The part of our church called Pentecostal (named after the massive outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2), has had an important influence on the body of Christ in the twentieth century. No, that needs to be stated more strongly: The part of our church called Pentecostal has made crucial contributions to the body of Christ. Without those contributions, today’s church would be far less than it is.
Evangelism
The church would certainly be smaller. In the United States, the principal Pentecostal denominations—the Assemblies of God, the Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.), the Pentecostal Holiness, and the Church of the Foursquare Gospel—have been among the fastest-growing churches in recent decades. The Assemblies of God, for example, has increased about 400 percent, from just over 500,000 members in 1965 to well over 2 million in 1985.
Growth inspired by Pentecostal influences has not been limited to their own denominations, however. Much has taken place because of charismatic renewal groups in traditional denominations. (Some Pentecostals and charismatics dispute who influenced whom.) It is hard to get a fix on the actual growth encouraged by renewal groups, but many church-growth experts suggest it is significant. Further, as Peter Wagner, professor of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary, notes, independent charismatic churches are the fastest-growing individual churches in the country: “The majority of new churches established in the 1980s that have grown to at least a thousand within two years are almost exclusively Pentecostal or charismatic.”
Worldwide, the growth story is even more dramatic. Indigenous Pentecostal and charismatic churches in Africa and China have shown phenomenal increases. By targeting the poor and oppressed classes, allowing local church autonomy, and encouraging the apostolic model of church planting, these churches have reaffirmed the gospel’s universal appeal. Although the relative independence of these churches sometimes leads to dangerous syncretism with indigenous beliefs, the vast majority preach the classic doctrines of Christianity to an estimated 12 million people in Africa and a mind-boggling 42 million in China. Wagner estimates the worldwide Pentecostal and charismatic membership at 178 million.
Church Life
But the contributions go beyond the purely statistical. The Pentecostal church has offered new alternatives in worship, Bible study, use of ministry gifts, and approaches to culture.
Worship. Non-Pentecostal denominations have long decried the slipping worth of worship in their churches. Pentecostals, on the other hand, have made worship the centerpiece of the local church experience, developing in the process an unusual atmosphere of warmth and fellowship.
Music is a primary tool. Many of the most successful ministers, such as Jack Hayford, pastor of the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California, and televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, are gifted musicians and use their musical talent, with great effectiveness. Preaching in Pentecostal churches emphasizes everyday-life application of the gospel, scratching the itch of how-to America. Prayer, both individual and corporate, is diligently emphasized. And stewardship is preached and practiced, perhaps as sure a sign as any of spiritually satisfied congregants.
Bible study. Pentecostals have forced us to take a new look at portions of Scripture that have been sometimes relegated to second-class status. For many of us, the difference between Romans and Acts has been analogous to the difference between John Calvin and Agatha Christie. Both are great, but Agatha Christie is only a good story, after all, and we get our doctrine from the good Geneva doctor. Pentecostals take everything in Acts very seriously, and by so doing have reawakened interest in the historical portions of Scripture—without, we hope, diminishing the value of Romans.
Use of ministry gifts. Much of our renewed interest in discovering and using ministry gifts can be traced to Pentecostal/charismatic influences. This interest started with speaking in tongues, of course. But all the discussion about the (pick one) appropriateness, divisiveness, usefulness, or theological meaning of tongues, has left the whole church with an increased sensitivity to the promise and power of the Spirit. The faithful use of that power in individual lives has become the church’s mandate of the decade. It is a rare church that has not spent a Sunday school quarter doing a spiritual gifts inventory.
Antisecularism. If there is a cultural problem we can all agree on, it is the secularism of our age. We live in a world bent on eradicating all traces of the supernatural in public and private life. To combat this trend, Pentecostals have emphasized a felicitous biblical truth: They live as if the supernatural realm really exists. Further, to avoid the tendency of many Christians to dichotomize reality into the secular public and religious private, they expect the supernatural to invade the natural.
Thus, Pentecostals have rediscovered miracles, healings, and blessings. Naturally, this has produced an enormous amount of controversy. And abuses by the bushel. But controversy is why the supernatural was conveniently forgotten by some parts of the church in the first place. Are we ready to rediscover this aspect of the supernatural to the degree Pentecostals and charismatics have?
The Holy Spirit
The Pentecostal church has made other important contributions to the body. They have been creative in using television to present the gospel to grassroots America. Fine magazines and denominational publications disciple believers. And good church-growth seminars and books on prayer abound.
True, Pentecostals also have their share of problems. They have made few substantive contributions to theology. Their educational institutions are few; the ones that do exist (with a couple of notable exceptions) are in their infancy. And the church has shown a real inability to control maverick ministries.
Yet for the single act of resensitizing us to the importance of the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, we owe the Pentecostal church an immense debt of gratitude. It has reminded us that the Holy Spirit makes worship come alive, that the Holy Spirit is not the power stored in unused batteries, but a live current running through our every action. To forget that is to minimize a part of our humanness—more specifically, the part of us that makes us creatures created in God’s image.
By Terry Muck.
