August 18, 2006
Old Men Will Dream Dreams: This pastor doesn’t advocate hearing voices, but he happened to hear one
All pastors are crazy; I've known that since seminary. Some pastors, however, have fewer cards in their decks than others. Nick Overduin, pastor of Toronto First Christian Reformed Church, began to question his own sanity after an experience that was beyond explanation.
Overduin now believes God was in this encounter. You may believe otherwise. In either case, reading Nick's account has made me wonder - as more church leaders are rethinking the nature of ministry in a post-Christian culture, is it also time to rethink our assumptions about the supernatural, and its place in our communities?
Who wants to be known as a crazy nut-case preacher that hears voices? I don't advocate hearing voices; I just happen to have heard one.
I did not hear any strange "voices" in my first church. Nor did I feel distracted by the supernatural during my second charge, a University Chaplaincy. In my third posting I was perhaps too busy to hear any divine whisperings. My congregation had 800 members. My fourth church is conceivably the most implausible setting for a semi-mystical deviation. Many of its 120 members are certified experts, executives, or independent entrepreneurs. My wife Nandy and I have been married 25 years, and at first I didn't tell even her. I am writing the episode now partly because I believe it could be sinful to keep it to myself.
About three years ago I woke up one night very suddenly. It was as if I had been jerked from deep sleep into alert wakefulness in less than a second.
I was surrounded by a darkness that seemed thicker than usual. It felt like something or someone ominous was in the room with me.
The blackness around the bookshelves in my office where I had fallen asleep was so substantial that I could see nothing. The space was filled with a conspicuous and crushing sense of dread. My fear increased when I realized that I had been rendered immobile, as if a great weight had been placed over my entire body. I was pinned down.
I began to pray with every fiber of my being. Wouldn't almost anybody have done the same, whether they believed in God or not? Physically, the prayer required fierce resolve just to bring my hands together. I knew it was permissible to pray without folding hands, but for some reason I wanted desperately to fold my hands. I felt I would be completely destroyed if I demonstrated the nerve to pray without first taking up this humble posture.
"What's wrong, God?" I asked when my hands were finally clenched. "Are you angry about something?"
That is when I heard the voice. It was calm but deliberate and focused. It was not loud but clearly audible. I do not know if it was outside the room, inside the room, or just inside my heart. In any case, there was no mistaking what it said. It said, "THE PRAYER OF REPENTANCE."
I was frozen by apprehension, riveted to the bed. Was God angry about the Prayer of Repentance?
I am very proud of the fact that my denomination, the Christian Reformed Church of North America, in 1999 had mandated all congregations use an official Prayer of Repentance for our failure to show sufficient love to homosexual people. As a denomination, we had committed ourselves in 1973 to an official policy of "love the sinner, hate the sin," but we had not demonstrated enough resolve in showing the genuine compassion we had promised. So, in 1999 we urged all the churches to use this well-known Prayer of Repentance. The Synod did not wish to change our biblically-based denominational approach, only encourage greater focus on pastoral love. Many of our congregations in North America, alas, defiantly refused to use the resource liturgically. Now, to my surprise, it seemed that maybe God (if this was God) was not pleased with the official Prayer of Repentance either.
The prayer reads as follows:
Lord, our gracious God,
We have sinned against you.
We have not done the things we ought to have done.
We have not kept the promises we made.
Instead of trying to become a place where persons who love you
and are homosexual could find a gracious dwelling,
We confess that we have continued to build walls.
We have avoided them.
We have been cruel.
We have called names and used insulting language.
We have wished that they would just go away.
Truly, Lord, there is little health in us.
We have wronged these children of yours,
these brothers and sisters of ours,
And we repent of our sins.
We are sorry for what we have done
and for what we have left undone.
Lord, forgive us our sins through the blood of Jesus.
Dear heavenly Father, we love you.
We love you for keeping your promises,
And we want to be like you.
We want to keep our promises.
Help us, Father, to do so.
Help us to love our gay and lesbian sisters and brothers.
Help us love with words and deeds.
Strengthen our resolve to listen to their stories,
to share their pain,
to learn from others,
to walk together on life's journey.
Lord, we have questions.
We do not know everything.
Give us the grace not to act otherwise.
Give us the humility to attend to what we do know.
