Blessed Are the Performers

THE FIRST THING I EVER LEARNED ABOUT GOD WAS THAT HE LIKED MONEY—especially when you gave Him all of it.

My parents tithed eighty percent of their income when I was born. Not a typo. Eight-zero. They lived off scraps and called it sowing seed. We were God’s favorite people—charismatic, holy, broken and poor. We gave everything to the church: money, time, our living room for small group, even our broken vacuum to the Single Moms Ministry. 

I never learned to write a check—but I could fill out a prayer card with perfect cursive and three scriptures. I wasn’t taught algebra, but I knew all the names of the demons that could possess you if you listened to secular music. By twelve, I could rebuke a fever in tongues but couldn’t locate China on a map. 

By third grade, my parents pulled me out of private school to homeschool me. I recited scripture and memorized the Pledge of Allegiance like it was doctrine, while other kids learned multiplication tables. While they were being taught classroom rules, I was memorizing the twelve tribes of Israel and how to cast out a spirit of rebellion.

I was told I was set apart. But I have spent every year since wondering why it felt so much like being left behind.

MY EARLIEST MEMORIES OF CHURCH WERE OF THE MIRACLE CENTRE—a charismatic, Word-of-Faith church—part revival tent, part Amway seminar, where speaking in tongues was expected and poverty was rebuked like the devil himself. The cathedral hush of normal sanctuaries is built for confession and organ chords. The Miracle Centre was built for sweat. Hardwood floors still scuffed from basketball games, gym bleachers that smelled like old sweat, and a preacher shouting down the fire of Pentecost while pacing from half court. It wasn’t a traditional church—it was the gymnasium of Jefferson Elementary in South St. Paul.

My mother chose this church because of the name—Miracle. We needed one. She said it out loud, like it was obvious: “We need to be where miracles happen.” So we showed up week after week, expecting the supernatural under fluorescent lights and a broken scoreboard. 

We were part of the Kingdom economics movement, Pentecostal prosperity gospel with a Midwestern zip code—name it and claim it, blab it and grab it. God wanted you healed. God wanted you whole. God wanted you blessed. And God wanted your money. If you weren’t any of those things, the problem wasn’t God. It was you. 

We didn’t sit in pews—we sat on cold folding chairs that left metal ridges in the backs of our thighs. The sermons echoed off cinderblock walls and the backboard of the basketball hoop. No stained-glass saints—just a banner that read WILDCATS 1991 REGION CHAMPS and the bone-deep belief that revival could break out at any moment, even here, even now. Even in 1991. 

Pastor Tom preached from half-court behind a collapsible podium that wobbled every time he pounded his fist about Jezebel spirits or the anointing oil of obedience. He had a thick Midwestern accent, the kind that made “glory” sound like “glorrr-eee,” and when he got worked up, the mic would cut out mid-syllable. He didn’t read sermons—he roared them—performed them. The man could yell healing into a gym sock. His wife, Pastor Marilyn, led worship in heels so high they clicked like a metronome across the hardwood. She wore rhinestone brooches shaped like doves, and shoulder pads stiff with conviction. Her hair reached for heaven faster than her hands did. 

Services were loud. Unapologetically so. A live band played with fervor—drums, bass, tambourine—all driving the congregation into a red-faced, hand-raising frenzy. The worship leader, channeling Karen Wheaton, sang with melismatic, weepy vocals soaked in Southern revival. Songs stretched on for 8 to 12 minutes, and choruses repeated until someone fainted or expelled a demon. There was always one woman who burst into tears the moment the second song started—like clockwork. It didn't matter what it was. Usually “Awesome God” or “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High.”

And both, naturally, had choreography. Not the dancing kind—God forbid—but the sign language kind. Reverent. Off-beat. Deeply sincere. We called it worship, but it was more like mime school for the saved.

To “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High”, we moved like holy marionettes—slow, deliberate gestures choreographed somewhere between American Sign Language and interpretive dance. "Lord, I lift Your name on high” meant raising both hands to heaven like you were surrendering to a divine traffic cop. "Lord, I love to sing Your praises” was a soft jazz-hands flourish near your chest. "I’m so glad You’re in my life” required an earnest hand-to-heart motion, eyes closed, head slightly tilted like a Precious Moments figurine. "You came from heaven to earth” meant pointing upward, then downward—always slowly, like God might miss it if you were too quick.

