» 1. Birth

Allan Anderson has a new book out: Spreading Fires: The Missionary Nature of Early Pentecostalism.

My copy is still on the way but I have read a summary article. Here are some highlights . . .

According to Anderson, Pentecostalism is probably the fastest expanding religious movement ever. Here are five of the main features of Pentecostalism [...]

This week I’m in Sydney speaking at the national conference of the Church Army Australia on movements.

I did some research on the Church Army and their founder Wilson Carlile. An inspiring tale.

Carlile left school at fourteen to make his fortune which he did by the time he was twenty six. Then came the depression of [...]

The great Christian revolutions come not by the discovery of something that was not known before.

They happen when someone takes radically something that was already there.

Helmut Richard Niebuhr (1894-1962)

MovementsQuotes

Craig Borlase is William Seymour’s latest biographer.

Recently Craig attended the Centenary of the Azusa Street Revival. The Azusa Street Revival launched Pentecostalism as a world wide movement. Seymour was the key figure in that revival.

Here are his reflections on Seymour as a founder and on how far modern Pentecostalism has come from it’s humble beginnings.

WWWSD?

It’s [...]

Summa summarum: Drink beer and let the Word do the work.
“Summa summarum,” said Luther, “I will preach, speak, write, but I will force no one; for faith must be voluntary. Take me as an example. I stood up against the Pope, indulgences, and all papists, but without violence or uproar. I only urged, preached, and [...]

Heroism is the lost chord, the missing note of present day Christianity!

Every true soldier is a hero! A Soldier without heroism is a Chocolate Soldier! Who has not been stirred to scorn and mirth at the very thought of a Chocolate Soldier? In peace true soldiers are captive lions, fretting in their cages. War gives [...]

Listen in on Francis Xavier’s relationship with Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. What was it about him that inspired gifted, a privileged nobleman like Xavier to give up everything and lay down his life in service?

My true Father,

I received a letter of your holy charity at Malacca when I returned from Japan. God [...]

William Carey (1761-1834) was an impoverished village cobbler and part-time pastor with a limited education.

As a young pastor, Carey became focused on one question: “Was not the command given to the Apostles, to teach all nations obligatory on all succeeding ministers to the end of the world?”

Since the Reformation it was held that: either [...]

Great founders are master storytellers

HT: PresentationZen

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Another in the series on how God shapes the heart of movement founders. This story comes from Sam Metcalf who heads up Church Resource Ministries (CRM).

In February of 1985, about 40 staff and friends of Church Resource Ministries (CRM) gathered at Glen Eyrie, for our annual conference.

Several months earlier, Chuck Singletary (then president of CRM) [...]