Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement that emphasizes direct personal experience of God through baptism with the Holy Spirit. The term Pentecostal is derived from Pentecost, an event that commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ while they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks, as described in the Acts of the Apostles.
The Church of God in Christ (COGIC) is an international Holiness–Pentecostal Christian denomination, and a large Pentecostal denomination in the United States. Although an international and multi-ethnic religious organization, it has a predominantly African-American membership based within the United States. The international headquarters is in Memphis, Tennessee. The current Presiding Bishop is Bishop John Drew Sheard Sr., who is the Senior Pastor of the Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ of Detroit, Michigan. He was elected as the denomination's leader on March 27, 2021.
The World Assemblies of God Fellowship (WAGF), a global cooperative body of over 170 Pentecostal denominations, was established on August 15, 1989. WAGF was created to provide structure so that member denominations, which previously related to each other informally, could more easily cooperate on a global basis.
The Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith is a Oneness Pentecostal church with headquarters in Manhattan. It was founded in 1919 by Robert C. Lawson.
The International Fellowship of Christian Assemblies (IFCA), formerly known as the Christian Church of North America (CCNA), is a North American Pentecostal denomination with roots in the Italian-American community, but is now a multicultural denomination. Central offices are located in Transfer, Pennsylvania. Ministries of the church include Benevolence, Home Missions, FOCUS, Foreign Missions, Education, Lay Ministries, and Public Relations. A convention is held annually, and their official publication is Vista, a quarterly magazine. Membership in 2000 was about 7,200 in 96 churches in the United States. They also have thousands of affiliated congregations internationally in Africa, Australia, Canada, Europe, South America, and Asia with a strong presence in India with over 100,000 members in over 1,000 churches. Brother Rick George is the general overseer of the denomination.
The Latter Rain, also known as the New Order or the New Order of the Latter Rain, was a post-World War II movement within Pentecostal Christianity which remains controversial. The movement saw itself as a continuation of the restorationism of early Pentecostalism. The movement began with major revivals between 1948 and 1952 and became established as a large semi-organized movement by 1952. It continued into the 1960s. The movement had a profound impact on subsequent movements as its participants dispersed throughout the broader charismatic and Pentecostal movements beginning in the 1960s.
Charles Fox Parham was an American preacher and evangelist. Together with William J. Seymour, Parham was one of the two central figures in the development and initial spread of early Pentecostalism, known as Holiness Pentecostalism. It was Parham who associated glossolalia with the baptism in the Holy Spirit, a theological connection crucial to the emergence of Pentecostalism as a distinct movement. Parham was the first preacher to articulate Pentecostalism's distinctive doctrine of evidential tongues, and to expand the movement.
The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC) is a Finished Work Pentecostal denomination of Christianity and the largest evangelical church in Canada. Its headquarters is located in Mississauga, Ontario. The PAOC is theologically evangelical and Pentecostal, emphasizing the baptism with the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. It historically has had strong connections with the Assemblies of God in the United States. It is affiliated with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and the World Assemblies of God Fellowship.
Protestants in Myanmar make up 5% of that nation's population in 2023. Most Christians are from the minority ethnic groups such as Karen, Lisu, Kachin, Chin, and Lahu. An estimated 0.1% of the Bamar population is Christian.
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. In 1922 Assemblies of GOD church was established in Melpuram which was part of then Travancore state by missionaries. It has been one of the early pioneering churches in the region. Two other churches founded around this time were Ceylon Pentecostal Mission (CPM) later became The Pentecostal Mission, in the 1980s, 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.
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.
The Assemblies of God USA (AG), officially The General Council of the Assemblies of God, is a Pentecostal Christian denomination in the United States and the U.S. branch of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship, the world's largest Pentecostal body. The AG reported 2.9 million adherents in 2022. In 2011, it was the ninth largest Christian denomination and the second largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States. The Assemblies of God is a Finished Work denomination, and it holds to a conservative, evangelical and classical Arminian theology as expressed in the Statement of Fundamental Truths and position papers, which emphasize such core Pentecostal doctrines as the baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, divine healing and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Chalmer Earl Stubbs was a Missionary of the Assemblies of God World Missions deputed to India.
Pentecostalism is a renewal movement within Protestant Christianity that places special emphasis on a direct personal relationship with God and 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, India at the start of the 20th century.
Indonesian Bethel Church or Bethel Full Gospel Church of God abbreviated as GBI is a group of Christian Pentecostal churches in Indonesia. It is a member of Church of God. The headquarters of the organisation is in Jakarta.
The Swedish Pentecostal Movement is a Pentecostal movement in Sweden. Many, but not all, of these, are members of the Pentecostal Alliance of Independent Churches, which was founded in 2001. The Pentecostal movement spread to Sweden by 1907 from the 1904–1905 Welsh Revival and the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles in 1906.
Pentecostalism began spreading in South Africa after William J. Seymour, of the Azusa Street mission, sent missionaries to convert and organize missions. By the 1990s, approximately 10% of the population of South Africa was Pentecostal. The largest denominations were the Apostolic Faith Mission, Assemblies of God, and the Full Gospel Church of God. Another 30% of the population was made up of mostly black Zionist and Apostolic churches, which comprise a majority of South Africa's African Instituted Churches(AICs). In a 2006 survey, 1 in 10 urban South Africans said they were Pentecostal, and 2 in 10 said they were charismatic. In total, renewalists comprised one-fourth of the South African urban population. A third of all protestants surveyed said that they were Pentecostal or charismatic, and one-third of all South African AIC members said they were charismatic.
The doctrines and practices of modern Pentecostalism placed a high priority on international evangelization. The movement spread to Africa soon after the 1906 Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles.
The Pentecostal Missionary Church of Christ , also known as PMCC, is a Pentecostal Christian denomination based in the Philippines. It was founded in 1972 by Arsenio T. Ferriol, who would become its executive minister, and registered on August 30, 1973.
Pentecostal Saint Thomas Christians, also called Pentecostal Syrian Christians, are the ethnic Saint Thomas Christians (Nasranis) affiliated to various Pentecostal and independent Neo-Charismatic churches. Sometimes, the Kerala Brethren are also erroneously lumped together with Pentecostals. The community is native to the Indian state of Kerala, and shares in the legacy of early Christianity in the region, traditionally traced to the missionary activities of Saint Thomas the Apostle in the first century. Prior to their conversion to Pentecostalism, they belonged to traditional Saint Thomas Christian denominations.
