to lay them at his feet, and give yourself over to praising Him.” Thus, the
pastor legitimated the tongues and their interpretation as a message from the
Holy Spirit.
Secondly, at the Suburban Church, where tongues were spontaneous and
discernment was public and not discerned in advance, pastors could indi-
cate acceptance of a spoken message in tongues as legitimate by encourag-
ing an interpretation when one did not immediately follow. On one such
occasion, a pastor said, “I believe that there is an interpretation out there.
These are gifts from God and they should be shared.” The congregation con-
tinued to praise until an interpretation was offered. The pastor then reiter-
ated the interpretation. Through this process the tongues spoken and their
interpretation were accepted as legitimate.
Spiritual messages were more privately discerned – in advance – at the
Urban Church. When a person wished to deliver a spiritual message to the
congregation, they had to present their message to a pastor privately for dis-
cernment. This made the process of discernment very different at this church
as the performance was not available for evaluation by the pastors. The pas-
tor discerns the spirit of the message, and the character of the person mak-
ing the request, and grants or denies permission. When discernment was
done prior to the service in this way the pastor would be ready with the
interpretation before the spiritual expressions were produced before the con-
gregation. Since this process of discernment was private, we learned about
it through interviews with pastors.
Once permission to deliver a message from the Holy Spirit was granted
in the Urban Church, the message had to be spoken through a microphone
at the front of the church at a point in time determined by a pastor. Just as
at the Suburban Church, messages were positioned at praising peaks during
worship. Not only must each speaker have prior permission to speak in this
church, but messages in tongues had to be understood by and publicly inter-
preted by their own speaker before others gave them an interpretation. Any
music that was playing was stopped, and people ceased their praising activ-
ities to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit spoken through one of His wor-
shipers. After the message was delivered, a pastor would restate the message
for the congregation. While members of the congregation may deliver tongues
and prophecy loudly from their seats in this church during collective wor-
ship, the volume of praise and song is so high that their message would prob-
ably go unheard without a microphone and the secession of music.
270 • Bonnie Wright and Anne Warfield Rawls