When I first started going to church as a boy, I couldn’t find God there. I went to the place where He was supposed to be, and He wasn’t there. In fact, church was the place where I learned to wind my watch. That’s simply the truth. I didn’t get anything out of church as a kid.
Before they were saved, my parents took our family to a Catholic church. Every Sunday we sat there for 28 minutes. My Lord, if the priest hit 30 minutes, that was just too long.
Then Mom and Dad got saved and decided to go to a Baptist church. They went an hour! I would look over at my dad in church and say, “Dad, we’ve been in here an hour.”
“Yeah,” he would tell me, “I know.”
“Well, let’s go home,” I would say. “An hour is two services in Catholic time. Do we have to come back here next week?”
“Yeah.”
“The whole hour?” I would ask.
“Yeah.”
“But, Daddy, it’s an hour!” I would whine.
“Yeah, I know it’s long, but that’s the way it is.”
Then Dad got filled with the Holy Spirit. After that, we never got out of church! We had to go to a Pentecostal church, and they didn’t put a deadline on the length of their service.
There was one thing I could never understand about Pentecostal churches. How come they sing the same song over and over and over? They take a chorus and just beat it up. They sing that thing until you can’t even remember what song it was.
It’s all just chorus – over and over and over. I would wait for them to change the words. I would think, Man, when are they going to change this song? Pentecostals can sing a chorus 15 and sometimes 20 times.
For example, one time they started singing “I’ve got a feeling everything’s going to be all right.” That’s the chorus: “I’ve got a feeling everything’s going to be all right.” Amen. Thirty minutes later, “I’ve got a feeling….” I looked at my oldest brother and said, “I’ve got a feeling that’s all they know.”
So we started making jokes. We would start singing, “I’ve got a feeling they should learn some other songs. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be old and gray by the time this song’s over.” We couldn’t figure out some of them, you know. They were alien to us.
They’d just sing, and pretty soon some of them would start dancing. We were lost when they started dancing. We didn’t know what to do. And I can tell you, people who go to a bar or nightclub know how to dance better than most Pentecostals!
If you’re in a club, you know how to move. But you can’t do it that way in church. You take a person who can dance in a club, put him in church and he’s lost. All he can do in church is just stomp around a little bit. Stomp, stomp, stomp. They call that dancing in church.
They can’t dance in most churches, but if you go to a black church, for example, man, they can move! They move like a glorified James Brown. We like the black churches better, because they’re moving. The white people are still trying to get the beat. Stomp, stomp, stomp. White people are out there stomping, saying, “Catch me, catch me, I’m going out.” Isn’t that the truth?
All of this kidding aside – how many times have you gone home from a great service and found yourself still hungry for more of God? Why? Because you’ve been dieting on spiritual fasts for so many years that one service is not enough to quench the hunger and thirst in your heart. In fact, I don’t think we’ll ever be quenched within God’s presence. We should always want more.
If you find yourself hungry for more of the Lord, then get into His presence. Get greedy for God. Begin to fellowship with Him until you’re flowing with Him. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matt. 5:6 RSV). If you need more of the Lord, try drinking from the cup of the Lord’s covenant instead of from religious cups. It will fill you up.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers
Jesse Duplantis, minister of the Gospel, motivational speaker, television personality, and best-selling author, has been in full-time ministry since 1976 and is the founder of Jesse Duplantis Ministries, located in the Greater New Orleans area of south Louisiana in the United States of America. With over four decades of sharing his unique blend of humor and faith around the world, generations of believers have been inspired by his messages and countless numbers have come to know Jesus Christ as Savior through his ministry.
Known for his unflinching, status-quo-breaking messages and humorous take on experiences in the life of the believer, Jesse continues to draw large audiences of believers through social media, television, and meetings held around the world. With speaking engagements booked years in advance, Jesse Duplantis continues to keep an intense traveling schedule, flying throughout the United States and the world preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. With no booking agents pursuing meetings for him and no set fees imposed upon churches for speaking engagements, Jesse chooses his outreach meetings based on the same two criteria he always has: invitations that come in and prayer over each one. This uncommon way of scheduling in today’s world means Jesse’s many followers may find him speaking in some of the largest churches and venues in America and the world, as well as a great many small and growing congregations, too. No church is too big or small for the Holy Spirit, as he says.
Side by side with his wife Cathy Duplantis, the co-founder and chief of staff of Jesse Duplantis Ministries and the senior pastor of Covenant Church in Destrehan, Louisiana, Jesse continues to fulfill his life’s calling by daily taking up the Great Commission of Jesus Christ: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). Through social media, television broadcasts, books, and other ministry products, as well as through many evangelistic meetings, the JDM website, the JDM app, and Voice of the Covenant magazine, Jesse Duplantis continues to see growth in his ministry and expand each year while maintaining his roots. Jesus is the center of his life. The salvation of lost people and the growth of believers is the purpose of his ministry. And for both he and his wife, every day is another day to “Reach People and Change Lives, One Soul at a Time.”