October 19, 2014 is the most important date of my life; it was the day I gave my life to Jesus Christ. I was going through a rough time in my life—I can't remember exactly what—but in the middle of the cacophony I heard a voice urge me to go to church. I had always vehemently opposed every attempt of my mom, my sister, and my friends to have me go to church, but that day felt different.
I asked my mom if we could go and she said yes (she wasn't planning on going that weekend, so she was surprised I asked). After the service, I asked the lead pastor of the Crossing Church (a megachurch in Elk River) some questions about faith and science. He answered me. Then I started to cry—not just a few tears, but an actual, shoulders-heaving, eyes-like-a-faucet cry.
September 26, 2015 was the second most important date of my life; it was the day I was filled with the Holy Spirit. I was looking for a church to attend while away from home. I had heard about miracles before, but I thought they were weird and probably fake.
When I first attended the Morris Community Church (MCC), that all changed. During worship, people broke out into tongues, everyone was singing and humming harmonies to the worship music (there was no hymn book), and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
After the sermon, they had a faith healer stand up. He would sense infirmities in the room and would call the people with those afflictions up to him for prayer.
"I sense someone can't breathe through their right nostril. If that's you, come up for prayer!"
My nostril had been plugged from God only knows what, so I went up for prayer. I thought it wasn't gonna work—like maybe they would pray over me and like 4 days later I would be "cured" (or, rather, I just got better naturally)—but no.
The lead pastor's wife stood in front of me and put her hands on both of my shoulders and began praying in tongues. Then she spoke:
"My son, you're a man."
Those words struck me hard.
She wasn't telling me that I was masculine. She was telling me I was an adult—that I could be confident, and that I had a heart for God. Her words grew more specific—scarily specific—as she continued. She spoke over me for what seemed like five minutes. I cried as hard that day as the day I was saved.
The lead pastor, Pat Franey, wanted to meet up for coffee. He now mentors me.
Oh, and my nose was fixed—I can breathe out of it again.
On Halloween weekend, I went back to my main church to play guitar for the worship set. During the set, I saw this couple in the audience, and I felt this pang—a prod in my heart. Then a sentence popped into my head.
After the sermon, we had to play another song. After that song we had to play ambient music until everyone left. Right after the ambient music was finished, I unplugged my guitar, jumped off stage, sprinted out of the auditorium, and caught them as they were about to leave the building.
"Hey, I'm Jon, and I play the lead guitar here, and, um, this is weird, but could I pray over you two?" I asked, half-expecting to get receive a "no."
But they said yes, so I shared the word I received. They both began to weep.
Out of privacy for them, I will not share to you, reader, what I shared with them, but the couple was grateful.
The gift I was using was called the word of knowledge, and if you are curious you can read about spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12-14. At church I give words to people all the time. I've given a few words to people here at Morris, but sometimes it ends badly.
There are a lot of atheists at Morris who don't believe what they hear and insult me, and there are Christians who deride my gift as Satanic.
And there are agnostics who can't fathom my gift because it doesn't make sense.
Aside from the general malaise towards gifts, just being Christian is hard at Morris, too. I am friends with a lot of agnostics and Atheists (the "A" is capitalized because these are the types of atheists who make atheism a religion) and they challenge me to answer nit-picky questions that I don't know the answers to off the top of my head, like "if Mary is a virgin, why did Jesus have two older brothers?" I've only read 2/3 of the way through the Bible (which is over 1300 pages) and I don't have time to study the Bible, so I don't know all the answers (although, to answer that question, there are multiple Mary's in Scripture and Jesus considers a lot of his followers his brothers and sisters).
But when I can't answer these questions, they win and I lose.
Also, if I tell someone at Morris I'm a Christian, I'm judged to be conservative and kind of a dick. I understand why—I dress like a pretty-boy, I'm good-looking, I play guitar, and Christians are generally more conservative than non-Christians—but it still hurts. To be clear, I am pretty far-left in my politics—not radical, but far-left—and this has actually been in part because I have begun reading the Bible straight through. But no one would expect that.
Because of this adversity, I sometimes go through periods of unbelief—maybe the words I give people are just me being hyper-perceptive of someone's body language, maybe speaking in tongues is just me babbling by my own volition, maybe the emotion from being saved is actually your rebellion towards society breaking under the pressure to conform to American expectations.
But then I always remember this one girl I prayed over at the Crossing Church. I told her "that whatever she is telling you is false! You are beautiful and smart and God loves you. She is not a real friend! Cast her away from your life!" I even got first letter of the her bad friend's name right. It was one of the coolest things I've ever done.
I also look down at my hand, covered in psoriasis. It appeared at the beginning of Spring semester. My friends at MCC prayed over it and told me to anoint it with oil. They told me it would be gone in two months exactly. It's been two weeks, and it looks so much better.
As a sort of side note, two months went by and there was no change... but I didn't actually anoint it with the right oil. In fact, I didn't anoint it with oil at all—I just used expensive and fragrant lotion. But when I learned that maybe oil meant, you know, OLIVE oil, it changed. Now it's been about two weeks, and it's receding.
To be clear, I am not one of those privileged people who believe that Christians are being persecuted and oppressed here in America (they are elsewhere, not here), but I also recognize that we are judged—especially the Pentecostal and charismatic kind.
I am not trying to say "respect us more" because that's whiny. All I am doing is telling my story in hopes that I have given you something (whatever that may be) to think about.
If you have any questions for me, feel free to reach out and ask.
God Bless.
