Pneuma Review had the privilege of speaking with two brave women that God used to share the story of Jesus with thousands in their homeland of Iran.

Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh introduce themselves:

We were born into Muslim families in Iran. As young adults we became Christians and met each other while studying theology in Turkey in 2005. Then we returned to Iran and began sharing our faith with many Iranians by distributing Bibles and leading house churches. In 2009, we were arrested in Tehran for promoting Christianity. The official charges against us were apostasy, blasphemy, and anti-government activities, for which we faced execution by hanging. We spent 259 days in Evin, one of the most notorious prisons in the world. Following international pressures and after months of interrogations and abuse, we were freed in November 2009. We were threatened by our interrogators that we could not live in Iran as Christians anymore and therefore were forced to leave our country Iran in 2010.

In 2011 we moved to the United States as refugees and shared our prison experiences, as well as the human rights violations we experienced in Evin in our book Captive in Iran, which was published in April 2013. Since then we have been actively sharing our story in the United States and in other countries, with people and policymakers, in order to bring awareness about the ongoing human rights violations and persecution of religious minorities in Iran. We have also been full time students at Georgia Tech University in Atlanta, working on our BS and MS in International Affairs. We just finished our studies and graduated with Master of International Affairs in December 2019. We hope that our experiences and education will help us to better advocate for the voiceless people who experience human rights violations, particularly those who experience daily abuse and persecution by the Iranian regime.

PneumaReview.com: You were both raised in the Islamic Republic of Iran. How did you become followers of Jesus Christ?

Maryam Rostampour

Maryam: When I was growing up, I always had a lot of questions in my mind: What is the truth? Who is God, and how I can have a close relationship with Him? Why do I have to talk to God in a language I don’t know, praying words I don’t understand? I had many other questions about Islam and its rules, which frustrated and confused me. I was eager to find the truth, so I tried to study and research other religions on my own. I read a Persian translation of the Koran and some other books—but not the Bible, because I couldn’t find one. Sometimes I prayed Namaz (Islamic prayers), and I also attended meetings of other religions from time to time. However, none of these efforts could quench my thirst.

At age seventeen, I was completely disappointed and thought it would be better not to follow any religion. I was tired of the meaningless rules and religious laws, and tired of a faraway God whose voice I never heard. I had always longed for two-way communication with Him but had never experienced it in Islam. Eventually, I completely stopped doing research. But even then, sometimes when I was alone, especially at night, I looked up into the sky and asked God to reveal Himself to me and speak to me. At times, I would talk to Him in Farsi, like a conversation, for an hour or two, and enjoyed it very much.

One day my sister gave me a little booklet titled His Name Is Wonderful. It was part of the Gospel of Luke, from the Bible. She said she had received it from a man at the church near her university. She knew I was searching to know God and that I would read any book on the subject. “Just don’t read the last page,” she warned, “because it is a confession prayer for anyone who wants to become a Christian.” I took the booklet from her and went to my room right away, closed the door, and started reading. From the first page, my heart was deeply moved. I started to cry because I could feel the presence of Christ in the room right in front of me. While I was reading, I felt as if I had already known and heard all of these words in the book and had just found what I had been seeking for many years: the love of Christ. During those hours alone in my room, I realized why I had always felt a barrier between myself and God. As I read about the love of Christ and the work He did on the cross for my sins, I said to myself, that is exactly what I have been looking for all these years: love without conditions. None of those words sounded strange or unbelievable to me, even when I read that Jesus is the Son of God. I always tell people that Jesus Himself witnessed and delivered to me the Good News of salvation as a gift, even before I had spoken to anyone about Him or gone to church. He revealed His truth to me and prepared my heart for accepting it. After two or three hours in my room, I knew I had discovered what I had been searching for; I felt like I had already known Jesus for many years. When I got to the last page of the booklet, I prayed the written prayer and gave my heart to Jesus without any doubt or second thought.

For two years, I attended a weekly Bible study in a woman’s home in Tehran, taking the hour-long taxi ride each way from my home in Karaj. One day, she led a Bible study on the book of Acts and read about believers in the early church receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. She spoke to me about her own experience. I was intrigued with the idea that God would give a gift to humans, a promise of a special spiritual experience. I wanted it for myself. Later that day, in my room at home, I received this gift and spoke in tongues. I was surprised and overwhelmed with joy. Nothing like this had happened to me before. I realize that not every Christian has this experience. The Bible describes many gifts, and this was one that I received. I believe that God, in His wisdom, uses whatever tools He has available to bring the Gospel into people’s hearts.

I wanted to be baptized in the official church in Tehran, where we attended, but the regime monitored the church closely and frowned on church baptisms. Instead, in 2002, I was baptized secretly at midnight in the basement of another small church. Though I was only nineteen, the pastors asked me to start serving in the church, speaking to new believers and working with a group of elderly ladies. The pastors said I had a great passion for evangelism, though when I boldly talked about Christ in the subway or riding in a taxi, the pastors said with a note of caution, “Save it for church!” After I had served in that church for a year and a half, my pastor introduced me to a ministry in Turkey. I travelled there to study theology and leadership courses in 2005; that was when I met Marziyeh for the first time.

Marziyeh Amirizadeh

Marziyeh: Ever since I was a young child, I loved God and wanted to find out more about His truth. I did everything I knew to get closer to Him. My only means of getting to know God were through Muslim religious teachings and things I learned at school. But I always had many questions about God that Islamic theology and Sharia law could not answer. I used to think of God as a kind father who is closer to us than members of our own family, because I believed that the God who created my body was closer to my heart than my own flesh and blood. I had been taught the beliefs of Islam and debated them with friends and teachers in school; I could not accept the Koran’s teachings, as they did not seem true to me. I did not accept the image of God that many Muslims have as one who harshly rules over the human race and punishes us for the slightest sins. That is a terrifying image of God. I believed that the daily Namaz prayers, bending several times a day in front of a God who was already in my heart, were a waste of time and unnecessary, and I could not accept them. I also had many questions about why I had to speak to God in Arabic instead of in Farsi, my native language. Doesn’t this God who taught me my own mother tongue know it Himself? Why should I pray to Him as if He’s a great leader or ruler over me? Why can’t I speak with Him in my own language? These were the questions that had long occupied my mind.

The answers I received at school were not convincing. Despite my reservations, I did my best to fulfill my religious duties. I told myself that I might be wrong, and that the truth would show itself to me one day in the future. I prayed Namaz for two years without fail. I used to read the Koran, and I would even wake up in the middle of the night and pray again. But these types of prayers and worship were not making me feel any closer to God. On the contrary, they created a greater distance from Him as they became a routine action that I was forced to do, not something that I wanted to do.

Even before I found Christ, I was certain that God spoke to me in dreams. In one dream, I was praying toward the sky when it opened up and a white horse came down and spoke to me: “Sit on my back,” it said. When I obeyed, the horse took me to a city where worshipers coming out of a mosque were performing the Ashura and Tasua ceremonies (Islamic ceremonies), mournful chanting and self-beating. At first, they couldn’t see me or the horse. But suddenly they appeared to change into wild animals with savage features, not like people at all. As soon as I saw them, they could also see me and tried to kill me. The horse ran like the wind to save me. As I held fast to its neck, I felt its love pouring into me with a power and purity I had never known. After we eluded our pursuers, the horse came to a fork in the road where one path turned up into the sky. As the tired horse started on the upward path, I awoke. For a week after that, all I could think about was the deep love I had experienced in the dream. I have never since experienced love like that in this world. God, why did you let me wake up? I wanted to be in this dream forever! (That same horse has reappeared to me in a dream, with a message, every few years since then.)

After some thought and consideration, I came to the conclusion that the most important part of being a believer is my heart, and I decided to put aside my religion. I began to speak to God with my heart, in the manner of a relationship between a child and her father. One day, I heard from a friend of mine who had converted to Christianity that, in their religion, Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of humankind, who has come to the earth to free people from their sins. I became curious; I had not heard anything like that before about Jesus. I used to think He was just another prophet, as He had been introduced to us in our textbooks at school. I said to myself, how do I know He is the truth? I decided to study different religions in search of the truth and began to read the Bible. After a while, I realized I could not possibly spend the many years necessary to study all the religions of the world, and that there might be some faith in the world that I would never be able to know in full. Therefore, I knelt and prayed, asking God to show me the right path to reach the truth. I said, “If Jesus is the truth, then you must guide me in the path that would take me to the truth and save me from being misguided.” The next thing that happened was a real miracle. During this time, I was invited to a church by a friend. On that same day, I had a medical appointment scheduled with a specialist. My visit to the church was an incredible experience. People were worshiping with joy and praying freely to God. Suddenly, in my heart, I heard a voice: Marziyeh, you are healed. I wanted to ignore this voice, but when I told my friend, she said it was Jesus and that He could heal me. Later, at my medical appointment, the doctor picked up his pen to write me a prescription. Then he stopped. I waited, wondering why he was hesitating. Finally, he said, “I don’t know why, but I cannot write a prescription for you. Come back another time.” At that time, I sensed that God reminded me of His message in the church and told me to trust Him. The symptoms were immediately cleared up. But even after Jesus healed me, I did not fully believe in Him. To me, the healing wasn’t enough proof to convert to Christianity, so I asked God to show me more reasons. At the bottom of my heart, I had begun to believe in Jesus, but I still had my doubts.

In time, I obtained certifications as a manager and trainer in a cosmetology school. Working with trainees gave me opportunities every day to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. Many women were eager to know more and gladly accepted a Bible from me. Though I was successful and secure in my profession, I was sure that the Lord wanted me to serve Him fulltime. Nothing compared to telling the world about Jesus. When a pastor friend suggested I study theology, I quit my job and traded a certain future for the unknown. I had started with nothing in Tehran and in five years had achieved worldly success. Now I was starting over again. I planned to study theology in London, but I was unable to get a visa. Instead, I traveled to Turkey for studying leadership and theology courses. That’s where I met Maryam.

PneumaReview.com: Once the two of you met, you began to work together distributing 20,000 New Testaments. Please tell us a bit about that.

