More than fifty years ago, a reporter for Guideposts magazine set out to gather information about a strange new occurrence happening all over the country. John Sherrill, a skeptic when it came to speaking in tongues and the baptism with the Holy Spirit, was determined to retain his objectivity while digging out the facts. What he found would change his life. With more than 2.5 million copies sold, this classic work is the story of one man's journey from skepticism to a life-changing relationship with God. Filled with historical and biblical accounts of speaking in tongues, this is also the deeply personal and moving story of how you, too, can walk in the power of the Spirit day by day. Now includes a new epilogue and update on how to lean on the Holy Spirit for unity in an increasingly divisive world.

The most powerful forces in the world are both exhilarating and terrifying. Awesome and terrible. Life-giving and life-threatening. In order to unleash the positive attributes of these powers, one must also confront the imposing components of them. But the ultimate example of this phenomenon is the awesome fame of the almighty God.

My Fame, His Fame is a call for believers to heed the example of the prophet Habakkuk by stepping to their watch on the ramparts and calling for a revelation of God's mighty acts to be repeated in our time. It is an inspiring reminder that our lives are to be lived for one aim: to increase the fame of the Famous One. Readers will encounter a radically different--and far better--approach to achieving success in life and will walk away inspired and equipped to live for the purpose of His fame.

Rooted in Habakkuk 3:2 "Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy," My Fame, His Fame will spur the reader to usher in the fame of God. It will be organized into four parts based on Habakkuk's story: I) The Legend, II) The Proclamation, III) The Knowledge, IV) The Request.

Scripting Pentecost explores and develops an analysis of worship and liturgy in Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions around the world. It is organized into two main sections: history and theology, and global case studies. The first section considers early Pentecostal traditions, the influence of the Welsh revival, classical Pentecostalism, the Charismatic Renewal movement and subsequent practices up to the present day. It also provides contemporary constructive theological reflections on sung worship, sacramental theology and liturgical practices. The second section offers a selection of global case studies from America, Europe, Kenya, Myanmar, Venezuela and Papua New Guinea. These case studies focus on contemporary worship and liturgical practices and their significance for Pentecostal and Charismatic studies..

This is an important book written by Pete Beck Jr. for the perilous times in which we Christians find ourselves. The maturing of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is what is happening and is absolutely paramount to the Holy Spirit. It will not happen without mature and spiritual leaders. He wants to make it a truly apostolic church going forward with apostolic doctrine to win the nations. Apostles in the other five-fold ministry gifts, prophets, evangelistics, pastors and teachers are being raised up as never before across the world. They are being raised up as a team. The Bible is clear that satan will attempt to produce false apostles to weaken or mislead the church. Many do not seem to even understand the principles of God laid out in the Scriptures. Ambition and a love for money and recognition dominate some who claim to be apostles. When speaking to the church at Ephesus, the risen Christ commended them for discerning those who were true apostles and rejecting those who proved false.

Paul Tillich (1886-1965) is widely regarded as one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. By bringing his thought together with the theology and practices of an important contemporary Christian movement, Pentecostalism, this volume provokes active, productive, critical, and creative dialogue with a broad range of theological topics. These essays stimulate robust conversation, engage on common ground regarding the work of the Holy Spirit, and offer significant insights into the universal concerns of Christian theology and Paul Tillich and his legacy.

Dozens of beautiful photos, both vintage and contemporary, draw us into the fascinating world of Shaker communities' accomplishments, their progressive views, and their still-resonating impact on American life. This book focuses specifically on two Shaker villages, Hancock and Mount Lebanon, which were close neighbors situated on either side of the Taconic Mountain Range bordering New York and Massachusetts. Mount Lebanon was the vibrant voice of Shakerism for over 160 years while Hancock lived in the shadows of its larger sister. Explaining the beliefs that grounded these villages, this book unfolds the Shaker legacies we live with today, involving Shakers' spiritual beliefs, their social welfare structures, their wide-ranging industries from seeds to herbal medicines to furniture to fancy goods, and their building of villages and of lives with a sense of purpose and permanency.