“Awesome God” had its own set of moves: "Our God is an awesome God” meant pounding a closed fist into your palm like a miniature battle cry. “He reigns from heaven above” had you raising your hands with trembling jazz fingers, then slowly raining them down like the Spirit descending—or the itsy bitsy spider crawling back to church. We didn’t always know what the signs meant, but we knew how to feel them. That was the point.

We did the whole thing in unison, off-beat, and with a kind of strained sincerity that only a church gymnasium full of tambourine moms and juice-stained children could muster. Nobody knew if the signs were accurate. That wasn’t the point. We weren’t performing for accuracy. We were performing for God. 

People didn’t just worship—they collapsed. One touch from Pastor Tom and they dropped like shot deer, sprawled across the floor in denim skirts and windbreakers, “slain in the Spirit.” as they called it. Crying was a group sport—snotty, guttural, sometimes competitive. You could hear it start with a single sniffle, then ripple outward like a contagious moan. My parents didn’t start the weeping, but once the dam broke—usually by the second song—they were never far behind, eyes clenched, hands lifted, crying like it had been waiting all week.

Holy laughter broke out in waves—fits of uncontrollable giggling that rose from the pews like secondhand smoke, thick and hard to ignore. Grown men shook with it. Women howled. I watched from the corners, wide-eyed and unsure whether I was witnessing joy or madness.

People ran laps around the sanctuary, arms raised, eyes shut, sometimes barefoot, like they were sprinting toward the rapture itself. 

Next came the shofar blasts. There was always one. Usually a man with a long ponytail, a leather vest, and a deep affinity for Leviticus. He’d pull out a duffel bag full of spiritual props. Right before the fourth chorus of Blow the Trumpet in Zion, he’d stand up, walk to the front like it was a military assignment, and pull out the shofar.

Not a metaphorical trumpet. A literal, curved ram’s horn, imported from Israel or bought at a Northwestern Book Store for $89.99, depending on who you asked. He’d hold it up like Moses parting the gymnasium and blast a note that sounded less like victory and more like a dying goose. The crowd erupted. People wailed. Someone inevitably shouted, “Sound the alarm in Zion!” and fell to their knees.  All of them were convinced this was The Sound of Heaven.

I once asked my mom what it meant. She said, “It breaks spiritual strongholds.” I nodded like I understood. I didn’t. I was five. 

When the shofar rang out, the march followed like instinct. They called it circling the walls of Jericho, as if whatever we were trapped in—grief, addiction, fear—might come crashing down if we just kept moving. It wasn’t a dance. It wasn’t even coordinated. It was a slow, determined procession of believers walking in laps like they were holding the church together with every footstep.

But other times—especially when the Spirit really hit—it turned into what I delicately called the Holy Ghost Conga Line. People placed their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them and began to skip-march around the sanctuary, their outer legs kicking out in near-synchronized bursts like they were auditioning for the Spirit-filled Rockettes. It wasn’t graceful, but it was committed. 

Men in pleated slacks and double-breasted suits from JCPenney’s finest Easter rack. Women wore dresses with peplum ruffles, silky blouses tucked into elastic waistbands, and pantyhose that creaked when they knelt to pray—heels clicking across the gym floor like countdowns to the altar call. They circled the sanctuary like they meant it—sweating, shouting, sometimes crying as they passed the basketball hoop and altar.

One Sunday, I got to lead the line. Put me in, Coach. I marched like I was leading Israel out of Egypt, legs high, head up, arms locked with strangers who smelled like Aquanet and Altoids. My parents beamed. My grandparents teared up. It was the proudest they’d ever looked at me—like I’d finally learned to carry the anointing like it was mine.

After the march came the money. As worship was winding down—but never truly ending—Pastor Tom would step back up to the mic, sweat gleaming at his temples, Bible still open, voice already rising. That’s when the tithing buckets came out—shallow, velvet-lined things passed row by row like sacred collection plates at a Vegas revue. 

Giving wasn’t quiet. It was loud. Prophetic. Sometimes accompanied by fire-and-brimstone threats about robbing God, other times a soft-spoken testimony from Sister Bev about how she tithed her last twenty and found a check in her mailbox. 

All of it underscored by the keyboard player—looping the same two-chord chorus like a holy lullaby—while the music ministry leader ad-libbed spiritual punchlines between deposits: “He gives seed to the sower!” or “Pressed down, shaken together—my cup runneth over”

My parents always tithed. Always. One of them—usually my mother—would pull out the checkbook and start filling it out as the Jericho march was ending. And they always handed me a dollar bill to tithe too—folded crisp, pressed into my palm like something sacred. I never questioned it. I just dropped it into the bucket like it was the price of entry. Like it was part of the worship. Like it was how you proved you belonged.