Marziyeh: After we gave our hearts to Jesus, we had so much passion to know more about Him, to serve Him and also share the message of salvation with our people. We were invited to a Christian conference in Turkey in 2005 where we met each other for the first time. After returning to Iran from Turkey, we both had the same vision from God for evangelizing people by distributing Bibles, because in our country there is just a false and distorted version of Bible (the Barnabas Bible) printed in Farsi and people can’t find the real version of Bible. In three years, we distributed about twenty thousand New Testaments in Tehran and a few other cities.

We divided the city into squares on a huge wall map, at night we carried 140 New Testaments in our back bags, visited one area at a time between eight p.m. and midnight and put them in mailboxes.

PneumaReview.com: When the authorities found out about your activities, what happened?

Maryam: Some people reported about our activities and the government arrested us in March 2009. The day we got arrested we were sent to the security police. We were so scared, pale, and we were both in shock. We had long hours of interrogation until midnight and we were threatened with physical torture by our first interrogator. They sent us to a dark and dirty cell in the basement and told us “you should give us all the information about your friends, your network and your activities as Christians otherwise we will beat you until you vomit blood.” We can’t explain in words how scary that situation was for both of us. It was the first time in our lives that we had such an experience. Before going to prison we had heard about women who had been tortured both physically and mentally, raped and been killed in the Iranian prison. We were now facing the same fears.

We remember we were so scared, in that dark cell we just hugged each other, saying goodbye as we were praying for each other and asking the Holy Spirit to strengthen us. We were in that dark cell from 8 in the morning until 11 at night, and every moment we were waiting for someone to come in and to take us for torture. We don’t know exactly what happened that day, but they didn’t even come to our cell until midnight and they said that they wanted to transfer us to a detention facility. We believe that the only thing that gave us the power to stand in that difficult situation was the presence of the Holy Spirit and God’s grace. For the first few days we were praying for our release because the conditions were so awful. For example, for the first 14 days we were in a detention center, which was in a basement, we had to sleep on a freezing and filthy ground floor with no carpet, we could only use some wet blankets, smelling strongly of urine, to cover ourselves and to keep ourselves warm. We later realized that the guards locked the cells from 8 at night until morning and prisoners could not even use the restroom. For days we didn’t eat or drink or even see the light. Physically we were under so much pressure. However, when we saw God’s miracles through our prayers for prisoners and how He was using us as a tool to give His message to our fellow prisoners and even to some guards, we understood that God had a plan for us even in that dark place and we could trust His plans.

Later, we understood that some of the guards also were curious to know about Jesus because they could see how much prisoners wanted to spend time with us and they wanted us to pray for them. When we were leaving the detention center there were some guards who came to us, they would hold our hands behind bars and asked us to pray for them and forgive them, which was a miracle. Then, after 14 days, we were transferred to Evin prison with charges of apostasy, blasphemy, promoting Christianity and being anti-government.

We also had the experience of being interrogated in solitary confinements of 209, which is a separate building in Evin and is famous for its mental and physical torture. Once a week, we were being interrogated for long hours by two interrogators and during that time, we were separated.

We saw many injustices inside Evin prison. For example, one of the most painful of our experiences was the execution of prisoners with whom we were living every day. We had never experienced such a thing. After these executions we could feel the spirit of sorrow and death. There was deadly silence everywhere, all the prisoners could feel this. We couldn’t say anything. Everyone was under pressure, we stared at each other, but we had no power to speak. Executions had the worst effect on prisoners. They also executed one of our best friends who was only 28 years old.

We spent 259 days in prison, and we were supposed to be executed by hanging. We believe that the first reason that we are free today is because of God’s grace and also, we heard that many Christians from all around the world were supporting us either by praying or sending letters to prison, which made a huge difference. When people started sending letters to prison to show their support for us, our judges and the guards started to change their behavior with us because they could see that there was a unity among Christians, and that we were not alone. Furthermore, the Iranian government was under lots of pressure from some international organizations like the United Nations and Amnesty International, even the Pope in the Vatican sent a letter to the Iranian government and asked for our release. So, contrary to their desire, they had to release us because they wanted to show the world that there is religious freedom in Iran, which is not true. There are still many people in prison because of their faith.

PneumaReview.com: Based on your experiences how hungry would you say that the people of Iran are for the Gospel?

Maryam: The majority of Iranians are tired of the Islamic regime and the harsh rules of Islam. That is why they are very thirsty and open to hear and receive the message of Christianity. During the years we were serving the Lord in Iran and evangelizing Iranians, we did not have even one bad experience; people were so open to hear about Jesus and God’s forgiveness. God is revealing Himself in dreams and visions to many Iranians and preparing their hearts for the message of Christianity.

PneumaReview.com: In what ways has being filled with the Holy Spirit helped you?

Maryziyeh: The presence of the Holy Spirit with us has strengthened us in difficult times, especially during the time we were in prison. Without the presence of the Holy Spirit we could not stand even one day in prison and go through all those difficulties. There were times we could not even pray in Farsi because of lots of stress and pressures from our interrogators. In those times we would pray in tongues and we could see how the Holy Spirit was strengthening us, praying on our behalf, and giving us power to stand firm on our faith.

PneumaReview.com: Do most believers in Iran receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit?

Maryam: Yes, most believers in Iran receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. There is no specific story we can share here, except in the church or house churches we have seen several people who were praying to receive the gift of speaking in tongues. They would receive the Holy Spirit and would start speaking in tongues.

PneumaReview.com: What gifts of the Holy Spirit have you seen in operation in Iran?

Marziyeh: My experience includes seeing speaking in tongues, interpreting of tongues, prophecies, deliverance, as well as having visions and dreams.

When I was attending a few house churches after my conversion I witnessed people receiving the Holy Spirit. They were giving prophecies, speaking in tongues, and having visions that they would share with others. Also, I witnessed the gift of deliverance. In one of the house church meetings, one of the members brought his wife and told the pastor that he thought she was possessed by demons and asked him to pray for her. He explained that “sometimes her voice changes and she screams, she has the sounds of wolves and makes other strange sounds.” At the beginning the woman was quiet and listening. I had doubts that she had demons because she seemed very kind and quiet. The pastor started praying for her and suddenly after hearing the name of Jesus she started screaming and cursing the pastor. Her voice completely changed, and she started beating the pastor and attacking others. Even though she was very thin, Satan had given her a lot of power. A few strong men were not able to stop that tiny woman. They continued praying for her and I saw the shape of her bones on her chest was changing. It was Satan inside her that was controlling her body. She was screaming all the time and cursing those who were praying for her. The pastor and others stopped praying because there were many loud noises and they were concerned about the neighbors. They had to take her to a car, and they took her outside the city for deliverance. After she was delivered, I would see her at the house church and she became one of the strong believers who was attending the house church regularly.

PneumaReview.com: At this time what are the most pressing spiritual needs in Iran and how should believers in the West pray for Iran?

PR

Visit the publisher’s page for more information about Captive in Iran, including a PDF excerpt.

Dennis Balcombe has been sharing the story of Jesus in China for over 50 years. Read what this veteran missionary has to say about following God’s call, cultural immersion, watching revival unfold, and how you can be part of the work God is doing wherever you are.

PneumaReview.com: You were called to missions while you were young, please tell our readers how old you were and what you did to prepare yourself for ministry in China after you received the call?

Pastor Dennis Balcombe: I was brought up in the Methodist Church, but in the USA this denomination is extremely liberal and I never heard the true Gospel until I went to a Spirit filled Assembly of God church at age 16 (1961). For the first time in my life, I saw and heard many testimonies of miracles and healings.

People in the church spoke in recognizable languages having never studied them (French and Hebrew), and many testified to healing after prayer. I was so impressed, and that night as I was praying I heard the Lord speak to me. I had been praying since I was 3 years old, but only then did I clearly hear His voice.

He called me to go into the ministry and to be a preacher. I argued with the Lord that I would believe and follow Him, but I could not be a preacher: I had planned a career in science, my family of 9 was financially poor, I was extremely introverted and not qualified for public speaking, etc.

But the Lord continued to speak to me almost every night, that I must surrender and go into the ministry. For nearly 3 months, I did not get much sleep, because I would argue with God every night. Then I visited the same church for the second time, and the pastor’s wife who was leading the meeting had a Word of Knowledge.

Though she never met me, she said a young man was in the meeting who had been called to the ministry, and he needed to come forward, repent and get right with the Lord and obey Him. She said she would not lead any more songs, the pastor would not speak, the choir would not sing until that person repented.

I of course knew that was me. I went forward to pray in which I gave my life to the Lord to go into the ministry. In those days, churches really respected the Holy Spirit, and from the time I went forward about 11:30 am to 1:30 pm, the Sunday meeting just became a huge prayer meeting, for many others also came forward to pray.

I began to preach the next day, Monday, sharing my testimony in every class in high school. After five days I led my first convert to the Lord, the saxophone player in the school band that I was a part of. I took him to church on Sunday and he prayed for the Baptism of the Spirit, and people testified that he spoke in several different recognizable languages.

Two weeks later, the Lord revealed to me that I was to go to China, the PRC (we called it Red China in those days). I was doing homework and in the encyclopaedia I saw a picture of a young Chinese boy living in the PRC, and I heard the Lord say, “I want you to take the Gospel to him.” I knew from that second that I would go to China.

The next Sunday I told the pastor’s wife (Marjorie McKay), a highly spiritual woman, that God called me to China and I must go right away, in a few weeks. She told me that the Lord had revealed the same to her when I gave my life to the Lord, but I must first receive training and have experience in practical ministry before I could consider going to China. She said it would be at a future date, but I would not have to wait that long. Only 8 years later, I found myself in Hong Kong as a missionary.

My first ministry experience began right away in weekly street evangelism, weekly door-to-door evangelism and preaching in a skid-row mission in Los Angeles. I was invited to share in the youth group meetings, and got involved in all the ministries of the church.

