The Assemblies of God (AG), officially the World Assemblies of God Fellowship, is a group of over 144 autonomous self-governing national groupings of churches that together form the world's largest Pentecostal denomination. It is the fourth largest international Christian group of denominations.
The Church of South India (CSI) is a united Protestant Church, being the second-largest Christian church in India based on the number of members; it is the result of union of a number of Protestant churches in South India.
David Johannes du Plessis was a South African-born Pentecostal minister. He is considered one of the main founders of the charismatic movement, in which the Pentecostal experience of baptism with the Holy Spirit spread to non-Pentecostal churches worldwide.
Pentecostalism has grown in India since its introduction in the early twentieth century. Several Pentecostal missionaries who had participated in the Azusa Street Revival visited Kerala from 1909 onwards. During the 1920s the missionary Robert F. Cook established the Indian branch of the Church of God, based in Kerala. Two other churches founded around this time were The Pentecostal Mission, founded in Sri Lanka by the Indian evangelist Pastor Paul, and later brought to India; and the Indian Pentecostal Church of God, set up by K.E. Abraham after he split from the church founded by Cook. A later foundation, in 1953, was the Sharon Fellowship, which runs the Sharon Women's Bible College. Many of the Pentecostal churches in India are represented in the Assemblies of God in India.
The Indian Pentecostal Church of God (IPC) is the largest Protestant Pentecostal organisation in India. It has over ten thousand congregations around the world. Its organisational headquarters is at Hebronpuram, Kumbanad, Kerala, India. Unlike their counterpart, the Assemblies of God, IPC churches stresses on firm evangelical doctrines and forbids new age charismatic movements and strictly condemns word of faith movement and free grace theology (antinomianism). However, many current IPC preachers such as Raju Poovakala, Shibu Neduveli, Babu Cherian, Shibu Thomas Oklahoma etc. promotes word of faith gospel. IPC also distances itself from TPM, which according to IPC is a heretical movement as it promotes legalism, although the IPC has come under scrutiny for promoting legalism as well. The church has a tendency to stray from ecumenism, as several of its leaders often denounce high church liturgy as a method of worship, instead embracing low church congregational worship. It believes in continuation of spiritual gifts and does not believe in full cessationism.
The Kerala Brethren are a significant subset of the Indian Brethren, who are connected with the Open Brethren movement internationally. In the South Indian State of Kerala, four Syrian Christian (Nasrani) men who came from traditional churches were baptised in 1898, and many of the Kerala Brethren consider this event to have been the start of their movement. Some 600 of the 2,200 Brethren assemblies in India are located in Kerala.
Southern Asia Bible College (SABC) is a Bible college in Bangalore, India.
The Assemblies of God USA (AG), officially the General Council of the Assemblies of God, is a Pentecostal Christian denomination in the United States founded in 1914 during a meeting of Pentecostal ministers at Hot Springs, Arkansas. It is the U.S. branch of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship, the world's largest Pentecostal body. With a constituency of over 3 million, the Assemblies of God was the ninth largest Christian denomination and the second largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States in 2011.
Kurien Thomas (1922–2000) or Kurian Thomas was pioneer pentecostal missionary to Central India.
The roots of Central India Theological Seminary go back to 1962 when Dr. Kurien Thomas founded Bharosa Bible College at Itarsi, Central India. It was later renamed as Central India Bible College and then raised to a research institution in 1999 with the name Central India Theological Seminary by Dr. Matthew K. Thomas. The seminary provides residential theological education at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels in English and Hindi. The Dr. Kurien Thomas Study and Research Center at Central India Theological Seminary initiated the Master of Theology program in Christian Apologetics in 2013. The Seminary began its Distance Education department in 2010.
Chalmer Earl Stubbs was a Missionary of the Assemblies of God World Missions deputed to India.
The Fellowship of the Pentecostal Churches in India has around 1,100 churches in its network with its headquarters at Itarsi, Madhya Pradesh, India. The fellowship unanimously re-elected Dr. Matthew K. Thomas as chairman during the October Fellowship Conference in 2008.
The General Council of the Assemblies of God of India is a Pentecostal Christian denomination in India. It is affiliated with the World Assemblies of God Fellowship. The headquarters in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
Malankara Church of God Thrikkannamangal is a church in Kottarakkara, Kerala, India, originally known as Malankara Poorna Suvisesha Sabha.
Darrell Likens Guder is a theologian and missiologist who is Professor of Missional and Ecumenical Theology Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary.
Pentecostalism is a renewal movement within Protestant Christianity that places special emphasis on a direct personal experience of God through the baptism with the Holy Spirit. For Christians, this event commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the followers of Jesus Christ, as described in the second chapter of the Book of Acts. Pentecostalism was established in Kerala at the start of the 20th century.
The Pentecostal Theological Seminary is a private Christian seminary in Cleveland, Tennessee. While part of the educational ministry of the Church of God, the school accepts students of other denominations, particularly those interested in its emphasis on Wesleyan/Holiness theology and Pentecostal spirituality. It has trained ministers since 1975.
Acharya A. B. Masilamani or Abel Boanerges Masilamani (1914–1990) was a Golden Jubilee Baptist pastor and evangelist on whom parallels had been drawn comparing his ecclesiastical ministry with that of Saint Paul. The Mar Thoma Syrian Church, one of the Saint Thomas Christian Churches founded by Thomas the Apostle in the first century which holds the annual Maramon Conventions used to have Masilamani preach at its conventions since the 1970s. During one such Maramon Convention held in 1983 at Maramon, Masilamani was one of the main speaker who spoke on Christology in the presence of the two patriarchs of the Mar Thoma Church, Alexander Mar Thoma and Thomas Mar Athanius.
