Every Church in Town

Download or read book Every Church in Town written by Jessamyn Luong and published by BLACK OAK MEDIA INC. This book was released on 2011-09 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "When I heard my name called, I found myself bent over at the waist, shaking and jerking. I walked to the front of the church bent over like that, and people gathered around me to pray. One of the church secretaries had a handheld tape recorder, held up in the air to capture the prayers."Every Church in Town chronicles the spiritual journey of an average Middle American teenage girl growing up in a community infused with religious fervor. Set in the early to mid-1990s, this young woman has a spiritual awakening in a charismatic church surrounded by glossolalia, holy laughter, youth groups, and Christian heavy metal. She plays in her high school marching band during the school year and attends Cornerstone, a Christian music festival, during the summer. While struggling to find her place in a rapidly changing world, she wrestles with many spiritual and intellectual questions, including how to hear God's voice, whether it is wrong to date a non-Christian, whether one should go to college when the end of the world is imminent, and whether every Christian is obligated to be a Republican. In a small town with a deep socioeconomic divide, where everyone who wears plaid with stripes is suspect, this young woman searches for friendship, meaning, and salvation in a world full of plastic lecterns and Kool-Aid mustaches.