In 1963, I joined the Assemblies of God Bible School in S. California, then called Southern California College (now called Vanguard University). Several months later, some of the students began to attend special “laying on of hands and ministry of the presbytery” meetings in Long Beach at a church called Bethany Chapel under Pastor David Schoch. He was undoubtedly one of the most powerful prophets in the 2nd half of the 20th century.

This church was part of the Restoration Movement, which was also called Later Rain. They came back with amazing testimonies of the prophetic ministry and I decided to attend. The ‘prophets’ would call people out to the platform, and as they knelt there, 5-8 prophets (mostly pastors of large and successful churches) ministered in prophecy using Words of Knowledge and imparting gifts of the Holy Spirit.

We were amazed, for they prophesied to over a dozen of the students, whom they had never met before. They spoke in great detail of God’s calling on their lives, spoke about their particular personality and area of ministry, and sometimes spoke words of loving rebuke from the Lord.

We could not deny this was genuine, for there was no possible way they could know so much about so many people they had never even met. And many began right away to operate in the gifts imparted. Some would begin to prophecy right away; others who received the gift of healing would then lay hands and heal people right in the meeting.

At that time in order to be more accepted by “good and educated” people, some of the Assembly of God churches in the area played down praying in tongues, over-expressive prayer and worship as they did not want to scare away these “good” people.

This came to the Bible College and that year during a period of time we were told not to pray out loud or in tongues, as the State Education Accreditation Association would be visiting and they did not want to lose their chance of accreditation by “wild religious manifestations.” They did get their accreditation, but perhaps the Holy Spirit lifted off that school. It was set up first in L.A after the Azusa Street Revival and the founding of the Assemblies of God to train pastors and missionaries.

Thus after one year, in 1964, I moved to Long Beach and joined Bethany Chapel. They had a tremendous practical training program, but it was in the evenings and weekends. I got a job as a cook on the local State college. For 4 years, I followed this man of God and sat under the ministry of some of the most powerful apostles and prophets of that age, learning so much through both the classes and the practical outreach ministries.

In 1967, I was drafted into the US army, trained as an infantryman and sent to Vietnam. Though I was trained as infantry, due to my previous secular job as a cook, I was assigned to the mess (kitchen) with the 1st Air Calvary, and only seldom had to do actual patrols or get involved in the fighting.

Pastor David Schoch, who was a well-known prophet, prophesied the Vietnam War would spread to Cambodia and that the USA would pull out in defeat. I determined if the Lord helped me, I would never kill anyone in Vietnam and had great faith God would protect me.

Therefore, I carried no ammunition for my 45-calibre pistol and M-79 grenade launcher. I also encouraged the other soldiers in my unit to never deliberately kill anyone, unless it was for self-defense. I told them we Americans would eventually come back to Vietnam after the war ended to travel and invest, and we would be friends with this nation even after it became Communist. That is what is happening now and I have been back many times doing missionary work.

This prophet also said during my tour in Vietnam the Lord would protect me and “not one hair of my head would be harmed,” for after Vietnam I would eventually go to China as a missionary. I had great faith in that word and experienced “perfect peace that passes all understanding.”

As the Army Chaplain was a liberal theologian that did not believe or preach the Bible, I started my own church for the soldiers, and also did some evangelism to the Vietnamese. I would take the excess food the soldiers did not need, and deliver it to the villagers with Vietnamese Gospel tracts.

During that year, I made a trip to Hong Kong for R&R and the Holy Spirit led a prophet from Australia, Paul Collins, to come and sit beside me during the ferry crossing from Kowloon to Hong Kong. This was a miracle, because in 1967, there were 4 million people in Hong Kong and he had no idea where I was or how to contact me, and it was the same for me.

Deng Xiaoping in 1979, with US President Jimmy Carter in the background.
Image: Wikimedia Commons

The situation in Hong Kong looked dire. There were severe riots in Hong Kong, an overspill of the Cultural Revolution in China. It seemed likely China would soon invade Hong Kong. It was so bad that many churches had closed and missionaries and pastors were fleeing.

However, he prophesied that God would protect Hong Kong, the riots would stop, and eventually the doors to China would open and I would be one of the first foreign missionaries to enter China. The Lord through him said I was to come back here as soon as possible after leaving the Army, start a church and prepare for China’s open door.

I was discharged from the Army in April 1968 and I returned to Hong Kong in March 1969. It took me about 7 months to learn enough Chinese to preach, and I started our present church, Revival Christian Church in October 1969. The doors to China opened under Deng Xiaoping’s policy and I was perhaps the first missionary to enter China in the Spring of 1978.

PneumaReview.com: How many churches or individuals supported you when you first set out for China?

Balcombe: My main support was from my home church, Shiloh Church in Oakland. It was a small church of less than 100 when they sent me to Hong Kong, but due to its support of missions and evangelism, it is a now a large church of 3,000. The congregation is mostly African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians, while white Caucasians are just a small minority.

The main support came as we began the ministry of taking Bibles to China, called “Donkeys for Jesus” in 1969. For many years we would have several hundred to several thousand ‘couriers’ come to help to deliver Bibles and other solid teaching materials, and we have estimated to have taken in over 10 million such books. Many were pastors and church leaders, and they would take the vision of missions back to their home churches, and often these churches would provide support of our ministry.

In 1997, at the time of the handover of Hong Kong to the PRC, we set up another ministry, Revival Chinese Ministries International, which replaced the old Bible courier ministry of our church, Revival Christian Church.

Now we have offices or representatives in many offices in Asia and other nations, and for the past couple decades have had an effective ministry to people in many nations around the world. One of the responsibilities of the overseas offices is to arrange for speaking engagements for me or our staff to travel and share the China ministry. Another is to arrange local courier teams to come to Hong Kong to deliver Bibles to China.

PneumaReview.com: You have spent about 50 years on the mission field. What are some of the lessons you have learned while serving on the field?

Balcombe: The first and utmost to do mission work is to totally bond with the people you are called to minister to. This means you learn to speak their language fluently, take on their culture and lifestyles, eat the food they eat, and spend as must time as possible with these people.

This was the pattern of Jesus (John 1:14) and the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 9:19-23). Just to make this effort will win you many friends and eventually many converts. You will probably make many mistakes in the language at the beginning, but as long as people see you trying to improve yourself, they will get right behind you. It shows to them that you must really be dedicated to reach them with your Gospel message if you will go to that effort, and is a testimony that there is truth to your religion.

In China missions, most successful former missionaries did that, the most notable being those of the China Inland Mission under Hudson Taylor. Thus, most Chinese churches today can trace their roots to the work of his missionaries. However, few modern missionaries immerse themselves in the culture they are trying to reach, their denomination often providing translators, and they have no motivation to do so. Thus, many are less than effective in their ministry.

Secondly, there is nothing more important than the prayer life of the missionary, and this is of course is directly related to the Baptism of the Holy Spirit where people can pray in the Spirit, often hours a day.

I have yet to see a really successful missionary or local worker who did not have a solid and consistent prayer life to back up their ministry. Some who are not skilled orators or speakers of the local language, are not good administrators and even lack overseas financial support have still been amazingly successful. This can be related to their prayer life.

The third is to delegate. Within months of starting a new work, you must begin to give ministerial authority to others. This will give the young people coming up in the ministry a chance to mature, and the people in the church or ministry will realize this is their church, not that of the foreign missionary. Then the missionary will be free to go to other locations to start new works, set up a Bible School, or start other ministries.

PneumaReview.com: What advice would you give to someone who feels that the Lord has called them to serve in a country other than their homeland?

Balcombe: First, learn all you can about that nation or people group without having to travel to that nation. Most nations have been evangelized to a certain degree, and there are many books and historical documentaries on YouTube and other video or audio formats that can introduce you to that nation and the history of missions in that country.

The Balcombes in April, 1976.

Most nationalities and lingual groups are represented in almost every major city, such as Chinatown, Japantown, the Hispanic part of the city, etc. If possible, visit these areas, meet with the people, especially the churches. Make contacts, make friends, and learn some of the language.

As in my case, write to the missionaries (now you can send emails) on that field to get advice from them about the people, their culture, needs, and advice on how to prepare for future ministry.

If you have the finances, try to make at least one trip to that country to make contact and learn before you go as a full time missionary. Check out language schools, living costs, renting homes, and learn about the state of Christianity in that country.

The most important is to be a part of a local church in your homeland that believes in missions and will send you. See Romans 10:15. Even if they do not have the finances to support you, you will be sent as Paul and Barnabas were in Acts 13. That church will provide you with a spiritual covering.

PneumaReview.com: In addition to preaching salvation in Jesus, the baptism in the Holy Spirit is a major emphasis of your ministry. How has the message of Spirit baptism been received in China?

Balcombe: In general, this message has been well received throughout China, in both home and official churches. The only exception is where people have followed the teachings of Reformed Theology as represented by John MacArthur in N. America and Stephen Tong in Asia. It is only in the last 10-20 years that these teachings have begun to infiltrate the Chinese Church, and those leaders who receive this often turn against everything Pentecostal/charismatic.

April 3, 2011.

The key is the operation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that are a result of a Spirit-filled life. As one house church leader expressed to me, “Before you came and taught this to us, we would see many miracles. They were simply the result of prayer, fasting and preaching the Gospel. But now we have been baptized in the Holy Spirit, and many of the preachers operate in one or several gifts of the Holy Spirit. Miracles have increased fourfold, but so has persecution.”

Healings and other miracles always cause the church to grow, which always bring persecution against the church.

Persecution leads to more prayer and unity, which results in more people being baptized in the Holy Spirit, which results in more miracles. It is a cycle repeated throughout church history.

PneumaReview.com: Tell us about a significant move of the Holy Spirit you have witnessed in your ministry.

Balcombe: September 1992, I and two Chinese sisters and one Chinese brother from Singapore and Malaysia were teaching 160 house churches in Henan on worship and praise. I preached the first night, but the Lord led me to preach on persecution, and I heard myself saying, “Tomorrow there will be a great persecution but it will result in a great revival.”

