{"id":10820,"date":"2016-12-01T21:52:43","date_gmt":"2016-12-02T05:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=10820"},"modified":"2016-12-01T21:52:43","modified_gmt":"2016-12-02T05:52:43","slug":"a-person-with-an-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/a-person-with-an-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"A Person with an Experience…"},"content":{"rendered":"

What comes to mind when you say the word Pentecostal?\u00a0\u00a0 Does it bring up images of lively worship with hands raised and the volume level reaching concert levels?\u00a0\u00a0 Does the word cell group or community come to mind? Does supernatural signs such as healing or speaking in tongues?\u00a0 What is it about the word that transcends traditional church and bring visions of God interacting with people\u2019s lives today?\u00a0 So when does Pentecostal become the answer to your question?<\/p>\n

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When the question is \u201cwhy not study growing churches in the Developing World that are involved in significant social ministry?\u00a0 Donald E Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori posed this question to each other when they were on a Southern World consultation.\u00a0\u00a0 They sent out over four hundred letters to mission\u2019s experts, denominational leader and other informed consultants to nominate churches based on this question.\u00a0 And the answer that came back to them was Pentecostal churches.\u00a0\u00a0 The ones that were nominated were Pentecostal or Charismatic.
\nThat is the beginnings of this very engaging book Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement, by Donald E Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori. \u00a0\u00a0This book contains so many stories of the developing global Pentecostal church and how it is affecting the social issues that surround them. \u00a0A very in depth and well written experience-based body of research presented by master story tellers.
\nThis is their definition of Pentecostal for the modern day.\u00a0 A super condensed history of Pentecostalism. \u00a0The beginning of the modern day Pentecostal movement was at Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas where under Charles F. Parham\u2019s teaching, students began to speak in tongues.\u00a0 He took his ministry to Houston, Texas where a young student by the name of William J Seymour experienced Pentecost and became convinced that the Holy Spirit was still in the business of working supernatural miracles.\u00a0\u00a0 He took his ministry to Azusa Street in Las Angeles, where he began to preach to an interracial crowd that started to see the acts of the first century apostles replicated: speaking in tongues, healing the infirm and prophesying.\u00a0 The modern day Pentecostal movement was launched. \u00a0(18)<\/p>\n

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The authors took the research based on their question and visited churches around the world to discover that they that are making a difference.\u00a0 \u00a0This is what I found so exciting.\u00a0 The move of the Holy Spirit translates to there being social change.\u00a0 They identified Pentecostals as agents of social transformation. These are indirect results of the Pentecostal movement.\u00a0 This movement sees “loving your neighbor as a mandate from God.” \u00a0So that would be the direct cause and then this would be the overflow effect.\u00a0 Social transformation is something that I have been privileged to be a part of over my thirty years of ministry within the Assemblies of God. \u00a0When the message of hope and the Holy Spirit is presented there is going to be change in the culture.\u00a0 I have seen the same results in Mexico, Honduras, Ireland, Russia and Nicaragua.\u00a0\u00a0 I have been able to be a part of this “hands on.” \u00a0There is nothing like seeing spiritual change affecting the social, medical and political culture of a location.<\/p>\n

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The one story from the book that I would like to focus in on, is a place that I have been fortunate enough to visit in person.\u00a0\u00a0 In Hong Kong there is a lady by the name of Jackie Pullinger.\u00a0 She arrived in Hong Kong in 1966 and started to work with the addicts in the Walled City.\u00a0\u00a0 When the authors started to read her book \u201cChasing the Dragon\u201d they determined that either it was a \u201cpack of lies calculated to raise money for St Stephen\u2019s Society, the network of residential treatment centers that had evolved over the years,\u201d or, if it was a true story, then it deserved intensive investigation. (99)\u00a0\u00a0 When they arrived and had the opportunity to meet with Jackie personally they encountered not a \u201cchurch\u201d or a \u201cministry\u201d but instead a place where people are loved.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The ministry is guided daily by the \u201cHoly Spirit.\u201d\u00a0 They have kinship with Vineyard Christian Fellowship and use their worship songs for their worship time.\u00a0 The deliverance from drugs happens from the \u201cinfilling\u201d of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0\u00a0 This happens when \u201ca seemingly supernatural presence descends on the addict and he or she begins speaking in tongues, unaware of what he is saying but filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.\u201d (101)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This example, that I have seen in person, was one of the most impressive for me for Global Pentecostalism.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have experienced the \u201chouse meeting\u201d where the Holy Spirit is invited to encounter those who are breaking free from addictions.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The presence of God was so intense and the worship was powerfully engaging.\u00a0\u00a0 What they write about, I have experienced.\u00a0 Having a message in tongues and then having it interpreted bilingually on our visit, \u00a0just seals the radical nature of what God is doing around the globe.<\/em>\u00a0 The greatest thing that I take away from reading all of these stories is that in the middle of an age of sapiens there is still evidence of a very powerful and real God.\u00a0\"IMG_8908\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Conclusion<\/p>\n

After reading this book I have to concur with the authors conclusion.\u00a0\u00a0 There are within the Pentecostal realm those who have self-interest and those that have manipulated it, just like those in political office in some of the wealthiest countries of the world.\u00a0 There may have been fraud, escapism or cultural baggage that has been brought to the experience, but there is a dimension of Pentecostalism the marches to a different drummer. (224)\u00a0 The experience of the multifaceted Holy Spirit is still engaging people around the globe today.\u00a0\u00a0 Just like He did on the day of Pentecost and just like He has since the beginning of this latest move at Topeka.\u00a0\u00a0 Here is what I have discovered within the pages of this book through all the varied stories told from around the Globe:\u00a0 a person with an experience is never at the mercy of a person with an argument.<\/em> \u00a0You can be told that God is not real but when you experience Him, in the fullness of his power, it silences the argument.\u00a0 It affects not only the spirit man but the social side of life. So let this new face of social engagement continue to grow and affect us all.<\/p>\n

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What comes to mind when you say the word Pentecostal?\u00a0\u00a0 Does it bring up images of lively worship with hands raised and the volume level reaching concert levels?\u00a0\u00a0 Does the word cell group or community come to mind? Does supernatural signs such as healing or speaking in tongues?\u00a0 What is it about the word that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":10821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[531,676,663,717],"class_list":["post-10820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-milleryamamori","tag-dminlgp6","tag-lgp6","tag-pentecostal","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}