{"id":15501,"date":"2017-11-28T15:30:19","date_gmt":"2017-11-28T23:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=15501"},"modified":"2017-11-28T15:54:48","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T23:54:48","slug":"pentecostalism-and-social-welfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/pentecostalism-and-social-welfare\/","title":{"rendered":"Progressive Pentecostals and Social Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cFor Pentecostals, worship provides the opportunity to experience an alternative reality. It is a moment when mind and body can potentially connect; it is a space in which worshippers imagine impossible possibilities; it is a time when they are filled with new hope and desire for a better world<\/em>.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

I have spent much of my life as a believer in the \u201cclassic\u201d Pentecostal\/Charismatic faith tradition\u2014Church of God in Christ and Foursquare Gospel Church. I can honestly say that it has been a strong foundation for me as I have grown in my faith walk with the Lord. I appreciate the emphasis on prayer and studying the Scripture. I remember as a young child going to \u201cshut in\u201d services. We would go to the church in the evening to prayer, sing, read scripture all night long until the morning. It was a time to bear witness to the Spirit of God. To hear what He was saying to us through prayer and scripture and to engage in worship together. The service would be filled with people from all ages. It was nights like those where I learned how to pray fervently and \u201ctarry\u201d in God presence. We learned to importance of just sitting in His presence and meditating on His word. We would pray \u201cHeaven to earth\u201d as one of our church mother’s would say. I would love to go to these services because no one service was ever the same. We would experience the power of God in a new and fresh way.\u00a0 Some may say these times were sensationalized or even too emotional but we simply called it having \u201cChurch\u201d.<\/p>\n

In addition to our worship experiences, Pentecostals are also known to hold a higher eschatological perspective. Especially within the African American Pentecostal tradition, Heaven is our home and we see ourselves as “pilgrims” just traveling through as servants of God to serve His greater mission and purpose. One could argue that traditional Pentecostals can be perceived as being “so<\/em> heavenly minded they are no earthly good<\/em>\u201d;\u00a0 However, in the recent decades there has been a shift towards a broader focus beyond personal salvation and worship to one of that actively engages in ministries aimed at improving social welfare across the world.<\/p>\n

In our reading this week, Donald Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori in Global Pentecostalism: the new face of Christian social engagement<\/em> discuss how Pentecostalism is on the rise across the globe. The growth in South America, Africa and Asia has emerged into various progressive movements\/denominations within this tradition. Progressive in this context is defined as \u201cChristians who claim to be inspired by the Holy Spirit and the life of Jesus and seek to holistically address the spiritual, physical, and social needs of people in their communit<\/em>y.\u201d[2]<\/a> They go on to note that \u201cTypically they are distinguished by their warm expressive worship, their focus on lay-oriented ministry, their compassionate service to others, and their attention, both as individuals and as a worshipping community, to what they perceive to be the leading of the Holy Spirit<\/em>\u201d[3]<\/a>. The focus of \u00a0these Progressive Pentecostals \u00a0is the shift from solely evangelism as conversion (by helping the poor through providing a personal salvation that leads to a heavenly home) to using their ministries and influence to actively address social needs and issues like hunger, AIDs etc. They see their role as Spirit lead. One with a divine purpose to serve their community as chosen vessels God has purposed to accomplish His mission in the world. \u00a0Miller and Yamamori make an interesting observation that this is a key driver behind their reason to serve God in this way– \u201cProgressive Pentecostals are pursuing commitments they believe to be divinely inspired.\u00a0 The usual anxieties associated with social change that people have are modulated by a perception that this is not their work; they are merely the vessels of a larger divine purpose. The consciousness seems to translate into a lightness of spirit\u2014that they are not doing their work alone and, in a sense, they are not even responsible for its success. Rather, God is all-powerful; he will accomplish in the world what he wants; and the only challenge is not to be an impediment, but rather an implement, in carrying out the divine plan. This is the worldview within which Progressive Pentecostals operate.<\/em>\u201c[4]\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

While I do appreciate this perspective on Pentecostalism around the world, I do wonder outside of the context of this book if it is prohibitive to Christianity as a whole to delineate yet again with more sub titles to existing titles? I will say that I do not believe they are intending to be divisive in their approach. I think they are simply shining a light on the transforming work taking place within our world through various Pentecostal movements. \u00a0I, too, share in both belief and action with those who would be identified by Miller and Yamamori as a Progressive Pentecostal but I would never want to self identify as one. I prefer to just be known as a Jesus Christ follower. Social Welfare to me is at the core of the gospel and what we should be doing as believers no matter what faith tradition we come from. All that profess Christ are apart of the Church. We should continue to join forces with others and seek out goodwill with a heart of compassion. We are all called to love God and love one another!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Donald E. Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori, Global Pentecostalism: the new face of Christian social engagement <\/em>(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007), 221.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid, 2.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid, 222.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cFor Pentecostals, worship provides the opportunity to experience an alternative reality. It is a moment when mind and body can potentially connect; it is a space in which worshippers imagine impossible possibilities; it is a time when they are filled with new hope and desire for a better world.\u201d[1] I have spent much of my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":0,"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":[716],"class_list":["post-15501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-miller-and-yamamori","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15501","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\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15501"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15526,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15501\/revisions\/15526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}