» Pentecostalism must face the challenge of its own success

Pentecostals, Charismatics and associated movements have grown from a handful at the turn of the 20th century to at least several hundred million at the turn of the 21st century. According to Philip Jenkins, if current trends continue their numbers could reach one billion by 2050.

“It has shown itself both flexible and resilient enough to be at home with both modernity and its elusive successor, post-modernity.” Allan Anderson

Typically, movements at this stage of development face three challenges. How Pentecostals navigate these challenges will determine whether they will beat the tide of history.

1. Institutionalism
A key to the success of Pentecostalism has been its ability to blend supernaturalism and pragmatism. The intense religious experiences that give rise to new movements would remain fleeting unless they are embodied in some form of effective organisation. This presents every new movement with a dilemma—how to give the “charismatic moment” expression in social forms without extinguishing it.

The most effective and sustained movements live in creative tension of the chaos and creativity of spiritual enthusiasm and the stability provided by effective strategies and structures. Movements that resist this discipline become passing fads.

Dysfunctional bureaucracy creeps in when systems that served us yesterday strangle life today.

It’s a dilemma. You can’t mature and grow as a movement without effective systems. Eventually systems stifle the life and vitality of a movement.

At the heart of the move towards institutionalisation is the longing we all share for security, predictability and control. Bureaucracy results from the desire to create a risk-free environment. The assumption is that regulation, control and inspection will ensure the appropriate outcomes. What they ensure is that people no longer take responsibility or ownership of the movement’s mission. Creativity is lost. Innovative leaders are frustrated.

2. Respectability
Movements begin on the fringe of Church and society. They have nothing to lose and risk everything for a cause whose time has come. The intensity of their faith and commitment places them in tension with the wider Church and culture.

As movements become successful the spiritual experiences that birthed them are tamed in order to fit in with the surrounding culture. A plateaued movement becomes increasingly connected but less distinct from its world. Declining movements have weak and vague concepts of the superrnatural.

This drift is supported and encouraged by an increasingly well-educated, professional clergy. More “reasonable” demands are made on members. Membership standards are relaxed and members become more passive as ministry is placed in the hands of the professionals. Increasingly churches within the movement become cultural and community centres more concerned with social issues than with sin and salvation.

3. Aging
Aging has nothing to do with how many years a movement has been in existence. Aging is about wishing to enjoy and protect what we have achieved rather than add to our accomplishments. In the tension between the real and the ideal, the real finally wins. People make the unconscious decision to enjoy and protect the fruits of yesterday’s efforts.

Success breeds a loss of urgency. As urgency drops off, so does creativity. A loss of creativity inhibits the movement’s ability to change in response to a changing world. The momentum of the past continues to propel the movement forward, but at a declining rate.

These are at least three of the challenges Pentcostalism will face in the midst of its success. When has this happened before? A better question is: When, in the history of the Church, has it not happened? An even better question is: What can be done about it?

Click here for how the early church stumbled at these challenges.