"They call us Holy Rollers and What they say is True..."

I am not an expert in church history but I have read some of it's history. I have always had a fascination with the history of church revivals and how they impacted society in their aftermath. Starting with Martin Luther, John Wesley,Billy Sunday, DL Moody, Smiths Wigglesworth, Aimee Semple McPherson. Many of these preachers would go on to found denominations that would form the landscape of today's modern church.
I was being swept up into a revival that had it's foundation in the Azousa Street movement of 1906 in southern California that gave birth to the modern pentecostal movement. A movement that from it's seed came such denominations as Assembly of God, Pentecostal Church of God, Church of God in Christ etc. God has targeted the disaffected youth of that time and intended that not only would we get saved but we'd get filled with the Holy Spirit as well. What came out of the Jesus People Movement were such churches as Calvary Chapel and The Vineyard just to name two. At a tender age of 16 there was no way I would or could conceive what I was getting into. God was moving in my life and that was enough. It would be later when I would struggle with the class of culture over Christian commitment and the difference between being spiritual as opposed to being religious. So the story goes, this event took place just a months after my salvation in 1972. In sharing my story and looking back now in my middle years here is my perspective. One would think that the drama of my commitment to Christ would lead to mass success, ministry, financial prosperity, the white picket fence life...once I got saved all my problems would be solved....not so. In my life I have had to overcome horrible circumstances. I am the son and grand-son of alcoholics who emotional,physically and sexually abused members of my family. I have had to overcome morbid obesity,drug addiction poverty and homelessness. It took 3 trips to the alter to finally marry the right one. I was married for 14 years to a truly evil selfish woman who used the love of my children,my devotion to God and my good nature to keep me under her thumb. She slept under my roof,ate my food,spent my money while she routinely visited the beds of lesser men than I. It took me a decade to pay off the debt she left me with, 5 years alone,3 years in intense therapy to figure out why I allowed that kind of evil in my life. Money has always been in short supply. I have lived in fear of the "shoe that is about to drop" most my adult life. Every day job has been just to keep my music alive and the wolves at bay. Oddly I spent 14 years in mental health caring for adult mentally ill. I discovered that I am hard wired to care for those less fortunate than I. I grew to love that job and to truly love my people. Most my friends always seem to make and have more money than me. Yet (due to the life God gave me) I am far more well known in the community...they got money....I get "fans"..I have had a life that has been not so much "rich" as "enriched" the essence of true life is summed up I think by a quote from of all people one of the richest men in the world Warren Buffet.."I know a lot of really rich people, but to be truly rich is this...how many people that you love really love you in return"...rich or poor do the people you love love you in return...we take to heaven the love we have here.

My introduction to being a "Holy Roller"....1974...a cold winter night in a tiny apartment off Cushman street in Fairbanks Alaska

"HOLY GHOST FIRE"
The next few months I walked around three feet off the floor with a silly "cat that ate the canary"
grin on my face...I was happy with no real reason to be so. The change in me was immediate and striking. First off, My party buddies noticed that I wasn't interested in the party anymore. In fact the first thing that changed profoundly was this...I totally lost all desire to get high. Something I could not quit, and what was once my master had in fact become my slave. It fell off me like a piece of rotten fruit. I didn't even miss it. Secondly school began to get interesting. Where I had been flunking wholesale I found I was now pulling good grades and digging it. Everyone around me began to take notice in the change and wonder what had happened. I found that I had become a natural soul winner. Frankly I shared my new found faith everything that wasn't nailed down and half of what was. First off I drug my party pals off the Granny's for some of those meetings. And to my surprise a couple became believers.
One night I got invited to a bible study being conducted by a grey haired couple who probably had been in the faith several times my age.Once again I found my self in a "smallish" apartment with with all the accouterments of a a retired couple...overstuffed chairs,doilies...Lacey lamp shades...it looked like they could hang out with Granny...and have long discussions on the joy of lace....it seemed to me that God hand picked certain elder saints to ready the world for the revial of youth that was coming...they seemed to be standing at the door as we came stumbling thru with nary a clue where to go and these dear elder saints were there to help us "on our way" As the meeting broke up I noticed a military guy sitting in the corner quietly "speaking in tongues"...I sat and watched him for a time and it appeared he and Jesus were "a really good time"..finally I couldn't take it anymore I had to know what this was all about....I walk over and tap him on the shoulder and say ...."OK man, what exactly are you doing?"....well he opened his eyes , a face all aglow and proceeded to try to explain this odd and other worldly thing to me ...the more he tried, the more confused I got and frankly more the creeped out I got...I kept thinking...."if this guy hasn't taken his medications...he needs to"..after getting nowhere with "mumble man" I look over to see Mark comparing doctrine notes with the elders and I tap his shoulder and say"got a minute?....need some insight here",,,,,we step outside..It was an early winter night,kinda cold with those big fluffy snow flakes falling. We stand there in sweat shirts shivering as I ask him about "talking in tongues"He quotes a few scriptures that frankly mean little to me but finally says...."This is more of Jesus"......ok.....more of Jesus....at this time is OK with me....sign me up.......so I walk back into smallish holly roller lacy apartment look at "Ma and Pa Kettle" and say...."I want,would like uh...sorta.... kinda.... finally I point to the dude in the corner and say!OK! SEE GI JOE ,MUMBLE MAN!!!!!!..I WANT SOME OF THAT!!!!! these two precious saints turn and look at each other then turn and look at me(by now I was sitting in the hot seat)I don't know if there is a "sanctified wicked grin" but they had it!!!! They "Laid their hands on me" and off we went....I thought my moment of salvation at Granny's was powerful....this sent me to the moon....as this "mother in the faith" held my shoulders and prayed in tongues"...uncle Tom in the meantime danced around my chair in circles shouting "Hallelujah" and telling the devil he was "Gonna wup him good tonight"...in Jesus Name.....meantime...I'm hanging on for dear life!....hands clenched white knuckled to the edge of my chair..I felt like I had licked my fingers and stuck them in a light socket...meantime sister grey hair continues to pray in tongues as she clenches my shoulders....brother Tom is on a "Holy Ghost sprint" shouting at all things "evil" and running sprints around my chair, I finally open my eyes to see "mumble man, Mark and all involved standing around us, hands in the air praying away in tongues...I'm sweating like a street walker in a confessional..when once again I have that odd...other worldly feeling....a feeling that something was happening inside of me that had it's origin...in heaven.....the "inside-outside" feeling....just like my first night at Granny's....so I'm sitting there sweating like a snowbird in summer....and I begin to feel....this sense....like some power outside me is twisting my tongue.....freaky....shaping my tongue to form odd words.....forming.....forming shaping....prompting......as the meeting continues to build...sister praying....brother Tom sprinting.....Mark,mumble man and all involved in worship.....shouting.....finally I open my mouth......let go and .......POW!!.....I BEGIN TO SPEAK IN TONGUES....NO MUMBLING.....BUT A WELL DEVELOPED ARTICULATE LANGUAGE...I WAS TALKING HEAVENLY TRASH!!!!!!!!....from rebel without a cause I became a Holy Roller ready to Rock!!!.......I got up the next day ,it was a sunny snowy day.....as I walked to church... I was smoking a cigarette. The Spirit spoke very clearly to me and said...."You can quit that" and God completely delivered me from that addiction.....and for the next 10 years I never had a problem with smoking......HOLY GHOST FIRE!.....God was bringing me from an AIN'T to a SAINT from a SINNER to a WINNER and all in short order!