Since OUP's publication in 2000 of Michael Emerson and Christian Smith's groundbreaking study, Divided by Faith (DBF), research on racialized religion has burgeoned in a variety of disciplines in response to and in conversation with DBF. This conversation has moved outside of sociological circles; historians, theologians, and philosophers have also engaged the central tenets of DBF for the purpose of contextualizing, substantiating, and in some cases, contesting the book's findings. In a poll published in January 2012, nearly 70% of evangelical churches professed a desire to be racially and culturally diverse. Currently, only around 8% of them have achieved this multiracial status. To an unprecedented degree, evangelical churches in the United States are trying to overcome the deep racial divides that persist in their congregations. Not surprisingly, many of these evangelicals have turned to DBF for solutions. The essays in Christians and the Color Line complicate the research findings of Emerson and Smith's study and explore new areas of research that have opened in the years since DBF's publication. The book is split into two sections. The chapters in the first section consider the history of American evangelicalism and race as portrayed in DBF. In the second section the authors pick up where DBF left off, and discuss how American churches could ameliorate the problem of race in their congregations while also identifying problems that can arise from such attempted amelioration.

"This colection brings together two generations of scholarship on many important topics in African-American religious history. . . . A useful and judiciously chosen compilation that should serve well in the classroom."
-- "Religious Studies Review"

"It serves as a smorgasbord of the study of black spirituality."
-- "Black Issues Book Review"

Down by the Riverside provides an expansive introduction to the development of African American religion and theology. Spanning the time of slavery up to the present, the volume moves beyond Protestant Christianity to address a broad diversity of African American religion from Conjure, Orisa, and Black Judaism to Islam, African American Catholicism, and humanism.

This accessible historical overview begins with African religious heritages and traces the transition to various forms of Christianity, as well as the maintenance of African and Islamic traditions in antebellum America. Preeminent contributors include Charles Long, Gayraud Wilmore, Albert Raboteau, Manning Marable, M. Shawn Copeland, Vincent Harding, Mary Sawyer, Toinette Eugene, Anthony Pinn, and C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamiya. They consider the varieties of religious expression emerging from migration from the rural South to urban areas, African American women's participation in Christian missions, Black religious nationalism, and the development of Black Theology from its nineteenth-century precursors to its formulation by James Cone and later articulations by black feminist and womanist theologians. They also draw on case studies to provide a profile of the Black Christian church today.

This thematic history of the unfolding of religious life in AfricanAmerica provides a window onto a rich array of African American people, practices, and theological positions.

Winner of the 2013 Book Award of Excellence, The Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship What is the meaning of the Holy Spirit's activity in Luke-Acts, and what are its implications for today? Roger Stronstad offers a cogent and thought-provoking study of Luke as a charismatic theologian whose understanding of the Spirit was shaped wholly by his understanding of Jesus and the nature of the early church. Stronstad locates Luke's pneumatology in the historical background of Judaism and views Luke as an independent theologian who makes a unique contribution to the pneumatology of the New Testament. This work challenges traditional Protestants to reexamine the impact of Pentecost and explores the Spirit's role in equipping God's people for the unfinished task of mission. The second edition has been revised and updated throughout and includes a new foreword by Mark Allan Powell.

The Christian idea of a good death had its roots in the Middle Ages with ars moriendi, featuring reliance on Jesus as Savior, preparedness for the life to come and for any spiritual battle that might ensue when on the threshold of death, and death not taking place in isolation. Evangelicalism introduced new features to the good death, with its focus on conversion, sanctification and an intimate relationship with Jesus. Scholarship focused on mid-nineteenth-century evangelical Nonconformist beliefs about death and the afterlife is sparse. This book fills the gap, contributing an understanding not only of death but of the history of Methodist and evangelical Nonconformist piety, theology, social background and literary expression in mid-nineteenth-century England. A good death was as central to Methodism as conversion and holiness. Analyzing over 1,200 obituaries, Riso reveals that while the last words of the dying pointed to a timeless experience of hope in the life to come, the obituaries reflect changing attitudes towards death and the afterlife among nineteenth-century evangelical Nonconformist observers who looked increasingly to earthly existence for the fulfillment of hopes. Exploring tensions in Nonconformist allegiance to both worldly and spiritual matters, this book offers an invaluable contribution to death studies, Methodism, and Evangelical theology.

