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Alan Hirsch (born 24 October 1959) is an Australian author, serial entrepreneur, thought leader in the missional church movement, key missions strategist for churches around the world, and founder of numerous global organizations.
Hirsch was born into a Jewish family in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1959. [1] He moved to Cape Town, in 1963 where he spent most of his childhood and adolescence. Then, he went to university in Cape Town where he studied business and marketing and moved to Australia in 1983 with his family. Although his family was not particularly religious, he was very much influenced by his Jewish heritage. He emphasizes Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and makes distinctions between Hebraic and Hellenistic thought. He served a two-year compulsory call-up in the South African military. [2] After having moved to Australia, he had a life-changing experience with the Holy Spirit that deeply affected him. [3] Soon after moving, he married his wife Debra. They have been married and in Christian ministry together for over twenty years. [4]
The Acts of the Apostles is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message to the Roman Empire.
Apollos was a 1st-century Alexandrian Jewish Christian mentioned several times in the New Testament. A contemporary and colleague of Paul the Apostle, he played an important role in the early development of the churches of Ephesus and Corinth.
In Christian denominations that practice infant baptism, confirmation is seen as the sealing of the covenant created in baptism. Those being confirmed are known as confirmands. For adults, it is an affirmation of belief. The ceremony typically involves laying on of hands.
The Apostolic Fathers, also known as the Ante-Nicene Fathers, were core Christian theologians among the Church Fathers who lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD who are believed to have personally known some of the Twelve Apostles or to have been significantly influenced by them. Their writings, though widely circulated in early Christianity, were not included in the canon of the New Testament. Many of the writings derive from the same time period and geographical location as other works of early Christian literature which came to be part of the New Testament.
In Christianity, a disciple is a dedicated follower of Jesus. This term is found in the New Testament only in the Gospels and Acts. Originating in the ancient Near East, the concept of a disciple is an adherent of a teacher. Discipleship is not the same as being a student in the modern sense; a disciple in the ancient biblical world actively imitated both the life and teaching of the master. It was a deliberate apprenticeship which made the fully formed disciple a living copy of the master.
The Council of Jerusalem or Apostolic Council is a council described in chapter 15 of the Acts of the Apostles, held in Jerusalem c. AD 48–50.
Youth With A Mission is an interdenominational Christian mission organization with a focus on missionary work and training for Christian missions.
The New Apostolic Church (NAC) is a Christian church of the Irvingian tradition. Its origins are in 1863, in the split from the Catholic Apostolic Church during a schism in Hamburg, Germany.
Ling-Sheng Zhang was a Chinese evangelist, born in Shandong. Zhang converted to Christianity at the age of thirty seven and became a member of the Presbyterian church for seven years and was then appointed as a Deacon for three years.
Missional living is a Christian practice to adopt the thinking, behaviors, and practices of a missionary in everyday life, in order to engage others with the gospel message.
David Christopher Knight Watson was an English Anglican priest, evangelist and author.
The Apostolic Church of South Africa – Apostle Unity is the South African branch of the United Apostolic Church. It has roots in the Catholic Apostolic Church of the early 19th century. It was founded in 1955 as a schism of the New Apostolic Church. It is part of a branch of Christianity called Irvingism and is separate from Protestantism.
The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) is a theological belief and controversial movement that combines elements of Pentecostalism, evangelicalism and the Seven Mountain Mandate to advocate for spiritual warfare to bring about Christian dominion over all aspects of society, and end or weaken the separation of church and state. NAR leaders often call themselves apostles and prophets. The movement was founded by and is heavily associated with C. Peter Wagner. Long a fringe movement of the American Christian right, it has been characterized as "one of the most important shifts in Christianity in modern times." The NAR's prominence and power have increased since the 2016 election of Donald Trump as US president. Theology professor André Gagné, author of a 2024 book on the movement, has characterized it as "inherently political" and said it threatens to "subvert democracy." American Republican politicians such as Mike Johnson, Doug Mastriano, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert and activists such as Charlie Kirk have aligned with it. Some groups within the broader Apostolic-Prophetic movement have distanced themselves from the NAR due to various criticism and controversies.
The Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa (AFM) is a classical Pentecostal Christian denomination in South Africa. With 1.2 million adherents, it is South Africa's largest Pentecostal church and the fifth largest religious grouping in South Africa representing 7.6 percent of the population. Dr. Isak Burger has led the AFM as president since 1996 when the white and black branches of the church were united. It is a member of the Apostolic Faith Mission International, a fellowship of 23 AFM national churches. It is also a member of the South African Council of Churches. The AFM is one of the oldest Pentecostal movement is South Africa with roots in the Azusa Street Revival, the Holiness Movement teachings of Andrew Murray and the teachings of John Alexander Dowie. The AFM had an interracial character when it started, but, as in American Pentecostalism, this interracial cooperation was short-lived. The decades from the 1950s to the 1980s were marked by the implementation of apartheid. After 1994, the white AFM moved rapidly towards unification with the black churches. By 1996, all the AFM churches were united in a single multi-racial church. The constitution of the AFM blends at the national level the elements of a presbyterian polity with an episcopal polity. Decentralization is a major feature of its constitution, which allows local churches to develop their own policies. The Apostolic Faith Mission displays a variety of identities and ministry philosophies, including seeker-sensitive, Word of Faith, Presbyterian, and classical Pentecostal.
Graham H. Twelftree is an Australian biblical scholar who currently serves as the Academic Dean of London School of Theology in London, UK.
Arthur "Art" Katz was an American author and Christian preacher who traveled the world teaching an alternative to what he described as today's "make nice" Christianity. Born to Jewish parents, he became a self-proclaimed Marxist/atheist, and then was converted to Christianity while taking a year sabbatical from his Oakland, California, teaching job and traveling through Europe in 1963.
Michael Frost is an Australian Baptist minister, missiologist and theologian who is one of the leading voices in the missional church movement. Frost is the founding Director of the Tinsley Institute, a mission study centre located at Morling College in Sydney, Australia.
Robert John Banks is an Australian Christian thinker, writer and practitioner. He is a biblical scholar, practical theologian and cultural critic, as well as an educator and church planter.
Sarah Jane Lancaster was the leader of Australia's first Pentecostal congregation. An evangelist and administrator, she established a printing press in her meeting hall to produce evangelistic tracts and pamphlets. Lancaster also published Australia's first Pentecostal magazine, Good News. Lancaster became president of the nation's earliest attempt to organise Pentecostalism into a denomination, the Apostolic Faith Mission of Australasia. Although she is recognised as the founder of Australian Pentecostalism and contributed to the unique prominence of women in the founding of Australian Pentecostal congregations, many of her doctrinal ideas were quickly abandoned as the movement developed.
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