They had only carried the casket with me in it a block when they met the police, who demanded they open the casket to check it. But the Christians said, “This man died of HIV AIDS disease.” That was when people thought the HIV virus could be conveyed through the air, and the police told the Christians not to the open the casket.

Henan Province in China.
Image: Wikimedia Commons

The Singaporeans looked like the other local Chinese, but the police asked their names, and when they heard their accents they knew they were not local people. One of the Singaporean sisters, Eunice, was able to escape.

She said she needed to go to the bathroom, which was a hole in the round by the back wall. There was a bamboo curtain around the ‘toilet’ and once she was inside, she jumped over the wall and ran away. I later caught up with her, and though there was an all-points bulletin by the police looking for us, a local farmer had us dress up like local farmers, and took us out of the area on his bicycle.

The others from Singapore and Malaysia were released after only a month, but 120 of the local Christians were not released until the middle of December of 1992. Of the 160 preachers, 40 were mostly middle aged or older men who had been in prison before and were always very cautious, and when they saw me leave and heard the commotion outside, they took off.

The other 120 were mostly young people, the majority being young women who had not been arrested before, because that local area had seen relative freedom for many years. But then as now, the real qualification for ministry is to have spent time in prison. It proves God really called you.

So these believers were rejoicing that finally they could suffer for the Lord and spend time in prison. Because they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, they used this as an opportunity to preach the Gospel. Many of the other women in prison were murderesses, prostitutes, drug pushers, or addicts.

Through the gifts of the Spirit, these women preached the Gospel, cast out demons and healed hundreds of sick prisoners. During those 4 months, we smuggled Bibles into the prison and they began Bible studies. Even many of the prison guards and prison officials became Christians.

While it resulted in a model prison with almost zero problems with discipline, the head of the prison department in Zhengzhou, Henan, a hard-line Communist, was very upset when he heard his prison had become a church. He instructed these Christians must be released, lest the ‘Christian religious fervor’ spread to other prisons.

This was a time when China was relatively open and free, before the hard-line policies of the past few years. Because no one had signed a confession of committing a crime, and there was no real proof of a crime, they released them in December 1992.

I want back in March 1993 and they showed me a document which listed the numbers of new believers baptized in all the districts in Henan and Anhui Provinces from this Gospel outreach, and it was a total 46,500. That was an amazing miracle.

Then the next year, February 1994, I was arrested in the same general area with 6 other overseas Chinese. We were in prison for less than a week, and our release became a world-wide news item reported by every major news agency.

As a result, I was able to address the USA Congress (House of Representatives), meet the assistant Secretary of State in Washington, and address the House of Lords in the Parliament in the UK. I was interviewed by many news agencies and I spoke on the BBC.

In my interview with the BBC, I spoke in English, Cantonese and Putonghua (Mandarin). The last was officiated by a young Spirit-filled Chinese Christian sister working for the BBC, but sent from Beijing, and she encouraged me to use this time (close to an hour) to preach the Gospel, which I did.

The day after I met with him, the Assistant Secretary of State in Washington, D.C. flew to Beijing where he had a scheduled meeting with the leaders of China. They had not been made aware of this situation, as it was a local matter that local PSB did not want to be made known in Beijing. Their real intention was to get money from me, our group and the local Christians. In addition, they broke the law for they are required to notify the US embassy in 3 days of the arrest of an American, which they did not do.

The Chinese officials in Beijing told the Henan PSB to release the several dozen key house Church leaders which they did. Knowing they would not be arrested again, as this was now a major diplomatic affair, they were very bold in preaching the Gospel.

In a little over 3 months, by June 1994, approximately 120,000 people were added to the churches in Henan and Anhui.

Once again, it was proven persecution leads to revival.

PneumaReview.com: Please share a transformation story of how you have seen God change a family or a community.

Balcombe: This is more the testimony of what God has done through others, not so much through me. One of my first ministries in the USA was working with Teen Challenge under David Wilkerson. At that time, the book The Cross and the Switchblade was very popular.

When I first came to Hong Kong while I was pioneering my first church here, I also worked with another similar ministry that ministered to drug addicts, alcoholics and others addicted to substance abuse.

A well-known Christian missionary from the U.K., Jackie Pullinger, arrived in Hong Kong a few years before I did, and started a ministry called St. Stephen’s Society. She began a ministry in the Kowloon Walled City among drug addicts and saw countless addicts set free from drugs and other addictions. Her powerful story is told in the classic book, Chasing the Dragon. [Editor’s note: see also Missionary David Joannes account in “The City of Darkness.”

An aerial photo of the Kowloon Walled City taken in 1989.
Image: Ian Lambot / Wikimedia Common

Recently we have seen a proliferation of teachers producing videos and holding conferences that attack the very fundamentals of our Christian faith. They base these claims on supposedly recently discovered ancient manuscripts (which often are simply Gnostic gospels), archaeological or historical documents or higher criticism of Scripture.

Hearing these attacks is often a challenge to my faith because I don’t have the academic or even theological training to refute these teachers. But when I have doubts, I simply look at proof of the power of the Gospel in changed lives.

These testimonies are so common, widespread all over the world with irrefutable proof of the power of the Gospel that this demonstrates beyond a doubt the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true. No other religion anywhere can produce the same results.

PneumaReview.com: What are some of the most meaningful ways that pastors and churches back home have helped you keep going even in difficult times?

Balcombe: Hundreds of churches and individual Christians back home in N. America and Europe have stood behind us in our ministry to the Body of Christ in China. This has been primarily in providing financial support and courier teams to provide Bibles and teaching materials for the Chinese church.

Many of these Spirit-filled minsters have sacrificed to travel to Hong Kong and even to enter China to assist in teaching leaders and conducting large conferences in Hong Kong. Many of them, such as Bill Johnson, have had their excellent books translated into Chinese and provided them free to the Chinese Christians.

Dennis Balcombe speaking at the Empowered21 Asia conference in 2017.

Many churches have us on the church prayer list and we provide frequent prayer requests. Any success we may have had is related to their prayers.

While many in the West have recently been spewing out hateful words attacking China, primarily for it’s role in the spread of COVID-19, others have been showing their love for China and its people in prayers and by providing financial support to meet the needs of the church in China and other developing nations.

The United States has been the most powerful world power since the 20th Century, just as the United Kingdom was for hundreds of years before that. It all relates to missions—sending out missionaries, supporting missionaries and supporting churches overseas. The Lord has blessed us so that we might bless others, and when we stop doing that and want to be great and rich at the expense of others, we will in the end loose it all.

PneumaReview.com: What are some of your plans for the future?

Balcombe: Through the disaster of COVID-19, the churches have learned the power using the internet and virtual meetings such as Zoom conferences, Facebook, etc. to conduct meetings, preach the Gospel and minster to people near and far including people who would not be able to attend a church meeting.

Daily we are teaching countless numbers all through China and other nations using on-line conferences and meetings. Whole Bible College courses can be done on-line, and still people can interact with others and develop close relationships.

In China, Hong Kong and most of Asia COVID-19 has almost been defeated and everything is opening up, including church meetings. The church is stronger than before, and now we have a new tool to reach even more people. The church is investing in the equipment and necessary technology to produce high quality teaching and preaching videos whereby every member in the church can receive Bible College training and the Gospel can be widely preached.

Having said that, we will still be planting more churches all over China, focusing on reaching the ethnic minorities that have been neglected in the past.

While we certainly do not believe in Communist ideology, we recognize God has allowed China to have a Communist government, and we will do whatever we can legally to obey the Great Commission. We do not hate the Chinese government, nor do we think they are a threat to world-peace as some American Christians claim.

There have been major political problems in Hong Kong from demonstrations that arose from a proposed extradition law that was withdrawn. But now we have the Hong Kong National Security Law that is even more threatening to basic freedoms.

Thus the USA no longer recognizes Hong Kong as a separate part of China under the ‘one country, two systems’ formula, and says Hong Kong is just another city in China. If that is so, Hong Kong still is and still will be the freest city in China, continuing to be a base from which to evangelize the estimated 1.3 billion people in China who have never heard the Gospel.

There is, of course, a possibility that hardliners will tighten their control of Hong Kong and even try to take back Taiwan. In that case, we will simply become a true underground church movement, as much of the Chinese church of some 100 million already is.

We will not immigrate, not leave under any circumstances for this is our home, our calling and our ministry. Whatever happens there will be a great spiritual harvest of ingathering of many Chinese souls, and we expect to be a part of it.

Pastor Dennis Balcombe
Hong Kong

F.F. Bosworth (1877-1958)

F.F. Bosworth (1877-1958) was a central figure in the Pentecostal movement of the early 20th century and the Post-World War II healing revival. His impact as a famous healing evangelist was unmistakable, and his book, Christ the Healer, remains a popular text on divine healing. Pentecostal church history would be incomplete without his story. One of the most prominent evangelists to serve as his protege was Tommy Lee “T.L.” Osborn (1923-2013), who became a world-renowned missionary evangelist and the famous author of the classic, Healing the Sick.

T.L. Osborn (1923-2013)

As I sought to learn more about Bosworth and his relationship with Osborn, I reached out to the one person who would know more about their time together than any other source. That person was Osborn’s daughter, Dr. LaDonna Osborn, who graciously took time out of her busy schedule to answer my questions about her father. The interview was conducted by email in February 2016. It presents questions and answers about the influence of Bosworth on the life and ministry of T.L. Osborn. Other topics include Osborn’s views on Spirit baptism and tongues as the initial evidence of the Spirit baptism.

Dr. LaDonna Oborn is a well-regarded Christian leader. She currently serves as president and CEO of Osborn Ministries International, the world missionary organization founded by her parents in 1949.  As noted on her webpage, “She is founder and overseer of the International Gospel Fellowship (of churches and ministries), which includes more than 60 ministries, over 1,000 churches in more than 50 nations globally.” For more information on her work, visit her official website: https://osborn.org/about/ladonna-osborn

Roscoe Barnes III, Ph.D.

ROSCOE BARNES III: Your father has been quoted as saying: “Old F. F. Bosworth used to share a lot of secrets with us.”  What are some of the secrets that Bosworth shared with him?

