Amy’s posts about her experience with the Charismatic Black Church led me to contemplate on my experience with the Denominational/Traditional black church.
Growing up in Harlem as a child of the ’40’s, the Lord protected me from the black church and from religion. Now that I have entered into deliverance counseling with tormented Christian clients, I understand why. Religiosity and the present day church has become seized demonic territory. Most of those who seek me out for deliverance were raised in church from birth. My West Indian parents sent me to Sunday school alone. As a result, I was able to play hooky every Sunday without once getting caught by my family.
I did not enter the religious system called church until I was already 2 years saved and 35 years old. It was a strange, uncomfortable world for me where I had to learn to “swim with the sharks.” I studied the songs, the mannerisms, all of the accoutrements of “churchyism.” Yet, I never really belonged because I had no church history to stand on among people who could claim several generations of a relationship with Her.. So even though I entered ministry in 1981, I remained a root in dry ground for the next 25 years, an unwanted stepchild.
When the Lord called me out in Sept. 2003, He didn’t tell me EVERYTHING. He simply warned, “Pam, you are a candle, hidden under a bed in this place. If you stay here, I can’t use you. But don’t leave on your own. Let them PUT you out!”
I had no idea what He was talking about as I had been a preacher in good standing for 24 years then and all was at peace. However, it didn’t take long. An unexpected enemy surfaced whom the Lord used to cause the leadership to remove my name from their rolls. The day before, I saw in a dream that like John the Baptist, I was being spiritually beheaded. The deed was done on June 25th, 2004 and I was pushed outside of the camp, waiting for the Lord to send me to another church within another denomination or sect.
I waited for two years and on the third year, the Lord spoke. I was setting up a road trip to several churches to train their leaders on deliverance when I was asked a question. “Pam, would you put curtains up at the windows of a condemned building?” Raised in a ghetto surrounded by boarded up buildings created quite a vivid image. I immediately answered, “No!”
Then the voice said, “Pam, training church leaders according to your plan is like putting up curtains at the windows of a condemned building.” Needless to say, I cancelled the trip. Simply put, I was told that the church was already judged but I refused to believe it. So I went on a search that evolved into a study of church history. I figured if the church was already judged, history would reveal it.
That is what the Fake Jesus and the New Idolatry is all about.
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