This major textbook is a newly researched historical study of Evangelical religion in its British cultural setting from its inception in the time of John Wesley to charismatic renewal today. The Church of England, the Church of Scotland and the variety of Nonconformist denominations and sects in England, Scotland and Wales are discussed, but the book concentrates on the broad patterns of change affecting all the churches. It shows the great impact of the Evangelical movement on nineteenth-century Britain, accounts for its resurgence since the Second World War and argues that developments in the ideas and attitudes of the movement were shaped most by changes in British culture. The contemporary interest in the phenomenon of Fundamentalism, especially in the United States, makes the book especially timely.

Evangelical Dissent in the early eighteenth century had to address a variety of intellectual challenges. How reliable was the Bible? Was traditional Christian teaching about God, humanity, sin and salvation true? What was the role of reason in the Christian faith? Philip Doddridge (1702-51) pastored a sizeable evangelical congregation in Northampton, England, and ran a training academy for Dissenters which prepared men for pastoral ministry. Philip Doddridge and the Shaping of Evangelical Dissent examines his theology and philosophy in the context of these and other issues of his day and explores the leadership that he provided in evangelical Dissent in the first half of the eighteenth century. Offering a fresh look at Doddridge's thought, the book provides a criticial examination of the accepted view that Doddridge was influenced in his thinking primarily by Richard Baxter and John Locke. Exploring the influence of other streams of thought, from John Owen and other Puritan writers to Samuel Clarke and Isaac Watts, as well as interaction with contemporaries in Dissent, the book shows Doddridge to be a leader in, and shaper of, an evangelical Dissent which was essentially Calvinistic in its theology, adapted to the contours and culture of its times.

The John Coltrane Church began in 1965, when Franzo and Marina King attended a performance of the John Coltrane Quartet at San Francisco's Jazz Workshop and saw a vision of the Holy Ghost as Coltrane took the bandstand. Celebrating the spirituality of the late jazz innovator and his music, the storefront church emerged during the demise of black-owned jazz clubs in San Francisco, and at a time of growing disillusionment with counter-culture spirituality following the 1978 Jonestown tragedy. The ideology of the church was refined through alliances with the Black Panther Party, Alice Coltrane, the African Orthodox Church and the Nation of Islam. For 50 years, the church has - in the name of its patron saint, John Coltrane - effectively fought redevelopment, environmental racism, police brutality, mortgage foreclosures, religious intolerance, gender disparity and the corporatization of jazz. This critical history is the first book-length treatment of the evolution, beliefs and practices of an extraordinary African-American church and community institution.

Strengthen your faith, receive your miracle!

Miracle testimonies are more than just accounts of past events; they are invitations to a fresh experience of God's supernatural power!

Respected pastor and healing minister, Randy Clark presents a unique compilation of amazing miracle testimonies to help strengthen your faith for whatever healing breakthrough you need!

Every miracle account in Stories of Divine Healing offers a new gateway for your own healing. As you read, you will encounter Jesus' compassionate heart and matchless power over every sickness and disease.

- Be inspired by over 100 faith-stirring miracle testimonies, documented, categorized and indexed for easy access

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Strengthen your faith, and lay claim to your own healing miracle today