Dr. LaDonna Oborn

LADONNA OSBORN: My father did not go into great detail concerning what exactly F.F. Bosworth shared with he and my mother. From various general comments and reflections, I believe that Brother Bosworth was a great encouragement in the areas of faith and praying for the sick in mass. During many of the events that were organized by Gordon Lindsay, where various healing evangelists were present to preach and pray for the sick, he had Brother Bosworth teach in the mornings. This strategy was significant in helping people to understand the biblical validity of divine healing. This was especially true when Brother William Branham prayed for the sick. Because of his unique gift and style, G. Lindsay felt that people needed teaching so that their faith would be in the Word of God, rather than in a person. As I look back on this, I thank God for this wisdom. Brother Lindsay did much to facilitate the healing revival that was spreading across the States during the late 1940’s and 1950’s.

BARNES: In his book, Healing the Sick, your dad wrote that someone gave him a copy of Two Kinds of Faith by E. W. Kenyon. Who was the person that gave him this book and introduced him to Kenyon?

OSBORN: I do not remember my father ever saying who gave him the first Kenyon book.

BARNES: Did your father and mother ever speak in tongues in the way that is taught by classical Pentecostals? In other words, did either of them have the experience where they spoke in tongues as the initial physical evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit?

OSBORN: My father was saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit in a Pentecostal revival meeting near his farm home in Oklahoma. He later traveled with a Pentecostal Church of God evangelist for three years (age 15-18). My mother was saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit in an Assembly of God church where she attended as a young girl. Both of my parents were saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit at the age of 12. Although we were out of the country most months of each year, we always had a home church in Tulsa. It was an Assembly of God church. Yes, both of my parents’ early spiritual experiences were in the classic Pentecostal context. Yes, they spoke in tongues, as was usual in the Pentecostal tradition.

BARNES: If they did speak in tongues, did they continue to do so or did they stop at a certain point?

OSBORN: Yes, my parents always spoke in tongues. My brother and I were raised in the classic Pentecostal tradition and I am proud to identify with those who understood the power of the Holy Spirit and the emphasis on witnessing of Christ with effectiveness.

BARNES: Is there a written record of their Spirit baptism? If not, can you provide a time frame for their experience?

OSBORN: I remember both of my parents telling the stories of their Spirit baptisms, but I’m not recalling if these details were included in their publications. Actually, I don’t remember additional details of their conversion either. Of course, within our family, we grew up hearing the stories of the dramatic changes that took place in their lives when they were born again and baptized in the Holy Spirit. I do recall that their Spirit baptisms were not on the same day as their conversions, but rather a few days after. So both would have been baptized in the Holy Spirit at the age go 12.

BARNES: In your father’s book, The Purpose of Pentecost, he did not advocate evidential tongues as is taught by classical Pentecostals. What exactly was his position on this topic?

OSBORN: My father wrote The Purpose of Pentecost during a time in which the issue of tongues was causing great division within the Body of Christ. The focus had shifted from the role of the Spirit-filled believer to witness of Christ, to a rather Pharisaical attitude of boasting of speaking in tongues while doing nothing with that divine equipping to fulfill the mission of Christ on the earth. My father wrote the book to re-focus believers on the priority of evangelism for every Spirit-filled believer. If you read this book again in the historical context in which it was written, you will see this clearly. When the need for that emphasis ended, we discontinued publishing that book.

BARNES: Who or what influenced his views on the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues? Was he in anyway influenced by F.F. Bosworth or E.W. Kenyon?

OSBORN: The views of my father and mother (and myself) on the Holy Spirit were influenced by the Pentecostal environments in which we were saved and also from the Scripture. It is normative for the New Testament Christians to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to witness of Christ. I do not remember anything being said about Bosworth or Kenyon’s attitude regarding tongues. The influence of Bosworth was on the biblical foundation for divine healing; the influence of Kenyon was the redemptive work of Christ at the Cross. These redemptive truths were not understood so clearly prior to E.W. Kenyon’s teachings. Again, he made a great contribution to the Body of Christ at critical time.

BARNES: Many evangelists during your father’s time wrote about Bible prophecy, gifts of the Spirit, and other topics. However, it seems that your father focused on topics related only to salvation, healing, evangelism, and prosperity. Is this a true assessment of his writings? If so, why do you think he avoided other topics?

OSBORN: My father was an evangelist. Everything that he wrote and did was to bring people to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. He did the work of an evangelist always in cooperation with the local churches, and he made it clear that it was their responsibility to teach new believers additional truths after their conversion. He never preached on the Holy Spirit, Bible prophecy, the gifts of the Spirit, or such other things that are important to the believer. He recognized that the gift of the evangelist is a gift to the Church. The gift of the pastor and teacher are also gifts to the Church. He was an evangelist and he fulfilled his part in bringing people to Jesus and directing them into local churches to receive guidance and further biblical instruction. Of course, he had personal views on every biblical topic. But his public ministry was evangelism.

I would say that a true assessment of his writings is that his life focus was to help people to see Jesus and to recognize that Jesus wanted to live in each of them in order to continue His work through them. That, in essence, was my father’s passion and all of his messages and writings reflect that. I would not say that he avoided any topic, but rather he was totally focused on the person, the work and the continuing ministry of Jesus Christ.

BARNES: How would you describe the level of influence that Bosworth had on your father’s ministry?

OSBORN: Brother Bosworth was on the scene during a very critical time, in the early healing movement in the United States. No doubt, he influenced all of the young healing evangelists and kept them focused on the Word of God as the final authority concerning God’s will to heal. His book, Christ the Healer, was likely the primer on the topic. There is no way to estimate the extent of his influence through his teachings, his example, and his encouragement of a new generation.

BARNES: William Branham once said that he introduced your father to Bosworth. He mentioned this in his sermon, “Faith,” which is posted here: http://www.williambranham.com/faith-56-0427/. Have you heard this story?

OSBORN: While I don’t remember this exactly, I do know that under Brother Lindsay’s influence, my father, Brother Branham, and Brother Bosworth were all involved in the same conventions.

BARNES: A friend of mine, Rev. Ryan Miller, shared a letter from your father in which he seems to suggest Bosworth encouraged him to write books. Do you know if your father offered such encouragement?

OSBORN: Yes, Bosworth encouraged my father to write. It was another man who edited my father’s first manuscripts and taught him how to write properly and also to read editing symbols. Of course, as you know, writing and publishing has long been a central passion of this ministry.

BARNES: Did your father attend Bosworth’s funeral in 1958?

OSBORN: I do not believe my father attended Bosworth’s funeral. During 1958, we were overseas in some of our historic crusades in East Africa.

PR

Larry Martin started PentecostalGold.com to share recordings of classic sermons from Pentecostal preachers. Pneuma Review caught up with this busy evangelist and author to ask him about this golden archive available to the public without cost or obligation.

PneumaReveiw.com: Please tell our readers a bit about yourself.

Larry Martin: I am an Assemblies of God evangelist with more than fifty years in gospel ministry. I have served the body of Christ as a pastor, evangelist and Bible College administrator. I have dedicated myself to the study of Pentecostal origins and have published a number of books on the revival at Azusa Street and the outpouring in Topeka, Kansas.

PneumaReveiw.com: Briefly explain what Pentecostal Gold is.

Larry Martin: Pentecostal Gold is a free audio archive of classic Pentecostal preaching. There are more than 2,200 sermons on the site by more than 200 different preachers. I add several more sermons almost every week.

PneumaReveiw.com: What inspired you to start this website?

Larry Martin: With a love for history and good preaching, it seemed natural to take an interest in preserving great Pentecostal preaching. Over the years, I had personally collected several hundred tapes of sermons and soon found that several of my friends also had a lot of tapes. When God gave me the idea over seven years ago I immediately went to work on it, purchasing the web address and uploading sermons.

I spend part of most days working on the website. It is my gift of love to the body of Christ. I believe when I am gone or no longer able to minister Pentecostal Gold will continue to minister to new generations of men and women hungry for the Word of God.

PneumaReveiw.com: Did you have certain criteria that you used in order to determine which preachers you would include on your website?

Larry Martin: Yes, there are several.

• The preacher must be Pentecostal
• The preacher must be 70 years of age or in Heaven. I set the age limit arbitrarily, but was interested in posting preachers with experience and those who had passed the point of trying to impress others.
• I must be able to obtain permission to post the sermons. If the speaker is alive, I must have his or her permission. If they are deceased, I must have permission from an heir.

I am very serious about the third requirement. Christians and even preachers are sometimes the most careless about violating copyright laws. Every sermon ever preached is the intellectual property of the speaker and we respect that. In order to listen to the sermons, an individual must sign into the site and agree that they will not download or copy the sermons. If I can add a short side note, I am amazed that “Christians” will use a fake name or fake email to sign into the site to try and short cut that simple request.

PneumaReveiw.com: Who are some of the preachers that people can listen to on Pentecostal Gold?

Larry Martin: A complete list is on the website, but readers will recognize names like C. M. Ward, Jimmy Swaggart, R. W. Schambach, Aimee Semple McPherson, A A Allen and David Wilkerson. This, of course, is just a small sampling.

Not all of the preachers are famous. I value all preaching and intentionally include the obscure as well as the famous. I realize that most listeners will be drawn to the better known preachers, but the unknown men and women of God also had something important to say.

Many of my friends and even people I have never met send me sermons from their personal library. When I get a new preacher, I begin the search for permission. Locating the heirs of a long-deceased preacher can be the most difficult part of the process. When I get permission I edit the sermon and change the format to MP3 and another preacher is added to the archive.

PneumaReveiw.com: The Pentecostal Gold website makes a point of saying that your ministry “does not endorse every person posted on the site; neither do we endorse every doctrine and discipline advocated by every preacher.” Why was it necessary to include this disclaimer?

Larry Martin: I have been criticized because I have added preachers that may have had a blemish on their lives. My answer to that is that Pentecostal Gold exists to celebrate preachers, not judge them. I will let God take care of the rest on judgment day.

