About two years ago, a Northfield, Minnesota, man named Fred Herzog had a vision that made him weep for hours each day for weeks on end. “Jesus came to me and said, ‘You are crying out to the souls of people in South Minneapolis,’” he said. “When I discovered South Minneapolis, it was narrowed to Uptown. I saw young people in chains, hands in chains, legs in chains. And I heard these words: ‘These people are in the devil’s chain gang. Pray for them so they can be set free.’”
For two years, Herzog conducted services in an Uptown-area living room. But today, thanks to a growing assembly of worshipers, his church has been blessed with a permanent home in the sub-basement of a strip mall. The congregation calls itself the Uptown Fellowship, and the name fits. It is made up of a few dozen ragtag members. One recent Sunday night, I noticed a tattooed and pierced schoolteacher, an African-American man in a Nike jumpsuit, a homecoming queen from my hometown (she was a year ahead of me), and a mop-haired guitarist who fronts the church band. (This last congregant I thought quite attractive, until he shared his thoughts on the importance of freeing ourselves from lust. Busted!)
The band jammed off-key as parishioners shuffled in for the service. There were coy waves and earnest smiles. As coats were hung and diaper bags stashed under seats, personal Bibles came out. This being a special spontaneous service, however, the Bibles were soon set aside in favor of making a great noise with the house band. Parishioners jumped to their feet, clapped their hands, and swayed their hips. A middle-aged guy in the front row, wearing a Calvin and Hobbes T-shirt, shouted “Praise Jesus!”
A church elder stepped forward, and the music lulled. Then the room was filled with the odd clamor of someone worshiping in tongues. The elder closed his eyes and raised his voice. “I think there’s someone here who needs to be healed,” he said. He brought forth a parishioner whose chronic illnesses were well known to the congregation, and he beckoned others to place their hands on her shoulders. Then the keyboardist complained of knee pain and two parishioners knelt in front of her, laid their hands on her patella, and prayed. Soon the bulk of the congregation was splintered into several small huddles, each murmuring prayers. The band provided instrumental ambience. The elder now shouted to be heard: “I’m feeling that there’s someone here with neck pain! Is there someone with a digestive problem?”
As the commotion settled, John Shank opened his Bible to the book of Isaiah, as instructed by Herzog. By day, Shank is a professional animator. Here, he is a church elder and Bible-study leader. A person worshiping next to Shank would notice that he has devised an elaborate highlighting system that divides and subdivides biblical texts into blues, yellows, and oranges (only prepositions are left behind). He followed along as Herzog dissected a passage on King Hezekiah, the Old Testament king who died young as punishment for pride and bitterness. Not being burdened by traditional notions of theology, Herzog speculated that premature death is thus evidence of certain kinds of sin. “Humpf,” said Shank, closing his Bible at sermon’s end.
After the service, everyone moved to the back of the room to eat tacos, coo over babies, and make a visitor feel welcome. One of the Fellowship’s rising stars, a twenty-six-year-old fashion designer, described it as “a charismatic-type church” and admitted to tempering that definition in accordance with Uptown attitudes. She related a dream in which she was anointing the sick with oil, and she was excited to have realized that dream earlier in the evening, before the sermon. As she told her story, I began to see what binds this hip young woman with golden highlights in her hair to the congregation’s eclectic mix of tightly permed sixty-somethings and burned-out Gen Xers. It’s not so much the literalist reading of Scripture, which she and other parishioners didn’t want to discuss over dinner. Rather, it’s a taste for mysticism and a belief that Herzog provides a special link to the divine.
Even Shank, regarded as the most academic in the bunch, said he thinks Herzog is specially attuned to demonic spirits and has a gift for warding them off with prayer. After a youth spent in more traditional Christian settings—places he called “dead churches”—and dalliances with Hinduism, hatha yoga, and psychedelic drugs, he’s all too happy to be following Herzog’s flamboyant path to God. “After being in the presence of the Holy Spirit, I’d find it insulting to be in a dead church,” he said.—Christy DeSmith
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