In 2011, I found myself in the sweltering August heat of Phoenix, AZ for the Assemblies of God’s General Council. The Council is held every two years to hold elections and business sessions, and, most importantly, to reestablish missional alignment for the denomination. I was a youth pastor and student at Yale Divinity at the time and was attending the Council for my very first time as an ordinand. The opening evening of the event featured a fellow youth pastor of a well-known megachurch who preached a lively sermon, full of conviction. As Pentecostals say, it was “on fire”—a poetic parallel to the August heat that contrasted with the cool of the arena. But it wasn’t the tone with which he preached that struck me. Rather, it was the familiar topic. Jesus was coming back soon, he said. We needed to be ready.
I grew up in the Assemblies of God, where eschatological expectation was the bedrock of the spiritual life. As a child it struck me with terror. I was afraid of being “left behind” …