Image: Matt Botsford

As far as doctrines, there are certainly some minor things said on the website that is not totally in line with everything I believe. That would be especially true with regards to the interpretation of prophetic events. If someone raised an issue, I would probably joke and say, “I don’t always agree with myself.”

At the same time, I would not allow heresy on the site or a major deviation from truth. For example, I have not posted any sermons by “Oneness” Pentecostals. Will I ever? I am not sure. I do know I would not post a sermon that advocated a “Jesus Only” water baptism or Holy Spirit baptism as requisites for salvation.

PneumaReveiw.com: Are there any preachers that you would like to add to the website in the future?

Larry Martin: There are many. I don’t want to name names, but some preachers or their heirs have refused to allow me to post sermons. Some of those are big names that most would quickly recognize. Unfortunately, others are not at all famous but their families are just unwilling to share. Sad to say, it is often for monetary reasons. This really disappoints me because I feel if I could talk to the preacher themselves almost all of them would be glad to share the messages God has given them.

There are others I would like to add but to date I have not been given any of their sermons. Honestly, my unattainable goal would be to add everyone that ever preached a Pentecostal sermon.

PneumaReveiw.com: What can we learn from the Pentecostal preachers who are found on Pentecostal Gold?

Larry Martin: What is there not to learn? With over 2000 sermons, just about every subject regarding our Pentecostal practice is covered. Many of the sermons are categorized by subject.

Young preachers can also learn practical preaching styles by listening to these men and women of God. Of course, there is an anointing of the Holy Spirit, but there are also styles of preaching, cadence, homiletical structures and basic delivery that have been proven successful for over a century.

To be candid, I personally learned much about preaching by listening to reel-to-reel and cassette tapes of some of the sermons on the website.

PneumaReveiw.com: What do you feel is unique or special about Pentecostal preaching?

Larry Martin: I value all biblical preaching. Some of the greatest preaching I have ever heard was by preachers who were not Pentecostal. I, however, am Pentecostal and honor my heritage through celebrating Pentecostal preaching. If Pentecostal preaching is unique it is because Spirit-filled ministers tend to rely more on the anointing and power of Holy Spirit.

PentecostalGold.com

PR

Pneuma Review speaks with Dr. Michael Brown about his 2020 book Revolution.

PneumaReview.com: Revolution and revival are subjects that you have addressed in a number of your books. What experiences in your life birthed your passion for these things?

Dr. Michael Brown: Although I had been preaching the message of repentance since my first sermon in 1973, and although revival was a consuming theme in my life from the early 1980s, the revolution theme did not become prominent in my life until the late 1990s. To be sure, I had believed in the transforming power of the gospel, even on a national level, in particular during times of spiritual outpouring. And I had also believed that we were all called to lay our lives down for Jesus. But it only while serving as a leader in the Brownsville Revival that these different themes coalesced around the concept of revolution.

Michael L. Brown, Revolution: An Urgent Call to Holy Uprising (Charisma House, 2020). Preview

As I explain in more depth in Revolution, it was in 1999, after speaking at a major rally in New Jersey, attended by thousands, that I went to my hotel room and decided to watch a documentary about the rise of religious fundamentalism worldwide, beginning in the late 1970s in Iran. Watching the footage from America as Ronald Reagan came to prominence, I was struck by a similar at a major Christian rally where the speaker sounded themes very similar to mine – except he spoke in 1979 and I was speaking in 1999. Yet things had only deteriorated morally in America since then.

At that moment, it struck me that something dramatic had to change, that more of the same would only produce more of the same, that we needed revolutionary change in our churches that would produce a revolutionary change in our society. And as I began to study revolutionary movements in history, trying to understand how cultural came about, for better or for worse, I began to see in a deeper light how revolutionary the words of Jesus really were, from His call to leave everything for His cause to His call to go and change the world with Him (better known as the Great Commission). That’s what led to the writing of this book.

PneumaReview.com: The title of your most recent book is Revolution: An Urgent Call to Holy Uprising. What prompted you to release this book at this time?

Brown: This is actually an updated, revised edition of the book Revolution: The Call to Holy War that came out in 2000 (this, of course, was before 9/11, and the “Holy War” subtitle was inspired by the students in our ministry school, who heard in terms of a gospel call to lay down our lives for a dying world).

Twenty years later, while speaking with editors from Charisma, one of them asked to see the book, after which he reached out to me, asking if I could work on an updated and revised edition to be released immediately. I felt deeply that this was the Lord’s will, since at that very moment, crowds were marching down our city streets proclaiming, “This is revolution!”

PneumaReview.com: Please describe the characteristics of the revolution that you are calling for in this book.

Brown: Throughout the book, I make very clear that this is a Jesus revolution, not a fleshly, violent revolution of intimidation and anger. It is a revolution based on conformity to the character of Jesus, based on obedience to His radical calling, based on the power of the Spirit, based on the upside down method of the cross. Talk about revolutionary concepts!

PneumaReview.com: What are some of the changes that will need to take place in the church before society at large can be changed?

Brown: We can’t just do church as usual, the same way many of us have been doing it for decades. We can’t go on with a spectator Christianity, where people gather together to watch (or, even participate in) a nice religious show. We need to reach the lost and make disciples. We need to produce true Jesus-followers who are joined to Him in loving obedience whether by life or by death. We need to ask how it is that the world has changed us rather than us changing the world. And then we need to be willing to make major changes – not just for the sake of change and certainly not just to be “relevant” – in order to raise up real revolutionaries.

PneumaReview.com: How important is it for the church to have an eternal perspective in order for this radical transformation to take place?

Brown: It is massively important to have that eternal perspective. That’s why I devote chapters in the book to the gods of this age, the gods of material and greed and addiction to sports and entertainment, the things that so deeply distract us, the things that put our whole focus on the here and now. Instead, we must live our lives in the light of eternity, illustrated powerfully in the book not just by stories of martyrdom, but by the theology of martyrdom. With that understanding, even we live to be 100 years old and are financially prosperous, we will live each day in light of forever.

PneumaReview.com: What can individual believers do in order to prepare themselves to be part of this revolution?

Brown: First and foremost, they make a fresh consecration of their lives to the Lord. They count the cost afresh, understanding how extreme the Lord’s demands are, but then they see that this is the path to a meaningful life: “Here I am, Lord! Send me, use me.” But this can only happen when we experience His goodness and grace and love afresh. Otherwise, it will be fear-based or behavior-based. That’s also why there’s an entire chapter in the book devoted to the subject of holiness – but again, this is not presented in legalistic terms but in liberational terms. Holiness to the Lord is the theme of our counterculture revolution.

In short, I would encourage everyone to read the words of Jesus and the apostles afresh and ask, “What if they really meant what they said?”

PneumaReview.com: How can pastors help prepare their people to be involved in this?

Brown: Pastors need to ask themselves what they are building and what they are producing. Certainly, it is impossible to please everyone, and there is more than enough burden on pastors and elders already. That being said, it’s all too easy for leaders to take the easy route, which is often the traditional route, just replicating what they’ve seen over the years, even if the model is not proving effective.

A constant prayer of mine is that, whatever it takes and whatever the cost or consequence, Jesus will be glorified in my life to the max. If we share that heart, I believe God will answer that prayer – and it is revolutionary indeed.

PR

Pneuma Review speaks with Dean Merrill about his book, 50 Pentecostal and Charismatic Leaders Every Christian Should Know (Chosen, 2021).

PneumaReview.com: Please tell us about your own involvement in the Pentecostal Movement.

Dean Merrill: My parents—good Midwestern Quakers—were drawn toward a fuller experience of the Holy Spirit about the time I was born. My personal infilling came while I was still a boy, a year after my conversion. Sensing a call to ministry, I trained at a Pentecostal school (Chicago Bible College) and was ordained thereafter by Philadelphia Church, Chicago. My convictions have remained the same throughout my life, even though much of my editing and publishing work has been in generically evangelical circles.

PneumaReview.com: Where did the idea for this book come from?

Dean Merrill: Actually, it was the idea of the publisher (Chosen Books, part of the Baker Publishing Group). They had published two similar volumes: 50 People Every Christian Should Know (2009) and 50 Women Every Christian Should Know (2014). They approached me to keep the series going.

PneumaReview.com: Were there specific criteria that were used to determine which Pentecostal and Charismatic leaders would be included in this volume?

PneumaReview.com: In the book you mention that you and at least one other family member received ministry from a couple of the people whose stories are in the book. Please tell our readers a little bit about those encounters.

Dean Merrill: I was about ten years old when, at an Oral Roberts campaign in Des Moines, Iowa, my father guided me into the healing line to receive prayer for my enlarged adenoids. It was the last night of the campaign, so Roberts was moving us through quickly, trying to touch everyone who hadn’t been able to come up previously. He laid his hand on my head and prayed a short prayer. My problem went away thereafter, never requiring surgery.

PneumaReview.com: As you have studied the lives of the leaders who are included in the book, what would you say are some of the key factors that caused them to be so effective?

Dean Merrill:

• They were incredibly bold, courageous, “gutsy.” Think about Maria Woodworth-Etter facing down a half-drunken mob intent on burning down her tent. Or David Wilkerson reaching out to hostile New York City gangbangers.
• They paid very public, no-apologies attention to the ministry of healing. They were confident that the God who saves us is the God who heals as well.
• If they felt God had told them to do something or had promised to provide, they didn’t flinch. No second-guessing.
• They had a laser focus on Spirit empowerment, not just human flash and flair.
• They prayed like crazy, all the time.

Is there one person in the book that you found to be particularly interesting?

Dean Merrill: Oh, my—that’s like asking a parent which child is their favorite. I’m intrigued with them all!

PneumaReview.com: How can the stories in this book challenge Pentecostals and Charismatics today?

Dean Merrill: They show us that Book-of-Acts Christianity is not just a historical relic. They tell us that it’s not all that important whether we keep our membership in what I call “the evangelical club.” In the book I quote Donald Gee (the British writer/editor), who wrote back in the 1950s, “Revivals are never launched without someone going to an extreme…. There has to be an extremism to move things…. Miracles of healing occur when faith refuses to be logical, and blinds itself to arguments, based on plenty of contrary experience.”