Then came the sermon.

By the time Pastor Tom opened his Bible for the official message, most of the congregation was already emotionally wrung out—tear-streaked, mascara-smeared, still breathing heavy from the Jericho March. But he didn’t ease in. He came out swinging. 

Part prophecy, part performance, part sales pitch for a life God might give you if you played your cards right. Pastor Tom—who looked like Ronald McDonald without the makeup, with a sunburned scalp and a constellation of freckles across his cheeks—quoted Malachi 3:10 almost weekly—“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse… and prove me now herewith… if I will not open the windows of heaven.” 

I remember picturing actual windows opening in the sky, like in cartoons, and money falling out.

Pastor Tom didn’t just quote the Bible—he leveraged it. Poverty was framed as either a test or a personal failing. There was no room for doubt, only for giving. Your tithe was your application. Your offering was your résumé. Faith was currency, and heaven was watching the books.

But the blessings never seemed to come down for us. My parents tithed faithfully, served without pay, cried at every altar call—and still came home to overdraft fees and overdue bills. But Pastor Tom said God gave seed to the sower (2 Corinthians 9:10), and we were sowers. So we stayed, we sowed, and we waited for a mustard seed.

Then came the altar call—but Pastor Tom didn’t deliver it. He handed the mic to his wife, Pastor Marilyn, like he always did when he wanted tears instead of thunder.

She was the closer.

She stepped forward in heels that had survived three hours of worship, her voice soft but steady, trembling like the Holy Spirit was sitting in her throat. “Some of you are still holding back,” she’d say, her southern twang curling around the words as she scanned the congregation like she could see straight into your secrets. “God told me someone here needs a breakthrough. Don’t miss your moment.”

That’s all it took.

People surged to the front. Hands lifted. Bodies trembling. Some dropped to their knees before she even touched them. She never shouted. She didn’t have to. She’d just close her eyes, lift her hand, and murmur, “More, Lord. More.” And people crumpled.

Even the kids went up—not because they understood, but because her voice made it feel like God might cry if you didn’t come forward. I went up multiple times, almost like communion—just in case the first prayer to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior had fallen on deaf ears. Or if God had been busy that day.

Then came the victory chant.

“No weapon formed against you shall prosper!”
“The devil is a liar!”
“We are taking back what the enemy stole!”

“I am who God says I am!”

“I am blessed in the city and blessed in the field!”

It didn’t matter who the enemy was—debt, depression, your ex, the car that wouldn’t start that morning. The enemy was real, and we were armed. Pastor Tom called it “prophetic declaration.” It was a kind of holy self-talk. A room full of people reminding themselves they weren’t failures, weren’t forgotten, weren’t poor in spirit even if they were just… poor. This was the pep rally after the altar. The holy rebranding. The script we were given to read until we believed our own voice.

And then someone would start screaming.

Not a shout. Not a hallelujah. A guttural, from-the-belly scream, like something was being torn out. Heads turned. Ushers moved fast—two or three of them, always men, always serious—circling whoever had buckled under the weight of what they called a demonic manifestation.

You could hear someone speaking in tongues under their breath. Another yelling, “You have no authority here!”, “By the blood of Jesus!”, or “Come out in Jesus’ name!” while the others circled, hands raised, waiting for the Spirit—or the demon—to flinch. If it got really bad, someone fetched the modesty blanket—a soft, floral shroud we draped over those who’d collapsed or started convulsing, as if deliverance required covering.

Sometimes the person screamed. Sometimes they moaned. Once, a man let out a sound I’d never heard come from a human throat—like a dog dying in a dream. No one panicked. No one explained.

They called it deliverance. I didn’t know what it was. Only that it scared me. And that whatever it was, it lived inside people who looked just like us.

And then came the tongues.

Soft at first—just a trickle, like wind rustling through the sanctuary. Then louder. Then layered. Voices overlapping in syllables no one had taught us, each one claiming to be from heaven. Some whispered. Some shouted. A few swayed like they were caught in an invisible tide.

No one translated. No one needed to. This was the language of the Spirit. You either had it or you didn’t.

The service never officially ended after that. People stayed in their seats, or fell to the floor, or wandered around praying under their breath, trying to catch the fire like it was something contagious. Sometimes it died out on its own. Sometimes they had to dim the lights to get people to leave.

