Tongues

Somewhere way back in my teen years as I was hearing about "churchy" things, I found a tract in a phone booth that said "Call this number for the answer...", so, I called it. It began with the overly dramatic and quite pretentious, "Hello, friend...", but I continued to listen to see what "the answer" was.

It told me I needed to be saved! What the heck did that mean?

At the time my parents were sending me to Lutheran catechism lessons and I had never heard this phrase before. As a matter of fact, the whole catechism was confusing since our pastor spoke without making much sense most of the time. Even my parents said they couldn't understand his sermons, so here I was stuck in these classes trying to glean a kernel of truth from this man.

He gave me a ride home one night from class, so I asked him, "What do I need to do to be saved?" He gave me one of the scariest answers I had ever heard from his mouth. He said, "I think you are saved by listening to me." I thought, "Man, I am doomed to hell, because I don't understand a single thing he says!"

Years later, I was attending a charismatic church, but he had stopped by our house to see my parents for a pastoral visitation. My mom told him I was going to a charismatic church now, and you could see in his face that he was scrambling for something nice to say, so he blurted out, "Well, we all have our different ways of believing."

Perhaps my experience with him is what drew me to a church that spoke in tongues.