Whether the initial discernment is public or private – when the spiritual
expressions are spoken there still needs to be a public display of discernment
and acceptance by the pastors and other aspects of the practice, tone, mood,
content (of interpretation) timing etc., must be performed in acceptable ways.
The Appropriate “Point in the Ritual Process”
At both the Suburban and the Urban Churches appropriate expressions of
the spirit were delivered during pauses in the worship service that were des-
ignated for praise and at altar calls – times during worship when it is appro-
priate for members of the congregation to express themselves at the alter.
However “spirit filled” they are, worshipers must wait for those points to
speak in tongues.
Worship services leading up to these points were composed of call-response
interactions between religious leaders and the congregation. Leaders called
out to the congregation, and the congregation replied by repeating either the
song lines, or specific statements made by pastors. Pastors alternated peri-
ods of song and praise, building the intensity of worship sequentially until
it peaked in an expression of the Spirit (i.e., someone praising, prophesying
or speaking in tongues). At the peak of worship participation, volume and
harmonization are at their highest point. Here leaders created pauses for
praise in the call-response cycle of song and marked them as praise relevant
with statements such as “Oh Holy God. Let us give our voices up in praise
to Him.”
Both “corporate” (in the group) and “public” (individual) expressions of
the Spirit were produced during such pauses in the call-response cycle. Some
people shouted out praises, raised their hands up, cried, prayed in their native
language, or prayed in tongues. Pastors defined this as corporate praise
because no one voice was attended to as separate from the corporate body
of the congregation. Corporate praise is ironically seen as private because,
while it is collective, it edifies only the worshipper, rather than edifying the
congregation or its leadership.
After a period of corporate praise, pastors would re-initiate the call-response
cycle. As the call-response song and praise cycle is repeated throughout wor-
ship, the congregational level of participation and harmonization in song and
the level of corporate praise became heightened, with public expressions of
the spirit beginning to punctuate peaks in the worship cycle. Public expressions
Speaking in Tongues: A Dialectic of Faith and Practice • 271