I could already speak in tongues by then—or at least, I knew how to sound like I could. I was five. And already, I’d learned the difference between feeling something and faking it well enough no one could tell. That’s how early the pretending started.

Family altar call, sometime in the early 90s.
My mom in her mustard-yellow dress, clutching my baby brother like a psalm. My dad beside her in a red tie and borrowed certainty. My grandparents standing behind us—Grandma sheltering me under her wing like a sparrow that hadn’t quite landed. And Pastor Tom Justus at the end, mid-prayer, mid-performance, mid-something sacred. We were all being blessed. Or broken open. Maybe both.

THE FIRST TIME I LEARNED ABOUT SPEAKING IN TONGUES WASN’T ON A SUNDAY morning. It was a Tuesday night. Not in a pew, but in a folding chair beneath a basketball hoop. We’d been invited to a small group meeting at the Miracle Centre—a rite of passage to receive the Holy Spirit, to be baptized in fire, to speak what I would later call the Jesus Language.

The Jesus Language was composed of special words you could only say if God or The Holy Spirit lived inside you. Like a code. A hotline. A secret spiritual alphabet. I was four years old. The only child in the circle. Dragged along one Tuesday night by my pregnant mother–her dress pulled taut over a belly round and hard, like the basketballs we weren’t allowed to touch during prayer.

My feet didn’t touch the floor yet, so I swung them, even though I knew I wasn’t supposed to. The backboard loomed overhead like the glassy, bored eye of God. Watching.

My mother sat to my right. She smelled like Red Door perfume—floral, powdery, and sharp. That smell always meant she was trying. That she was dressed up. That tonight mattered. She closed her eyes and lifted her palms like she was already halfway to Heaven. Then the group began.

“CORABASUNDINA SUNDINA SUNDINA. SUNDINA. Oh shushushushushushushu. CORABASUNDINA SUNDINA SUNDINA. SUNDINA. OH SHUSHUSHUSHUSHUSHU.” 

That’s what speaking in tongues sounded like. To me, anyway. Like everyone had swallowed a tape recorder and hit rewind. Like bees in a box fan. Like someone dropped Scrabble tiles in a blender and called it divine.

I squeezed my eyelids shut like everyone else. Squeezed tight. Tried to listen. Tried to concentrate. Tried to empty myself so God could fill me. But I couldn’t really hear God. Even when I clenched my eyes closed so hard my lashes shook, all I could think about was blood. Jesus’ blood. And mine. Mine, from the scab on my left knee where I fell on the concrete stairs outside our duplex two days ago. I picked it too early. It was crusty and raw and stuck to the inside of my light pink tights. Jesus’ blood was supposed to wash me white as snow. Mine just itched.

I shifted in my seat. The cold metal bit into my thighs. My belly growled louder than my voice. Louder than God. What was Mom making for dinner? My thoughts drifted. If I opened my eyes just a little, could God still hear me? Why did Sister Carla’s breath smell like pickles and mints? If I said the same sounds as Mom, would we go to Heaven together?

I tried to sit still. I really did. But forty-five minutes is a long time for a four-year-old to be holy. I traced circles on my thighs with my pointer finger, slow and secret, like I was writing prayers no one could see. I tapped my heels against the metal chair legs until the woman next to me gently pressed her hand on my knee. I mouthed the sounds my mother made, one beat behind, careful not to be too loud or too weird. I counted ceiling tiles. Imagined clouds on the gymnasium floor. I prayed for dinner. Then for my stuffed rabbit. Then for God to make my little brother stop kicking. 

I tried to make my hands do what everyone else’s were doing—palms up, like I was holding something I couldn’t see. Sometimes I peeked. Just to check if my fingers were in the right position for a miracle.

I wanted to be obedient. I wanted God to pick me. But my tights were itchy, and the metal chair was cold, and the Jesus Language kept buzzing like a bee I wasn’t sure would sting or save me. 

Someone near the front let out a sharp bark of a syllable, and a string of spit arched from their mouth and caught the volleyball net behind us. I watched it land on the floor. No one flinched. No one wiped it up. No one was peeking to see besides me.

The sound of the group swelled again—babble on top of babble, like a hundred cassette tapes all playing backward at once. I tried to match the rhythm, to mimic the cadence, to parrot the sounds. “CORABASUNDINA. SUNDINA. SUNDINA. Ohshushushushushushu.”

