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<\/a>This was the reality that we lived among with our Turkana neighbors. Throughout the churches in Turkana, people were dancing and exuberant in worship, with gatherings lasting for hours into the night. Prayers were bold. And the churches we worked among were involved in health care clinics and advocacy, building and supporting schools, planting and growing gardens, and installing reliable sources of clean water.<\/p>\nAll of these are holistic characteristics of social engagement as explored in Donald Miller & Ted Yamamori\u2019s Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement<\/em>.[1]<\/a> The authors suggest that those churches they surveyed, which they termed \u201cProgressive Pentecostals<\/em>,\u201d were a growing diverse \u201cmovement of Christians who claim to be inspired by the Holy Spirit and the life of Jesus and who seek to holistically address the spiritual, physical, and social needs of people in their community\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n My challenge to the authors, though, is this: while the Turkana churches fit their characteristics of \u201cProgressive Pentecostals,\u201d they would not self-identify as Pentecostal, nor are they connected with any Pentecostal churches in the US. Likewise, some of the people and churches whom the authors surveyed would not consider themselves Pentecostal either. For instance, Florence (and Festus) Muindi, whom the authors interviewed and wrote on at length[3]<\/a>, is a former CMF<\/a> missionary who worked on our team in Kenya. While she has since started her own organization, she would not consider herself a Pentecostal. And like the Turkana churches we worked with, she continues to maintain strong connections to the Western church and is not self-supported (contra the criteria of the authors: \u201cexhibiting growth, having active social programs, and being self-supporting\u201d[4]<\/a>). Likewise, Nairobi Chapel<\/a> is not considered a Pentecostal church either; although the authors do acknowledge that, they still decided to classify them in with their Progressive Pentecostals.[5]<\/a> They are<\/em> an All of that is to say that what the authors are describing is so much bigger than just Pentecostal churches. One does not have to identify as a Pentecostal to be open to the work of the Spirit and joining in with that work, as more and more Evangelical, Mainline Protestant, Catholic and other churches are recognizing. The exciting reality is that the Spirit is on the move, changing lives, social structures, and communities. When churches\u2014of any persuasion\u2014recognize this, we live the reality of the mystery of the gospel (Ephesians 3:9-11).<\/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).<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Ibid., 212.<\/p>\n<\/a>active, growing church engaged holistically in Nairobi and beyond. They partner with CMF\u2019s work with Mission of Hope (MOHI)<\/a> in the slums of Nairobi and other areas of Kenya. And last year, when visiting with the senior pastor, Oscar Muriu, he shared with us that the church has a recent church plant in London and has plans to move to other British cities as well.<\/p>\n