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.

A collection of five pictures which address issues and challenges pertinent (but not exclusively so) to the Black Majority Church in the UK. They sharpen understanding of the way the BMCs have come to do church, and also challenge whether the vision is to maintain the status quo or be a prophetic church. 1. Introductory address by Bishop Joe Aldred 2. Moving beyond maintenance to mission: resisting the bewitchment of colonial Christianity by Dr Robert Beckford 3. Pentecostal Hermeneutics by Revd Ruthlyn Bradshaw 4. Women in Leadership by Dr Elaine Storkey 5. Youth Culture: Friend or Foe? By the Revd Carver Anderson.

This book will answer all of your questions about the anointing. It will prepare you to experience the precious touch of God on everything you do.

How can some ministers whose personal and spiritual lives are dried up and in shambles still operate in the anointing and continue to minister with power? Pastor Benny Hinn asked this question during a season of personal trial, and his quest led him to an in-depth understanding of the three “rivers,” or types, of anointing in Scripture: 1 John 2:27 (the anointing within you); Acts 1:8 (the anointing upon you); and Isaiah 10 (a global anointing related to building up and destroying nations).

In Mysteries of the Anointing, Hinn explores these three types of anointing, sharing personal stories of things he learned firsthand from Kathryn Kuhlman and Oral Roberts, as well as providing biblical and historical examples that illustrate his teachings.

Readers will discover:

• How to detect if the anointing within you is weakening or gone
• The blessings—and dangers—that can happen when God begins to use you
• When you’re most vulnerable to demonic attack and what to do about it
• What hinders the anointing in your life and ministry and what increases it
• The impact of the anointing around the world and how the church will experience it in greater measure

A contribution to the field of theological aesthetics, this book explores the arts in and around the Pentecostal and charismatic renewal movements. It proposes a pneumatological model for creativity and the arts, and discusses different art forms from the perspective of that model. Pentecostals and other charismatic Christians have not sufficiently worked out matters of aesthetics, or teased out the great religious possibilities of engaging with the arts. With the flourishing of Pentecostal culture comes the potential for an equally flourishing artistic life. As this book demonstrates, renewal movements have participated in the arts but have not systematized their findings in ways that express their theological commitments-until now. The book examines how to approach art in ways that are communal, dialogical, and theologically cultivating.

This volume brings 'America's theologian' and one of the fastest growing forms of Christianity into dialogue. Edwards is a fruitful source for Pentecostal investigation for historical and theological reasons. Edwards and Pentecostals descend from a common historical tradition-North American Evangelicalism. From revivalism and religious/charismatic experience to pneumatology they also share common theological interests. Though sharing a common history and core theological concerns, no critical conversation between Pentecostals and Edwards and their fields of scholarship has occurred. This is the first volume that provides Pentecostal readings of Edwards' theology that contribute to Pentecostal theology and Edwards scholarship. The contributing essays offer examination of affections and the Spirit, God and Salvation, Church and culture; and mission and witness.

Avoiding sensationalism and date-speculating, respected Bible teacher Amir Tsarfati uses his unique perspective as an Israeli Christian to lead you through a fascinating modern-day description of God's plan for the end of the world.

Grounded from start to finish in Scripture, the book reveals how the Rapture, the imminent rise of the Antichrist, and the tragic horrors of the Great Tribulation will play out in our world today. He also helps you understand the roles--and fates--of Russia, Iran, Syria, Turkey, the European Union, the United States of America, and Israel in the end times, showing just how biblical prophecies are being fulfilled in our time.

But above all, he offers hope that in the midst of chaos and horror, God is ultimately in control, and those who belong to him will be safe with him.

