When I was a young boy growing up in a Baptist church, the format of our Sunday morning service was programmed and predictable. In the weekly sameness, something did take place that would occasionally interrupt the placid flow of our Sunday gathering. When it happened, it scared the waddin’ out of me. 

Just when my daydreaming was moving in high gear and while some of the good folks sitting in the wooden pews were faking being awake during the sermon, an old man would cry out in a loud and paint-peeling scream yelling “Amen!” When this happened, we all ducked like soldiers hearing the report of an incoming artillery round. It was at least a three-second vocal display of an Amen!. The old man’s Amen! was not just jolting to our senses. It rose up and down in volume like the warbling voice of an opera singer belting out a long and passionate final crescendo of a performance. 

The old man’s Amen! was meant to be an expression of his agreement with a point the pastor was making. Later, as a pastor studying the word amen, I came to understand the word can be translated to read, “I agree.” Our vocal amen is an agreement with God.

In a world where biblical truth has become subject to personal interpretation and where people are free to do whatever they consider right in their own eyes, to visibly and vocally agree with a contradicting truth in an erring world, is the equivalent of yelling Fire! in a crowded theater. Its effect interrupts the delusional daydreams of people and jars those awake who are asleep under the spell of spiritual slumber.

At first, I thought the old man was out of order and a bit socially off. Over the years, I began to see him differently. When his Amen! came, I tried to connect it to what my pastor had just said. I found out the old man was right. Certain points of truth do need a hearty affirmation even if it disturbs the surrounding environment. 

That kind of Amen! is not rude, it is an expression of love when so many are spiritually blind and asleep. An interrupting Amen! is something as a boy I began to appreciate because it made me pay attention to what was being said.