PneumaReview.com: How can the accounts in this book encourage Pentecostals and Charismatics today?

Dean Merrill: They assure us that the wind of the Spirit still blows in our time, if we will only take notice. The Holy Spirit has not gone off, like a grizzly bear, into a long hibernation. He is alive and active wherever given a welcome. Those who listen to him can do remarkable things for God’s cause.

PR

Publisher’s page: http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/50-pentecostal-and-charismatic-leaders-every-christian-should-know/404900

Hormoz Shariat firmly believes that Iran will be the first Islamic nation that turns to Christ. He says it is ready for a major transformation—spiritually, socially, financially, and politically, and that it will be a Christian nation soon, as prophesied in Jeremiah 49:38. PneumaReview.com spoke with Dr. Shariat about how he came to Jesus, what he sees God doing in Iran, and how Christians in the West can pray for Iran’s thousands of secret believers.

PneumaReview.com: You were a Muslim who became a Christian. Please tell our readers how you came to the Lord.

Dr. Hormoz Shariat: I was a Ph.D. student at the University of Southern California (USA) when I came to Christ by comparing Quran and the Bible. I realized that both could not be true. After that, I went to a church in downtown Los Angeles. That is when I heard the Gospel and responded to it.

PneumaReview.com: When you became a believer in Jesus you were in the United States, but you admit that you found it difficult to share your Christian faith. What advice would you give to a believer who is currently experiencing this same struggle?

Hormoz Shariat:

• Believe in the power of the Gospel to change lives (Romans 1: 16).
• Know that it is selfish to keep such a life changing message to yourself.
• Love others. That will help you take your eyes off yourself, get rid of shyness and share the Gospel.
• Do it anyway. Courage is doing what is right no matter how you feel.

Hormoz Shariat, Iran’s Great Awakening: How God is Using A Muslim Convert to Spark Revival (Iran Alive Ministries, 2020).
Read the review by John Lathrop

PneumaReview.com: In your book Iran’s Great Awakening you shared a great loss that your family suffered. Your brother, who was 18, was executed by the Iranian government on a minor political charge. How were you able to get through the pain of that event and go on to serve the Lord?

Hormoz Shariat: I mourned and prayed for 3 days. During that time, I felt God revealed his heart and plan to me. I realized that I am not supposed to hate anybody including those who killed my brother. And the fact that we have only one enemy: Satan, and those who killed my brother are not my enemies but victims in the hand of our one enemy (Satan). Also, I learned the best thing I can do for the injustice in this world is to share the Gospel.

PneumaReview.com: What kinds of ministry have you been involved in since you became a believer in Jesus?

Hormoz Shariat: First evangelism. Then I planted 6 churches in various cities in Northern California.

In 2001, after 9/11 events, we bought airtime from a secular channel to broadcast into Iran.

In 2011, we came to Dallas to start a 24/7 channel to reach into Iran.

We have used the channel not only for evangelism but as a tool to plant underground house churches.

PneumaReview.com: There are people who say that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. How would you respond to that statement?

Hormoz Shariat: Yes, there is one God. But the presentation of that God by Quran and Bible are so totally different that one of them is introducing a false God. On my programs, I give the characteristics of both Gods, and ask people to think about it and decide which one they want to follow.

By the way “Allah” was the name of an idol.

PneumaReview.com: What attracts Muslims to Christianity?

Hormoz Shariat: Things that are in Christianity that are absent in Islam: Love, Joy, Peace. When they see the love of Christians, the relationship we have with the Lord through prayer and worship, and the peace we have in our life, they are convinced that we have something that they do not have.

PneumaReview.com: In your book you write that you believe Iran will become a Christian nation. Why do you believe that?

Also, what is happening in Iran today indicates that Iran could be transformed by the Gospel even during our lifetime. The fulfillment of this promise will be at Christ’s return.

PneumaReview.com: What are some of the current signs of the growth of Christianity in Iran?

Hormoz Shariat:

• Iran has the fastest growing evangelical population in the world (Operation World).
• The majority of Iranians have already rejected Islam. A recent survey has shown that less than 1/3 rd of Iranians (32%) consider themselves Muslims!
• The rejection of Islam by masses. Islam is experiencing its greatest defeat in its history in Iran today.

PneumaReview.com: Are the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit a regular part of the life of the Iranian church?

Hormoz Shariat: Yes. Because Iranians read the Bible and believe all that is in it. Nobody has told them yet that not all the gifts are for today. Visions and dreams and miracles are common.

PneumaReview.com: You and your wife started Iran Alive Ministries. What types of ministries is it involved in?

Hormoz Shariat: Using media to go over the heads of the Mullahs into people’s homes to evangelize, help transform lives, and plant house churches.

PneumaReview.com: How can believers in the west best help the church in Iran?

Hormoz Shariat:

• Pray. Because we are facing the dark spirit of the “Prince of Persia” mentioned in Daniel 10.
• Support us financially. The people in Iran cannot support our channel. They depend on their brothers and sisters to take the Gospel to them.
• Become a TV partner. People with good video content can join us to disciple a nation. We have partners like Michael Yousef, Jack Graham, Robert Morris, and others who are using our channel to reach millions of Iranians.

Our channel was ranked Number 1 as the most watched Christian channel in Iran with 7.7% (that is 6 million) people saying they watch us daily. We estimate 24 million watch us at least once a week.

PR

Further Reading:

John Lathrop’s review of: Hormoz Shariat, Iran’s Great Awakening: How God is Using A Muslim Convert to Spark Revival (Iran Alive Ministries, 2020)

PneumaReview.com: Please tell our readers how the two of you were called to be missionaries to the Middle East.

Tom and JoAnn Doyle: After twenty years of pastoring, God gave us a definite call to go to the Middle East and serve Him in multiple countries. I had become a tour guide for the State of Israel while I was a pastor, but God began to work in our hearts about the people who needed Jesus in Israel and the entire Middle East. Both of us received calls and God put it so strongly on our hearts to leave pastoring and go!

PneumaReview.com: What types of ministry are you involved in overseas?

Tom and JoAnn: At Uncharted, we have 70 national indigenous leaders in Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Pakistan, and Germany. Our goal is to reach the unreached and stand with the persecuted. Our team plants churches in high risk areas among Muslims and we work with Jewish Holocaust Survivors in Israel. Another strong emphasis is working with persecuted believers. We try to sound the alarm in the West about the major breakthrough that is occurring in the Muslim world. More Muslims have come to faith in Christ in the last 10-20 years than in the last 1400 years of Islam!

PneumaReview.com: JoAnn, please tell us a bit about the new book, Women Who Risk.

JoAnn: After 20 years now in the Middle East we realized that women were always instrumental in the harvest field of salvations. The women we write about in Women Who Risk are real and their stories are true, but the book reads like a thrilling novel. God’s stories are the best, aren’t they? We just had to tell these stories because they remind us of the faithful women who financed Jesus’ ministry, were at the Cross, the Burial and the Empty Tomb. They were the first Gospel sharers as they told the Good News to the disciples too.

PneumaReview.com: In the book, women are described as “spiritual gatekeepers.” Please explain what that means.

Tom and JoAnn: Women are the major influencers in their families when it comes to spiritual things. You would think that would not be true in the Muslim world, but it is a God-given role to mothers and if they come to faith in Christ, they are faithful to tell their family even if they may die. At Uncharted we say, reach a Muslim woman, reach the Muslim world.

PneumaReview.com: Tom, you wrote a book about dreams and visions. How prevalent are they in the Middle East?

Tom: I didn’t believe in it at first until we were hit by a tidal wave of salvations with former Muslims who often told us that it all started with a high-definition Jesus dream. About 1 in 3 Muslims who come to faith in Christ say they had a dream or vision of Jesus Christ. He identifies Himself as Jesus in the dream so there is no doubt. No one goes to bed a Muslim and wakes up a Christian because of a dream of Jesus. But it starts them on a journey to find our who Jesus is after they have the initial encounter. Maybe because so few go to the Muslims with the Gospel as missionaries, and because Islam is 1/5^th of the planet, Jesus is leading the way and opening up the door for us.

The Pneuma Review speaks with Lora Timenia, an Asian Pentecostal scholar, about her book, Third Wave of Pentecostalism in the Philippines: Understanding Toronto Blessing Revivalism’s Signs and Wonders Theology in the Philippines, and what she learned about the Toronto Blessing as a classical Pentecostal.

PneumaReview.com: Please tell our readers a little bit about your spiritual background.

Lora Timenia: I was born into a Roman Catholic family, though our clan was more folk in our religiosity. I converted to Protestant Christianity in 2002, and then joined an Assemblies of God church in my hometown. I submitted to water baptism in 2003 and received Spirit baptism with the manifestation of tongues-speech in 2008. I would describe my spirituality as that of a Filipino Pentecostal. I believe in the continued work of God in the world through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

PneumaReview.com: How did you become interested in studying Toronto Blessing Theology and Practice?

Lora Timenia: I grew up in a Classical Pentecostal church. At the heart of our spirituality is the continuation of the prophetic ministry of the church. This prophetic spirituality manifested in charismatic worship, tongues-speech, interpretation of tongues, healing miracles, and deliverance ministries. So, my understanding of signs and wonders was within the framework of Spirit empowerment for end-time witness. Since my spiritual worldview was limited to this tradition, I was surprised when a group of Christians espoused what I considered as “unusual” manifestations of signs and wonders. I remembered joining a seminar where the preacher was training the participants to experience group visions and romanticized experiences with Jesus. He taught that signs and wonders included orbs, gold dust, blue fire, red fire, angel feathers and the like. I was confused. My classical Pentecostal tradition never taught me about these “signs.” Moreover, as I comb through the Bible, these “signs” weren’t mentioned. I began a journey of trying to understand where these teachings came from. It was later in my study that I traced the formal origins of the spirituality to the Toronto Blessing revival. Although antecedents of this spirituality came from the global Pentecostal/Charismatic movement, it was the Toronto Blessing of 1994 that brought this particular brand of spirituality together and later spread the “fire” to different parts of the world. Today, the church where the TB phenomena first occurred is called Catch the Fire.