Early Inter-racial Oneness Pentecostalism is a look at what is perhaps the least-known chapter in the history of American Pentecostalism. The study of the first thirty years of Oneness Pentecostalism (1901-1931) is especially relevant due to its unparalleled inter-racial commitment to an all-flesh, all-people, counter-cultural Pentecost. This in-depth study details the lives of its earliest primary architects, including G.T. Haywood, R.C. Lawson, J.J. Frazee, and E.W. Doak, and the emergence of Oneness Pentecostalism and its flagship organisation, Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. This is a one-of-a-kind history of Pentecostalism, seen through the lens of the Jesus' Name movement and the inter-racial struggles of the period, interlinking the significance of Charles Parham, William Seymour and the Azusa Street revival, COGIC, the newly formed Assemblies of God, and dozens of the earliest Oneness organisational bodies. Exploration of the significance of the role of African American Indianapolis leader G.T. Haywood is central, as are the development of the movement's key centres in the U.S. and the ultimate loss of inter-racial unity after more than thirty years. These crucial events indelibly marked the U.S. as well as the global missionary and indigenous expansion of Oneness Pentecostalism worldwide.

This book explores the personal backgrounds, historical methodologies, and academic philosophies of George Marsden, Nathan Hatch, and Mark Noll. It addresses the issues raised by the interaction of personal faith and scholarship, and the subsequent effect this has upon the evangelical community at large and the academic mission of institutions that wish to maintain their Christian distinction. The author shows how these scholars founded the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, and she demonstrates the significance of their attempts to open evangelical historical scholarship to a wider audience. Readers will get to know the personalities behind these evangelical scholars and will discover the uniqueness of Marsden, Hatch, and Noll as individuals as well as leaders. This is the first book to approach faith and learning from the point of view of these three men. Full of personal interviews and unpublished materials, The Evangelical Historians will appeal to students and scholars of American Studies, religion, culture, and sociology. It will serve as a useful text for courses in the History of American Christianity, Christianity and Culture, Historiography, Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, and 18th and 19th-Century American Protestantism. In addition, members of the historical guild interested in religion in America and the role of Christianity will surely want a copy of this rare and thoughtful work. Contents: Preface; A Historian's History; Integrating Faith and Learning; Transgressing Boundaries: Historical Critique and Evangelical Response; The Opening of the Evangelical Mind; Conclusion; Index.

In Azusa Street Mission and Revival, Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. brings to bear expertise from decades of focused study in church history to reveal the captivating story of the Apostolic Faith Mission in Los Angeles, which became known as the Azusa Street Mission. From humble beginnings with few resources, this small uniquely diverse and inclusive congregation led by William J. Seymour ignited a fire that quickly grew into a blaze and spread across the world giving rise to the global Pentecostal movement. Sifting through newspaper reports and other written accounts of the time as well as the mission's own publications, and through personal interaction with some of those blessed to stand very near to the fire that began at the mission, Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. relates not only the historical significance of the revival but also captures the movement of the Holy Spirit that changed the face of modern Christianity.

Brigham Young was one of the most influential-and controversial-Mormon leaders in American history. An early follower of the new religion, he led the cross-continental migration of the Mormon people from Illinois to Utah, where he built a vast religious empire that was both revolutionary and authoritarian, radically different from yet informed by the existing culture of the U.S. With his powerful personality and sometimes paradoxical convictions, Young left an enduring stamp on both his church and the region, and his legacy remains active today. In a lively, concise narrative bolstered by primary documents, and supplemented by a robust companion website, David Mason tells the dynamic story of Brigham Young, and in the process, illuminates the history of the LDS Church, religion in America, and the development of the American west. This book will be a vital resource for anyone seeking to understand the complex, uniquely American origins of a church that now counts over 15 million members worldwide.

In discussions of worship, the term 'participation' covers a lot of ground. It refers not only to concrete acts in gathered liturgy, but also to some of the loftiest claims of Christian theology. In this book, Alan Rathe probes the ways in which North American evangelicals have in recent years regarded the landscape of participation. Rathe presents a broad review of evangelical worship literature through a lens borrowed from medieval theology. This brings into surprising focus not only evangelical understandings but also evangelical identities and the historical traditions they reflect, and offers fresh perspectives on such current theological concerns as God's triunity, missio Dei, and the practical theology of participation. Offering a fresh contribution to a young but important discipline, the liturgically-informed study of evangelical worship practice, this book reconnects the evangelical tradition to the 'Great Tradition' and in the process re-appropriates classic concepts that are full of promise for contemporary ecumenical dialogue.