How can people believe that the supernatural end of the world lies just around the corner when, so far, every such prediction has been proved wrong? Some scholars argue that millenarians are psychologically disturbed; others maintain that their dreams of paradise on earth reflect a nascent political awareness. In this book Damian Thompson looks at the members of one religious group with a strong apocalyptic tradition--Kensington Temple, a large Pentecostal church in London--and attempts to understand how they reconcile doctrines of the end of the world with the demands of their everyday lives. He asks such questions as: Who is making the argument that the world is about to end, and on whose authority? How is it communicated? Which members are persuaded by it? What are the practical consequences for them? How do they rationalize their position? Based on extensive interviews as well as a survey of almost 3000 members, Thompson finds existing explanations of apocalyptic belief inadequate. Although they profess allegiance to millennial doctrine, he discovers, members actually assign a low priority to the "End Times." The history of millenarianism is littered with disappointment, Thompson notes, and the lesson has largely been learned: "predictive" millenarianism--with its risky time-specific predictions of the end--has been substantially supplanted by "explanatory" millenarianism, which uses apocalyptic narratives to explain features of the contemporary world. Most apocalyptic believers, he finds, are comfortable with these lower-cost explanatory narratives that do not require them to sell their houses and head for the hills. He does uncover a handful of "textbook" millenarians in the congregation--people who are confident that Jesus will return in their lifetimes. He concludes that their atypical beliefs were influenced by their conversion experiences, individual psychology, and degree of subcultural immersion. Although much has been written about apocalyptic belief, Thompson's empirically-based study is unprecedented. It constitutes an important step forward in our understanding of this puzzling feature of contemporary religious life.

This book explores the ordinary beliefs and practices of Pentecostal/Charismatic Christians in relation to the Holy Spirit. It does this by means of a congregational study of a classical Pentecostal church in the UK, using participant observation, focus groups and documentary and media analysis. This approach develops a framework in which the narratives of informants can be interpreted. Focusing on specific areas of interest, such as conversion, healing, prayer or social action, each contribution from respondents is situated within the context of the congregation and interpreted by means of the broader Christian tradition. This book makes a unique contribution to scholarship by offering a rich and varied picture of contemporary Christians in the Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions, enabling a greater understanding to be appreciated for both academic and ecclesial audiences.

How do urbanization and development intersect with religious dynamics to shape contemporary African cityscapes? To answer this timely question, contributors from across Europe, North America and Africa are brought together to explore mega-cities including Lagos, Cape Town, Dar es Salaam and Kinshasa as powerful venues for the creation and implementation of religious models of urbanization and development. This book interrogates how religious socio-spatial models and strategies engage with challenges of infrastructural development, urban social cohesion, inequalities and inclusion. Chapters explore how faith-based practices of urban and infrastructural development link moral subjectivities with individual and wider aspirations for modernization, change, deliverance and prosperity. The volume brings together ethnographically rich and theoretically grounded case studies of religious urbanization across the African continent. It advances discussions of the ambivalent role of urban religion in development and documents the complex, multifaceted socio-cultural and political dynamics associated with religious urbanization in Africa.

Essek William Kenyon (1867-1948) has virtually escaped scholarly notice, and yet his influence on the twentieth-century church is profound. Of particular note is Kenyon's influence on William Durham that apparently led to the first major split in Pentecostalism. Kenyon's own evangelistic work was thoroughly interdenominational, touching every major Protestant denomination of his day. E.W. Kenyon and the Postbellum Pursuit of Peace, Power, and Plenty is the most comprehensive biography of Kenyon available today. It explores his influence on the Pentecostal/Charismatic movements, and likewise illuminates the practice of intuition and mysticism from which the 20th century message of peace, power and plenty emerged. Contains nine black and white photographs, bibliography and index.

Readers will learn how to identify and defeat dream thieves - the people and circumstances that keep Christians from fulfilling their divine destiny A great book for those who are discouraged, tired, or burned out in their ministry or their walk with the Lord.

This book argues that Christians have a stake in the sustainability and success of core cultural values of the West in general and America in particular. Steven M. Studebaker considers Western and American decline from a theological and, specifically, Pentecostal perspective. The volume proposes and develops a Pentecostal political theology that can be used to address and reframe Christian political identity in the United States. Studebaker asserts that American Christians are currently not properly engaged in preventing America's decline or halting the shifts in its core values. The problem, he suggests, is that American Christianity not only gives little thought to the state of the nation beyond a handful of moral issues like abortion, but its popular political theologies lead Christians to think of themselves more as aliens than as citizens. This book posits that the proposed Pentecostal political theology would help American Christians view themselves as citizens and better recognize their stake in the renewal of their nation. The foundation of this proposed political theology is a pneumatological narrative of renewal-a biblical narrative of the Spirit that begins with creation, proceeds through Incarnation and Pentecost, and culminates in the new creation and everlasting kingdom of God. This narrative provides the foundation for a political theology that speaks to the issues of Christian political identity and encourages Christian political participation.

