Saturday mornings
when I was a kid were awesome - several hours of cartoons followed by the
pinnacle of the morning's entertainment: NWA Championship Wrestling (which, if
memory serves, came on at 11:00). At the
time, the Cold War was still a big deal, so of course pro wrestling got in on
the action with Ivan Koloff and his nephew* - a beast of a man named Nikita
Koloff**. In the mid to late 80's, Nikita
was one of the top heels in the NWA and was really intimidating. Over the next few years (coinciding with the
collapse of the Soviet Union), Nikita would switch back and forth between heel
and face until his retirement from wrestling in 1992 following an injury. Shortly after his retirement, Nikita became a
Christian and became active in several Charlotte-area ministries, typically of the
Pentecostal/Church of God varieties.
On a Sunday morning
in November of 1992, I had an experience of God that changed my life. The reverberations of that experience are
still being felt in big and small ways in my life and a lot about who I am
today can be traced back to that moment.
There were no tears, I didn't run to the altar, I actually didn't say
anything. But something 'clicked' in my
head and my heart - I began to take my faith very seriously. As we used to say in youth group, from that
moment on, I was "on fire" for God.
I began trying to learn as much as I could about being a Christian,
digging into the Scripture and making numerous trips to the Christian book
store in Kannapolis. Over time, I became
really interested in the role of the Holy Spirit, which was not necessarily a
huge topic of discussion in my church.
In the spring of 1995 (20 years ago!), I heard some friends at school
talking about an awesome revival that was happening at West A Church of
God. Having attended a couple of Church
of God services with a friend back in elementary school, I knew it was likely
to be a little bit more energetic than worship at my church, so me and a friend
decided to check it out.
The first night, we
stayed in the balcony as the preacher poured his heart out in a display of
high-energy preaching (his being blind and British made the whole affair fairly
exotic for us Enochville kids). My friend
and I looked around, a little bit freaked out by the hand raising and shouting,
along with the snippets we could hear of people speaking in tongues. This was definitely not my calm, laid-back United
Methodist Church. We came back the
second night, bringing a few more friends with us. After the sermon on this night, I decided to
make my way to the altar to pray. I had already seen a number of people
"slain" in the Spirit - the preacher would place his hand on their
head, say a prayer, and they would fall down.
I was a fired up Christian, to be sure, but I was skeptical, thinking that there
was no way this was going to happen to me.
I expected to be prayed over and then I would make my way back to my
seat.
I stood in a row
with other expectant people - most of them other kids I went to school
with. The preacher prayed over all of
us. Some people fell down, some cried,
some stood still and quietly walked away after being prayed over. The preacher came to me and laid his hand on
my head and began praying. I can't
really explain what happened, but suddenly I couldn't really feel my legs. The next thing I remember I was looking up at
the faces of the ushers who were tasked with helping people who "fell
out". The first face I saw clearly
was, no kidding, Nikita Koloff. I can't
explain how truly odd this moment was. A
life-long Methodist with no experience in this kind of worship being "slain
in the Spirit" and then being helped to his feet by the Russian Nightmare! He was serving as an usher for this revival and was one of those helping people back up on their feet, which made sense given how big the guy still was.
That revival was the
last time I attended at charismatic/Church of God worship service - not because
I'm opposed to charismatic worship.
It's just not my preferred style of worship. But that evening (along with a couple of
other odd incidents during that revival) taught me a couple of things. One, the Spirit is real and powerful and is
not contained in any one style nor limited to our experience or understanding. Two, God works in weird ways and through
weird people sometimes. Like me or you
or Nikita Koloff...
*Not really his nephew.
**Not really his name, which was actually Scott Simpson, until he legally changed it to Nikita Koloff. That's dedication, right there...
**Not really his name, which was actually Scott Simpson, until he legally changed it to Nikita Koloff. That's dedication, right there...