We do know that life is more complicated than we wish.
We do know that we need your forgiveness for the past
And your grace for the future
As we continually struggle to be the church,
Faithful to your Word,
Faithful to each other.
In Christ. Amen.
"What is wrong, God?" I prayed again. "Why are you angry about the Prayer of Repentance?"
Then the Voice came again. Not loud, but terse and deliberate: IT'S?TOO?LONG.
It is only now, three years later, that I can see some humor in this encounter. But when it happened, I truly felt I was going to die. I did not dare to relate this event to my council or church. I also did not have the courage to tell my wife or best friends.
I truly felt I was going to die. One thing I vividly recall, with genuine gratitude, is that after the voice spoke, the overwhelming terror in the room slowly dissipated. The level of darkness returned to the range that is normal for 4:00 a.m. And the heavy weight on my body receded. I was able to stop folding my hands.
I lay there wondering if this could have possibly been God. I felt that I had been spared from some kind of obliteration, but I did not have a joyful sense of contentment or relief. I had always imagined that having an actual encounter with God would be more beautiful, not something so frightening.
As a pastor in the Christian in the Reformed tradition I have always believed we should be distrustful of anything that allegedly comes from the Spirit of God if it is not based on the Bible. So I was intrigued by the verse that popped into my head while recuperating from the encounter: "When you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words." (Matthew 6:7, NIV)
Three years later I can begin to appreciate the humor in this story. The Prayer of Repentance is indeed tediously verbose. It has become quite obvious to me that the prayer is frankly pompous, arrogant, paternalistic, and long-winded. I say this without intending in any way to be mean-spirited towards my denomination, which I deeply love and cherish.
I believe, despite all my scholarly, emotional, and religious reservations, that I may have been given a message by God for the sake of others. But who wants to be known as a crazy nut-case preacher that hears voices? I don't advocate hearing voices; I just happen to have heard one.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga on August 18, 2006
Comments
I am amazed that this item has been selected to appear on a church leadership blog. If published in a newspaper it might have the headline 'Church shock! Pastor hears voice of God (maybe?)'.
Frankly, it is surprising that it has taken three years to acknowledge that perhaps 'the voice' was right. Maybe in another few years, there might be a realisation that God still speaks today and (shock horror!) he wants to prophetically direct church leaders about issues that affect them. I apologise if these observations appear harsh and certainly nothing personal is meant by them - but I am angry that a single (and unexpected!) personal experience of the supernatural is deemed worthy of debate. Unless of course, it was intended to bring the old reformed/charismatic debates out of the woodwork!
I will readily acknowledge that it is not always possible to clearly discern God's direction as a church leader. However, perhaps this particular testimony illustrates how He can catch our attention if we miss the 'divine whisperings' that should permeate our lives in ministry.
Posted by: Hugh Griffiths at August 21, 2006
Quite frankly, I'm surprised you would print this if you expect Christianity Today to still be taken seriously as a Christian publication.
Posted by: Melody at August 21, 2006
Of course, God still speaks to us today. Of course, his voice is still audible.
It doesn't matter whether we believe Nick's story. But this much is true for sure: "I had always imagined that having an actual encounter with God would be more beautiful, not something so frightening."
Too often, we use God to give credibility to our own insights. We say, "God told me such and such in my quiet time this morning." When we really mean, "I had this new thought about the Bible!"
Of course, such thoughts come from the Spirit. But we need to be careful about assuming God whispers in our ear to micro-manage our daily lives and be our personal tutor in our devotions.
And you know, I hope God did say, “IT’S…TOO…LONG.” Because that's almost funny. And I desperately want God to have a sense of irony.
Posted by: Mark Goodyear at August 21, 2006
I love this story! It just goes to show how God has no problem wrecking our theology to get His message across. And some folks DO pray too long, LOL!
Posted by: reGen at August 21, 2006
This is a fairly classic description of a well-known phenomenon called sleep paralysis. I've blogged this article here.
Posted by: Kevin Saff at August 21, 2006
Such a dramatic scene to say, 'too long.'
You'd think the voice would have at least mentioned a couple movies while he was there!
Seriously, should anyone ask the question why this pastor (maybe indicative of the church as a whole) required such an experience to make the point that used to come to most people from practical experience?
