My religious background is a little bit unusual. My grandparents are second generation Finnish immigrants and their Finnish heritage was/is a huge part of their identity. They spoke both English and Finnish, the latter especially when they didn’t want us kids to hear what they were saying. Hearing the Finnish language spoken warms my heart to this day.
I spent a lot of time at my grandparents house when I was a kid. Going up north to visit gramma and grampa always brought joy to my heart. I felt completely loved by them, and I have many fond memories of them.
Since my dad wasn’t very religious or spiritual and my mom was, we would go to the church that she grew up in when we were visiting up north. This church was the Finnish Apostolic Lutheran Church, which happened to be the only church that knew the “truth” and who’s people would be in heaven, or so they taught and believed.
The ministers were itinerant, lay ministers, who had no training. There was no seminary, no theology classes, nothing like that. Just the inspired word of God to guide them.
Church was one weekend a month. The ministers traveled to the various congregations across northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. The sermons were long, two hour affairs. The first hour was spoken in Finn, a language that I didn’t speak, and the next half in English. The songs were sung in Finn and English. It was torture for a kid to sit through. At the end of the sermon and songs, a little old man would stand and say, in a heavy Finnish accent, “everybody for lunch.” There was a kitchen and dining area attached to the church and the church ladies would always have a pot luck style meal after services.
The songs were very melancholy and dirge-like, but one could sense a certain spiritual quality about them. I actually enjoyed the singing, there were no instruments to accompany, no choir, just the congregation and 3 or 4 little old men who lead the congregation in song at the proper times. They sat near the altar, off to the side of the pulpit, where the ministers preached while seated. My grampa was often among the men who lead the songs and often fell asleep, much to the delight of me and my sisters.
Every once in awhile as we sang, a little old lady would stand up and dance in the aisle. I remember asking my mom what that was all about and she would smile and say, “she’s rejoicing” with tears in her eyes. I remember feeling awed by the purity and humility that I sensed in those who rejoiced.
I do recall hearing sermons in English railing and ranting against “those Catholics” who were idol worshipers. The sermons were often angry and full of judgments, at least those sermons in English that I remember. There were also a long list of don’ts that a person of that religion must adhere to. No dancing, card games, gambling, drinking, etc, etc.
I was confirmed into that religion, along with my sister and cousin the summer of 1976. I always question whether or not I was actually confirmed because I fainted as we were reciting our vows. This was very embarrassing.
I never really thought that heaven was filled only with the Finnish Apostolic Lutherans, nor did I think that Catholics were condemned to hell. Hearing the ministers rants about Catholicism did pique my interest in those idol worshipers, though. 
I did not attend church regularly, and I did not embrace they’re message or the gospel that they preached. I couldn’t believe that God would be so narrow minded as that.
I was a teenager during the satanic rock music movement of the Church (in general, not the apostolic one). Where so called experts of occult would play records backwards to hear Satan’s evil message that unsuspecting listeners would hear subliminally and therefore become indoctrinated into Satanism.
I happened to really like that music, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, you name it, they played it backwards and found Satan speaking to the masses. Oy.
I was not involved in church at all for quite a long time. Then I became “born again” and involved with a Charismatic, fundamentalist, non-denominational church.
This experience was more damaging to my spirituality than belonging to the Finnish Apostolic Lutheran Church. At least I could sense that their teachings were over the top and bigoted. I was able to take what I felt fed my spirit and leave the rest. Not so with the charismatic church that I became entangled with years later.
I felt the call of the spirit while watching Mother Angelica on EWTN about 20 years ago. I had always felt nagging guilt about my sins, never feeling completely forgiven. Mother Angelica somehow told the gospel message in a way that I understood and for the first time I felt forgiven. I also heard the message that God is the answer.
I had a lot of problems and boy was I in need of an answer. I felt for the first time a sense of peace and lightness, a sense of hope.
I discovered the music of John Michael Talbot about this time. I’ve played guitar since I was a kid, and I played classical guitar and finger style guitar, so JMT’s music and style really spoke to my spirit. I found his guitar music and would play for hours on end. I felt connected to something greater than myself while playing music. It fed my soul.
It’s a bit surprising that I ended up attending a fundamentalist, charismatic Protestant church, given how I discovered salvation and the gospel…but this is the path I took.
I had been reading the Bible and worshipping in my own way for many months before I attended church. So I had my own interpretations of Bible verses and parables. When I began attending church and Bible study, I soon discovered that the God who spoke through the people of that church didn’t like my interpretations, my worship, even down to the key signature of songs that I played. Where I might interpret Bible verses in the context of the whole story or gospel message, the leaders interpreted verses literally, period. There were no metaphors in the Bible.
But when I went to church, all these wonderful things were happening, people who spoke in tongues, interpreted those tongues, people being slain in the spirit, people singing in the spirit, words of wisdom and knowledge being given. I was convinced that God was in this church and that I was in the wrong.
So I prayed to be given these gifts of tongues, and it didn’t happen. The people who went to church spoke in a way that felt completely unnatural to me, using words and phrases that felt foreign to me, like “God blessed me by…., praise the Lord….other slogans that I just couldn’t use because I don’t talk like that. I don’t speak “Christian-ese.”
I never felt acceptance or belonging at that church. I joined the worship team, thinking that if I used the gifts that God had given me it would please Him.
Church got more and more over the top as new waves of revival ministers would come to preach. Soon revival meetings were the norm, and people came out of the wood work to church, manifesting the Holy Spirit in strange ways, writhing around, repetitive movements of their arms, dancing back and forth, walking around like chickens, bobbing their bodies like a chicken, laughing uncontrollably, multiple altar calls where people dropped like flies, it was chaos.
One man made repeated karate chop movements. One man moved his neck in a manner that reminded me of a turtle. Another woman would sit in her seat, bent over with her arms bent at a 90 degree angle while moving them up and down repetitively, hands up to her face and down to her lap, getting herself all revved up in the spirit.
To make a very long story short, I left that church, crashed into a deep, dark depression and soon swore off God, spirituality, Jesus and anything christian. I was very angry with the church and the false gospel they preached and in the God that I was lead to believe in.