On January 20, 1994 the worshippers at the Toronto Airport Vineyard Church began to feel the Holy Spirit move them. They began to laugh uncontrollably, collapse to the floor, stagger as if drunk. But what was truly startling in this occurrence-now commonly known as the Toronto Blessing-is that these manifestations keep appearing at the Toronto church and have sparked a worldwide charismatic revival. Visitors from around the world have come and started revivals in their home churches upon return. In Main Street Mystics, Margaret Poloma explains what is happening with this contemporary charismatic revival without explaining it away. From her unique position as both a scholar and a pilgrim, Poloma offers an intimate account of the movement while always attempting to understand it through the lenses of social science. She looks at Pentecostalism as a form of mysticism, but a mysticism that engages Pentecostals and charismatics in the everyday world. With its broad overview and up-close portraits, Main Street Mystics is essential for anyone wanting to understand the ever renewing movement of Pentecostalism.

This book brings the theme of prayer into anthropological discussion. Across diverse significant ethnographic case studies, five anthropologists attend to prayers and how they are performed and seen to intervene in the social world. The studies include Pentecostals in Zambia, Charismatic Christians in Ghana, Protestants in Scotland, Eastern Orthodox Christians in Romania, and Catholics in Syria. Across these ethnographic cases, the book argues that focusing on the social life of prayer offers a significant way to engage with matters close to people. Prayers are a way to map affect and the affective relationships people hold in what they are oriented towards and care about. Taking its cue from Marcel Mauss, the book invites us to go beyond the individual and see how prayers always point to a broader social landscape of obligation and affective investment. Focusing on the social life of prayers, the book posits, accordingly entices a particular form of situated comparison of diverse Christian traditions that pushes the scholarly conversation on Christianity to consider central questions of agency, responsibility and subjectivity. Taking up prayer as the object of study, this book offers novel anthropological perspectives on Christian life and practice. The chapters in this book were originally published a special issue of Religion.

This book examines the evangelical Christian worship focusing primarily in the island-state of Grenada. The study is based upon the author's detailed study of Pentecostal communities in that island-state as well as her own background in Barbados. The study traces the development of Pentecostal religious communities from Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Wesleyan Methodist movement.

Wealth, Health, and Hope in African Christian Religion offers a portrait of how contending narratives of modernity in both church and society play out in Africa today through the agency of African Christian religion. It explores the identity and features of African Christian religion and the cultural forces driving the momentum of Christian expansion in Africa, as well as how these factors are shaping a new African social imagination, especially in providing answers to the most challenging questions about poverty, wealth, health, human, and cosmic flourishing. It offers the academy a good road map for interpreting African Christian religious beliefs and practices today and into the future.

This book deals with the largest global shift in religion over the last forty years, the astonishing rise of Pentecostalism and charismatic Christianity. Conservative estimates suggest that a quarter of a billion people are now members of Pentecostal churches, mainly in the developing world. David Martin examines the widely differing forms of Pentecostal religion across the five continents, drawing deeply significant conclusions about the future of Christianity itself.

David Martin's "Tongues of Fire "was a pioneering examination of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity in Latin America. This book extends the argument of that book and applies it globally. The author looks at the roots of the Pentecostal movement to explain how it crosses cultural boundaries, appealing to people as diverse as the respectable poor in Latin American and Africa, the new middle classes of South East Asia, and minorities in the Andes or Nepal. Martin offers a sensitive and illuminating account of the life-world of Pentecostals which looks at the specificities of history, politics, culture and economics while drawing out a wide-ranging theory and explanation of the secular and the sacred.

"Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish "is a major milestone in the work of one of the most respected sociologists of religion writing today. It will become essential reading for students, academics and general readers interested in the rise of global religion.

'Secularization' has been hotly debated since it was first subjected to critical attention in the mid-sixties by David Martin, before he sketched a 'General Theory' in 1969. 'On Secularization' presents David Martin's reassessment of the key issues: with particular regard to the special situation of religion in Western Europe, and questions in the global context including Pentecostalism in Latin America and Africa. Concluding with examinations of Pluralism, Christian Language, and Christianity and Politics, this book offers students and other readers of social theory and sociology of religion an invaluable reappraisal of Christianity and Secularization. It represents the most comprehensive sociology of contemporary Christianity, set in historical depth.

This book deals with the largest global shift in religion over the last forty years, the astonishing rise of Pentecostalism and charismatic Christianity. Conservative estimates suggest that a quarter of a billion people are now members of Pentecostal churches, mainly in the developing world. David Martin examines the widely differing forms of Pentecostal religion across the five continents, drawing deeply significant conclusions about the future of Christianity itself.

David Martin's "Tongues of Fire "was a pioneering examination of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity in Latin America. This book extends the argument of that book and applies it globally. The author looks at the roots of the Pentecostal movement to explain how it crosses cultural boundaries, appealing to people as diverse as the respectable poor in Latin American and Africa, the new middle classes of South East Asia, and minorities in the Andes or Nepal. Martin offers a sensitive and illuminating account of the life-world of Pentecostals which looks at the specificities of history, politics, culture and economics while drawing out a wide-ranging theory and explanation of the secular and the sacred.

"Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish "is a major milestone in the work of one of the most respected sociologists of religion writing today. It will become essential reading for students, academics and general readers interested in the rise of global religion.

In recent years the rapid growth of Christian charismatic movements throughout sub-Saharan Africa has drastically reconfigured the region's religious landscape. As a result, charismatic factions play an increasingly public role throughout Africa, far beyond the religious sphere. This book uses a multi-disciplinary approach to consider the complex relationship between Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity and the socio-political transformation taking place throughout this region. Each of this text's three main sections helps in understanding how discourses of moral regeneration emanating from these diverse Christian communities, largely charismatic, extend beyond religious bounds. Part 1 covers politics, political elites and elections, Part 2 explores society, economies and the public sphere, and Part 3 discusses values, public beliefs and morality. These sections also highlight how these discourses contribute to the transformation of three specific social milieus to reinforce visions of the Christian citizen. Examining contemporary examples with high quality scholarly insight, this book is vital reading for academics and students with an interest in the relationship between religion, politics and development in Africa.

Are you ready for a revolutionary year with Heidi & Rolland? Whether stopping for the one in a dusty village in Mozambique or reaching out to the world, Heidi and Rolland model--and invite everyone into--the radical love that thrills God's heart. Energized by their work on the frontlines of ministry, the Bakers weave together miraculous stories, Scriptures, encouraging devotional thoughts and prayer to take you through the year. Every day is a fresh invitation to live fully devoted to God. When you surrender to Him and allow His presence to grow in you, you will find, like the Bakers, that you don't become less of yourself; you actually become more fully the person He has always intended you to be. Join Heidi and Rolland for an unforgettable year of sold-out, passionate, reckless devotion to the One who loves you more than you can imagine. "All God wants is my laid-down love, my reckless devotion. He is asking the same from you."--Heidi Baker

Dynamic New Teaching from Bestselling Author Ed Silvoso It's no secret that the church today has lost its influence in culture. But why? With the technology, affluence, and knowledge we have today, why are we less effective than the first-century church--which didn't have social media, fancy buildings, professional pastors, or even religious freedom? What are we missing? In these vital, eye-opening pages, bestselling author Ed Silvoso digs into Scripture, unearthing Jesus' true design for his church--his Ekklesia. He shows how the early church was a radical, countercultural force of people who transformed the hostile, pagan places in which they lived. Here Dr. Silvoso shows how we, in the midst of social, economic, political, and moral chaos, can once again become the revolutionary, transformational, life-giving Ekklesia Jesus called us to be.