During the years spent at Word of Faith Fellowship (WOFF) in Spindale, NC; there were some memories around the November seminars that need to be shared. The build-up to each seminar was intense, but for some reason the November seminar was unique on many occasions. These seminars were always held the week of Thanksgiving. My memories of these times may not be in time order and/or I may confuse something from a May seminar with this time of year. But, here goes…
Can any previous or present members relate to the feeling you first get when you tell your family outside of WOFF that you will not be seeing them during Thanksgiving week? The question comes- Why? Then the answer- Well, the church is having a seminar and we really need to be there… or the church is having a week long seminar and we all need to be there…. Whatever your answer ended up being, did it feel awkward? Maybe as a new WOFF member it was real easy to tell your family that Jane said I needed to be there… or maybe you told them that you would come see them another time. Were you so sure you would be allowed to go see them another time? As best I can remember, it was awkward for me.
But, since I was so excited about learning WOFFness and hearing what would be preached, I went to my first November Seminar in 1992. The meetings were longer back then and there were three meetings a day on most days. If I remember right; the meetings were 9:00AM, 2:00PM and 6:00PM? Does that sound right? The evening meetings could last until after midnight. There was much more blasting, deliverance prayer back then. There would be teaching most meetings, followed by long prayer sessions of folks- well you know- getting devils out. It never occurred to me to wonder why so many folks would get prayer for the same thing over and over again. I never stopped to ask- “Is this stuff really working or is there something else going on here?” Those would have been the logical questions to ask.