Elizabeth Niederer wrote:
blackdog wrote:
What is the average Pente church? Is it a community or just a "Crack house for Jesus" where a bunch of people all go to get high on God every Sunday?? This lack of caring for others...it seems pretty common based on what I've experienced and heard concerning Pentes.

I have a few good stories about Pente people and a hell of a lot of stories of people who couldn't figure out how to give a rip to save their lives. Mr. EN found himself essentially homeless in his final duty station before his retirement from the Army, because the senior NCOs got booted out of billets to make room for younger folks. He was there "unofficially unaccompanied" anyhow, drawing his housing and related allotments as if I were there with him. I was not well enough to travel, so I stayed in NJ.

The pastor of his local (A/G) church got word of his predicament. He had Mr. EN stand up in church Wednesday night and said, "This guy is about to be sleeping in his car. Somebody needs to take him in. Spread the word to folks who aren't here and make sure our brother gets a roof over his head."

A young fellow who was absent that night got the word, called my husband, and he and his wife gave him the second floor of their house for over two years for next to nothing. They loved him like family, too.

Other people there loved on my hubby, too. That was a good place for him.

I got treated well by a few kind folks in one of my churches as well, though there were plenty of others in that congregation who were happy to treat the seminary student worker bee like crap.
  
I know a few decent Pentes, the funny thing about 'em though is you wouldn't know they were Pentes unless you asked and (in one case) know the nature of the particular Church they go to...or unless you know what to listen/look for when they're talking about religion.

It's the ones who wear their religion the way the rest of us would wear a Chicago Bulls jacket (or worse, like gang colors) that usually bother me. But then, the decent Pentes that don't act like stereotypical Pentes aren't usually (in my experience) the ones who treat people like crap either.

I didn't know any Pentes that I know of in the Air Force...but then few people that I knew, period, at that point in my life were outwardly religious. The only "religious nut" I knew in the military was a Fundamentalist Baptist, and a rather less obnoxious Baptist chaplain was directly responsible for my (adult) conversion to Christianity. I'd rather lapsed religiously by that point in my life, and a lot of the ways I was doing things just weren't working for me and I knew it. It was several years after that before I became aware of Pentecostals, although another Air Force veteran that I know had some interesting (and funny) stories about Pentecostals from his time in the service. He's a campus outreach minister now, for a non-Pente (but Fundamentalist) organization out in California.

Come to think of it, there are a few real characters I've known (mostly from when I was younger) that were just crazy enough that now I wonder if they were Pente.

      

Integrity above all
Service before self
Excellence in all we do


~United States Air Force core values.


Blackdog, Administrative Schnauzer

Last Edited By: blackdog May 23 12 5:42 AM. Edited 2 times.