Posted by: :mic at August 21, 2006
Perhaps the real issue is that the church has been for so long "doing what comes naturally," that it doesn't know what to do with something that might be supernatural. Of course, "doing what comes naturally" has little to do with biblical Christianity, and is powerless.
Posted by: Larry Baden at August 22, 2006
Things like this tend to set off alarm bells with me. Very often encounters such as these are extensions of our own sub conscience thoughts. Having had my share of beatings by well meaning christians using the leading punch, I feel the Lord is telling me to tell you this, or maybe that. When in fact it is their own thoughts are being put in the mouth of God. The true test of the encounter is, how does it stack up to the Word of God.
In the event that this encounter is indeed real, we must use our discernment to sort it out. Now, I'm not trying to put words in Nick's mouth or am I trying to interpret what this experience's meaning was but, I see this experience as a more personal one, meaning? This might have not been needed to be shared. It was a personal message for Nick and Nick only. And, feelings or emotions felt during an encounter can't be trusted. They can't be trusted because of our human nature and the limitations that go hand in hand with that human nature.
My word for Nick? Shorten up the prayer! But it doesn't necessarily mean that it needs to be canon for the First Reformed Church!
Posted by: Scotty at August 22, 2006
Wow, some of us need to loosen up, LOL. I know sermons that have disappointed me more than this. One of the worse things that can happen to Xtian leaders is that we take ourselves way too seriously sometimes.
Posted by: reGen at August 22, 2006
This is definitely a case of man bites dog.
Congrats on talking to G-d, may you and him have further chit-chats about substansitive items that involve your work, your perceptions of the world, and your faith.
Moving on!
Posted by: Sheerahkahn at August 22, 2006
Did this come from Larknews.com?
Posted by: Paul at August 24, 2006
Yeah, within a few paragraphs, I started thinking of sleep paralysis and the Old Maid phenomenon. Christians really underestimate or totally want to willfully disregard the power of the subconscious and the mind we have.
We need a consummate, complete, grounded theology on the supernatural.
Misteka.
Posted by: Misteka at August 29, 2006
like someone said ,i think this was for him only and not for discussions with so many people.anyway,i also like to add that i believe God wants to have such chit-chat with us his people and not just the pastors.i mean i dont have any problem wih hearing from God.just ensure you get confirmation from Him in His word(best source of leading) before you do something stupid.and loosen up will you!
Posted by: LAWAL at August 30, 2006
So, I've no problem with this encounter. Moses & The Bush, The cleft in the rock, I bet he had to change his pants a few times . . . but bottom line is what did you DO about it?
And for all the clever doubting detractors....surely God does speak to pastors/leaders. If he doesn't we're in deep trouble.
Posted by: BobMUK at August 31, 2006
Wow. That story is amazing. God can do, move and speak however He chooses - even audibly at 4am. May we never put Him in a box. Thanks for sharing such a personal encounter.
Posted by: Greg Atkinson at September 5, 2006
It always intrigues me when people are surprised that God speaks to people. After all, the Bible (both OT and NT) is full of it, as is church history. It was such a relief when half-way through my Christian experience I eventually found out that prayer was indeed a conversation, not a monologue - such a relief that we now teach hundreds of people to hear God's voice for themselves - check out listening2god.com for example.
Go for it Nick - it's great to get real with God!
Posted by: Malcolm Dow at September 6, 2006
The first thought that came to mind is 'God moves in mysterious ways'.
A second thought, could it have been an encounter with 'the powers of darkness'. Certainly the devil is not pleased when Christians pray for forgiveness.
Posted by: Lori at September 11, 2006
These experiences are way more common than generally thought. I've had a couple, many of my friends have had a couple.. thankfully, the terror part is unusual. And then, of course, there are dreams. Job 33:13-18
Indeed, God speaks once,
Or twice, and no one notices.
in a dream, a vision of the night,
When sound sleep falls on men,
While they slumber in their beds,
Then he opens the ears of men..
Posted by: len at September 13, 2006
oi, if that's how God feels about your Prayer of Repentence - can u imagine how he feels about this: http://www.united-church.ca/ucc/songfaith/pdf/sof_en.pdf - it's not a joke, some folk in my church really wrote this thing.
Posted by: theoldbill at September 14, 2006