PneumaReview.com: What are some of the different sources you consulted as you gathered information for your research?

Lora Timenia: First off, I had to study the global Pentecostal/Charismatic movement. It’s history, theologies, spirituality and various expressions in the world. I had to particularly understand its history and varied streams in the Philippines. To this end, I am indebted to APTS Press for their publication on Pentecostalism in the Philippines, as well as for their seminal work with Allan Anderson and Edmond Tang, entitled, Asian and Pentecostal. I also consulted Wonsuk Ma’s contribution on the Philippines in the New International Dictionary of Pentecostal/Charismatic Movements. Secondly, I read about the development of what Vinson Synan called the Third Wave Movement. With John Wimber, this group was also known as the Signs and Wonders Movement.  Bill Jackson’s The Quest for the Radical Middle gave me a clear understanding and appreciation of Wimber’s movement. Thirdly, I had to read all the books that discussed the origins, transmutation and global spread of the Toronto Blessing. David Hilborn’s work, “Toronto” in Perspective, was exemplary and particularly helpful. I also read all the works that discussed this phenomenon. I especially appreciated the works of Margaret Poloma, Mark Cartledge, Stephen Hunt, David Pawson, and Gary McGee. Finally, I consulted all the works written by Filipino Third Wavers like Hiram Pangilinan and Apollo “Paul” Yadao. Through their writings, I could understand their theology and spirituality.

PneumaReview.com: Please mention some of the beliefs or practices that the Toronto Blessing Movement shares in common with classical Pentecostalism?

PneumaReview.com: What are some of the things that are different from classical Pentecostalism?

Lora Timenia: Classical Pentecostalism has a distinct theology of Spirit Baptism. We believe that Spirit baptism is distinct from and subsequent to conversion, and that it is an empowerment for eschatological witness. Charismatic manifestations, signs and wonders, and other forms of miraculous intervention are secondary to the proclamation of the Gospel. Basically, our view of the manifestation of signs and wonders is within the framework of evangelism and mission. We preach the gospel believing that signs will follow. In contrast, majority of those in connected to the Toronto Blessing revivalism affirm that supernatural manifestations are epi-phenomena of the kingdom of God and should be expected and sought after in the here and now. This is why it is unsurprising for some of their leaders to encourage their members to purposely seek the manifestation of signs and wonders or to train in signs and wonders ministry. For them, the purpose of supernatural manifestations is for divine reification (manifestation of the divine) and revivalism.

PneumaReview.com: The specific focus of your study concerns the Toronto Blessing Movement in the Philippines. Is there something about Filipino culture that might make this movement particularly attractive to Filipinos?

Lora Timenia: Yes, Filipino religious consciousness has affinity for religions of spirit and power. Our spiritual worldview inherently affirms supernatural manifestation and divine intervention.

PneumaReview.com: Would you say that spiritual manifestations are a significant part of Toronto Blessing Spirituality?

Lora Timenia: Yes, because they have a revivalist spirituality. Their definition of revival is the expansion of God’s kingdom through his “manifest presence.” This “manifest presence” is explained as miracles and supernatural living put on display. Hence, their spirituality leads them to expect spiritual manifestations as reifications of God’s love and power; also, these manifestations mystically connect them to divine reality and provides them with catharsis (e.g. spiritual healing) and a perceived intimate connection with God.

Lora Angeline Embudo Timenia, Third Wave Pentecostalism in the Philippines: Understanding Toronto Blessing Revivalism’s Signs and Wonders Theology in the Philippines (Baguio City, Philippines: Asia Pacific Theological Seminary Press, 2020), 192 pages, ISBN ‎9789718942918.

PneumaReview.com: In your book, Third Wave Pentecostalism in the Philippines, you present some criteria for evaluating spiritual manifestations. Please tell us briefly what they are.

Lora Timenia: I offered four open-ended questions:

1. Does the manifestation have biblical precedent?
2. Can the manifestation be used to point to the salvific purposes of God?
3. Does the manifestation glorify God, and not humans or other beings?
4. Does the manifestation conform to Scriptural teachings?

These questions stem from the assumption that manifestations of signs and wonders ought to have biblical precedent, be evangelistic (leads people into the faith), God-centered (not anthropocentric) and not in contradiction with essential biblical teachings.

PneumaReview.com: What can church leaders learn from the Third Wave and the Toronto Blessing?

Lora Timenia: The Third Wave movement and its phenomenon, the Toronto Blessing, is a revivification of mystical Christian spirituality. Their stream has somewhat revived mystic encounters with God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. They also offer us a form of spirituality that provides cathartic experiences. Their emphasis on the manifest presence of God, bring into the fore the immanence of God. At the verification level of our theologizing, these manifest experiences contribute to a sense of illumination of and relational unity with God and other believers. To a certain extent, their spirituality is a good complement to varied Christian traditions worldwide.

PR

Learn more

Read John Lathrop’s review of Lora Timenia, Third Wave Pentecostalism in the Philippines.

Read Mike Dies’ review of John Arnott, “Living in Revival,” Spread the Fire (2001).

Read articles by Heidi Baker and Randy Clark, two scholars and leaders with connections to the early Toronto Blessing movement.

Read Malcolm Brubaker’s review of Bill Jackson, The Quest for the Radical Middle.

Visit APTS Press for a free sample from Third Wave of Pentecostalism in the Philippines and more books by Asian Pentecostal scholars.

APTS Press and Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies Interview with Lora Timenia about her book (Length: 22:31).

PneumaReview.com author Dave Johnson speaks with Lora Timenia about her book Third Wave of Pentecostalism in the Philippines: Understanding Toronto Blessing Revivalism’s Signs and Wonders Theology in the Philippines

An interview with Dr. Paul J. Palma about his book, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States: Migrations, Missions, and Mobility

PneumaReview.com: Will you please introduce us to your newest book?

Paul Palma: This book offers an historical and comparative profile of classical Pentecostal movements in Brazil and the United States in view of their migratory beginnings and transnational expansion. Pentecostalism’s inception in the early twentieth century, particularly in its global South permutations, was defined by its grassroots character. In contrast to the top-down, hierarchical structure typical of Western forms of Christianity, the emergence of Latin American Pentecostalism embodied stability from the bottom up―among the common people. While the rise to prominence of the Assemblies of God in Brazil, the Western hemisphere’s largest (non-Catholic) denomination, demanded structure akin to mainline contexts, classical Pentecostals such as the Christian Congregation movement cling to their grassroots identity. Comparing the migratory and missional flow of movements with similar European and US roots, in this book, I consider the prospects for Brazilian Pentecostals with an eye on the problems of church growth and polity, gender, politics, and ethnic identity.

PneumaReview.com: What is the significance of the word “grassroots” in the title?

PneumaReview.com: In the book you refer to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Chicago in 1907-08. Please tell our readers a little bit about the history of that move of God.

PneumaReview.com: Some key missionaries went out from Chicago to Brazil, who were they?

Paul Palma: Two Chicagoan missionary teams were integral in the founding of Brazilian Pentecostalism. The first was a group of Italian migrants and onetime Presbyterians. Luigi Francescon, accompanied by Lucia Menna and Giacomo Lombardi, arrived in South America in 1909. The Italians helped found the Brazilian Christian Assembly (CA) and Christian Congregation (CC) movements. The second was a duo of Baptist Swedes, Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren. The former Baptists Berg and Vingren arrived in Brazil in 1910 on their way to founding the Brazilian Assemblies of God (AD).

PneumaReview.com: What factors contributed to making their ministries so fruitful?

PneumaReview.com: As you have pointed out in the book their work is still evident today in the ongoing ministry of three denominations. Please tell us briefly about each.

Paul Palma: Despite challenges, each of the denominations are bearing fruit today. The CC is now a decidedly international movement with congregations throughout Latin America, North America, Italy, and beyond. The AD remains the largest Western (non-Catholic) denomination with a membership of about 21 million, but its expansion has tapered over the last decade due to structural and political shifts. The CA endures throughout Latin (and North) America but has splintered into several different denominations, including the Pentecostal Christian Church, the Bible Christian Church, the Villa Devoto CA, and the CA God is Love.

PneumaReview.com: You highlight the fact that two of the denominations trace their roots back to Luigi Francescon. What issues caused the movement he started to divide into two groups?

Paul J. Palma, Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States: Migrations, Missions, and Mobility (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022).

Paul Palma: The chief difference between the Francescon-founded CC and CA is a regional one. Francescon pioneered the CC on Brazilian soil. A year before his 1910 arrival in Brazil, he founded the CA in Buenos Aires, Argentina. CA churches slowly made their way into Brazil and recently reunited through inter-ecclesial efforts that harken to their Chicagoan heritage. While Francescon concentrated on the CC in Brazil (based in São Paulo), another cohort of missionaries from Chicago filled the need for workers in Argentina, and the movement there developed peculiarities of its own. For instance, while the CC readily expanded among the native Portuguese population, the CA remained ethnically Italian and insulated from other churches well into the twentieth century.

PneumaReview.com: Do the Pentecostal churches in Brazil have different practices or priorities than most non-Brazilian Pentecostal churches in the United States?

Paul Palma: Besides the prevalence of Portuguese-speaking members, there are subtle cultural differences. The CC churches are distinguished from most other Pentecostal churches by their insistence that women wear head coverings (the “veil”) during public worship. You will also find less urgency for seminary training for ministers among the Brazilian churches. While Brazilian Pentecostals now encourage seminary training, they lacked the resources for educational institutes for many years. For the AD, because of reasons tied to its Swedish roots, even when educational resources were available, it favored a short-term Bible School training model over formal seminaries.

PneumaReview.com: At different points in the text, you mention “reverse mission,” for those who may be unfamiliar with that term please explain what it means.

PR

Additional Resources

Read the review of Grassroots Pentecostalism in Brazil and the United States by Brian Roden

Watch the book launch introduction by Paul Palma