line up with my beliefs and it makes me feel yucky inside.

So I sat there in my seat, looking up at the stage and looking around at the people in the sanctuary. The sanctuary was medium sized; I would say that it could probably hold 300 people. The people there seemed friendly and they were all dressed really nice. I guess I didn’t get the memo that this was a coat-and-tie event!

There was this older female greeter hovering around the whole sanctuary greeting people. She eventually made her way to me and said, “I just wanted to come by and bless you! What your name?’ I replied, ‘Brian’. She said, ‘From where did you come?’ I thought for a few seconds and realized that she probably wanted to know if I was part of their church network, so I asked, ‘Do you mean which city?’ She said, ‘Sure, which city?’ I said, ‘Grove City’. She said, “That’s great, did you come expecting?” I smiled back at her and said, “Yes!” As she was exchanging more pleasantries, I couldn?t help but keep staring at her teeth. She clearly had dentures and there was a slight disconnect between where the gum ended and the teeth began. It was as if her teeth were 2 millimeters in front of her gums. Maybe I’m just a weirdo for noticing that sort of stuff.

I looked down at my clock and noticed that it was 7:10pm. They still hadn’t started this thing and I was starting to get restless. I had been sitting here since 6:52pm and I was running out of things to observe.

Around 7:15 they got started with the music and let me just say that it wasn’t what I expected! I came expecting Vineyard-ish kind of contemporary guitar music and what I got was some kind of old-school, early nineties Christian music with no lead guitar and mostly a lead pianist. The worship leader was a woman in her early 60ies with a voice like a freight train. Her voice was simply overwhelming and impossible to sing with. Don’t get my wrong, she wasn’t singing badly, she just sung in a manner that made it really hard to discern the right notes for the melody and harmony. She was white, but she sung like a full-gospel black lady!

She had a small choir behind her and they were really hopping to the music. It was fun listening to it, but I found it strenuous on my vocal chords to keep up with her. Have you ever had a time of worship so intense that you became exhausted physically exhausted? It was kind of like that, but mostly with my vocal chords.

After singing for about 35 minutes, they took an offering. They do offering a bit differently in some charismatic circles. Instead of passing around a basket, they had every row get up at the same time, walk in a line to the front, drop in the offering, keep walking in a big circle to the opposite side of your row, which leads you back to your seat. I don’t know about you, but I like a little exercise when I get my free-will offering, don’t you?

The person who brought the word to us that evening was Pastor Terence Stovell. He pastors a church in Bermuda. He is a black pastor, and one of the finest preachers I have ever heard! His sermon was lively and he got the crowd all riled up. Have you ever seen those gospel churches in the Bible Belt when the congregation is shouting back to the pastor, “THAT’S RIGHT!” or “UH HUH!” or “AMEN!” or “PREACH IT!” Imagine a sermon an hour and fifteen minutes long with no drop in the pastor’s energy or the congregation. Yeah, no sleeping through this sermon.

His topic was Faith and he took us through the book of Acts to show at times the people of called are called into situations in which there is no reference point. Situations that are so challenging and new that we simply cannot rely on how we’ve experienced God’s provision and presence in the past. That’s when God is calling us to have a raw faith to move into something new, even if it makes us uncomfortable. We can no longer put our faith in the “facts” (our preconceptions about God) but rather put our faith in the “truth” (what God is now revealing for you to do). In other words, God will sometimes reveal the “truth” even when the “facts” (what we presently understand) don’t add up yet. In those situations, since we have no previous reference point to gain assurance, we are called to move forward with raw faith. What it boils down to is, do you believe in what God told you? When you experience a shipwreck, are you still putting your faith in God’s word and his promises?

It was a powerful message and I went up afterward for prayer ministry. They do prayer ministry in way that is very similar to Vineyard. I told the person who was praying for me that I’ve really been trying to seek God in the direction of my ministry and it feels like I’m just sitting in a cloud not going anywhere. He laid hands on me and prayed. It was good to get some ministry that evening.