I opened my mouth. I didn’t know what would come out. At first, nothing. Just breath. Then something soft. Garbled. An accident of syllables.

“Shundara.”

My mother’s eyes stayed closed. She didn’t even look at me. But she smiled. Just slightly.

So I said it again. And again. And again. Until it stopped feeling strange. Until it sounded real.

They didn’t clap. They didn’t lay hands on me or call down fire. But someone said “Thank you, Jesus” under their breath, and the circle kept spinning, and I kept going.

Then came the closing prayer. The man leading the group stood while the rest of us remained seated in the circle. He held a soft leather Bible in his right hand and began speaking over the murmur, his voice calm and steady: “Lord, we glorify your name, Holy Father…”

His hair was auburn and coarse, tight curls that caught the light like dry grass on fire with a mustache to match. Just for a moment, he looked like something God set ablaze. Under the fluorescent lights he looked ordinary, but when the sunset slipped in through the windows and caught his profile, he turned gold. Like a burning bush that didn’t consume itself.

The rest of the voices quieted, trailing off into murmurs and then into silence. We were instructed to keep our eyes closed for a few more minutes of quiet prayer. Then came the second half of the ritual: show and tell. One by one, the circle would share what the Holy Spirit had spoken to them. Like a game of telephone, but with more crying.

Sister Bev said she saw a harvest coming. Brother Don said God told him to double his tithe. The pastor’s wife, Marilyn spoke of God’s promises for a new building for their flock if they remained faithful. For some, it was a reprimand. For others, a promise. But for me? It was nothing.

The chanting, the groaning, the holy babbling—it was supposed to give me a direct line to God. A one-on-one hotline. But I wasn’t convinced I’d done it right. I hadn’t felt anything except itchy tights, a scab stuck to my knee, and the cold metal seat pressing into my butt. My belly had started growling louder than my voice—or God’s.

Maybe God doesn’t speak to cheaters who peek? I thought. I had peeked. A little. Just to see if anyone else looked as confused as I felt. But they didn’t. They all looked full. Overflowing. Radiant. I didn’t feel radiant. I felt hungry. I felt small. I felt like I might cry if someone asked me a question too directly.

Then it was my mother’s turn.

She smiled like something had just settled in her bones. Pressed her palms together like she was praying and holding a secret at the same time.

“I came here tonight to find answers,” she said. Her voice was low and warm, like a lullaby that believed in itself. “I came here to get clarity on what’s next for my family. Where God wants us to go, and what body of Christ He wants us to be a part of. And just now, while we were all speaking in tongues, I felt the biggest sensation of peace—like I was being called to know that where I am right now is exactly where we need to be.”

Murmurs of agreement. “Yes, Lord.”

“Amen”
And a round of  “Mmm, thank you Jesus.” 

Then—silence. All eyes on me. The cold metal chair had turned into a hot seat. My thighs were sweating. My knee throbbed. I wanted dinner. My mother wanted an answer. She looked at me with soft eyes and high expectations. Nodding gently. Her cue.

I squirmed. I tried to summon something that sounded like knowing. Then I lied.

“God told me a secret,” I said, “but He doesn’t want me to share it yet.”

A beat. No one bought it.

So I pivoted as a child trying to survive the unspoken liturgy of charismatic belonging.

“He also said… He’s proud of me. For opening the door for my mom yesterday. And for sharing my crayons in preschool…” I peeked sideways at my mother. She was smiling, before I finished, “And Shandaralaboko.”

The group of strangers erupted into clapping. I had satisfied the group. But more importantly, I had satisfied my mother.

Editor’s Note (for potential editors/publishers):

This is Chapter One of my memoir-in-progress. It’s a coming-of-age story set inside the charismatic, prosperity gospel movement of the 1990s—told through the eyes of a little girl learning to perform faith before she could fully spell it.

This story doesn’t stay in the church. It follows what happens when faith becomes performance, and what gets buried underneath the hallelujahs. It’s about spiritual survival, falling away from God, and the quiet unraveling that followed—my mother’s suicide, the trauma that followed, and how my body kept the score. I was diagnosed with stage 3 rectal cancer years later, and I don’t think it was a coincidence.

This is about grief. And performance. And what happens when the performance stops.

If you’re an editor, agent, or publisher looking for raw, literary memoir that sits somewhere between the holy and the profane—I’d love to talk.

The tights were real. The tongues were fluent. The pain didn’t leave—it migrated.

A blog post by Rachel Smak on grief, loss, and lessons from stage 3C rectal cancer