Walter Jacob Hollenweger (June 1, 1927 – August 10, 2016) was a scholar of global Pentecostalism and interdisciplinary Reformed theologian. Growing up in a Pentecostal church in Zurich, Switzerland, he became well acquainted with the various facets of revivalist Christianity. He was active as youth leader, evangelist, author of articles, and interpreter at large events. He was ordained by the Swiss Pentecostal Mission and worked in that denomination until 1958. Personal tensions with the local c…

Gheorghe Bradin (1895–1962) was born to a rather modest family on February 3, 1895, in Ghioroc, the district of Lipova in Romania. Converted from an Orthodox family to the Baptist church where he met Persida, his future wife, he was baptized in water on May 10, 1914 at the age of 19. In 1915 Bradin was enrolled in the army and sent to the frontline in the Austro-Hungarian army, but was captured by the Russians and imprisoned in Russia until February 1918. On his return, he married Persida in 1918 and live in Păuliș where he eventually became the leader of a local Baptist church on January 1, 1922.Ju…

Pavel Bochian (1918–1996) was born on  July 13 in Mocrea-Ineu, Arad district, and was baptized with water when he was 13 years old and baptized in the Spirit three years later. He married Ileana in 1942 and had three daughters and two sons. He became a pastor and later the leader of the Pentecostal denomination.Like many Pentecostals believers and leaders in the early days of the church in Romania, Bochian suffered from the authorities. In 1938 he was imprisoned in Arad and Timișoara for preaching without having an “official” accreditation. In 194…

Thomas Hezmalhalch (1847–1934) is also known as Tom Hezmalhalch or “Brother Tom.” He was an American missionary who together with John G. Lake founded the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) in South Africa with links to Azusa Street Revival (Kydd 2002). AFM went on to become the largest Classical denomination in South Africa to date (Kay 2011).Hezmalhalch’s parents were English born in New Jersey, U.S.. He went to Leeds in England after the civil war and served as a preacher in a Wesleyan Methodist Church. After his return to the U.S. in 1884, he joine…

William W. Simpson (1869–1961) arrived in China as a Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) missionary in 1892 and spent most of the next 57 years there. He was no relation to the CMA founder A.B. Simpson. When Pentecostal phenomena broke out in north-west China at a CMA convention in Taozhou, Gansu in 1912, Simpson and his wife Otilia were baptized in the Spirit. They passed on their Pentecostal experience to many CMA churches in Gansu and their testimony was published in the official CMA’s Alliance Weekly. Their Tibetan Border district was greatly affected by this Pentecostal…

The history of Pentecostalism in Chad is as follows. Pentecostalism came to Chad through the missionary work of Albert Burkhardt who initally worked with a Baptist mission. He then joined l'Eglise de la Coopération Evangélique au Tchad (ECET) around 1965. Burkhardt was recommended by the “Mission porte ouverte de Châlons sur Saône.” Burkhardt first settled in Sarh in southern Chad for his missionary work that developed over time. Churches in the Apostolic or Pentecostal tradition from other regi…

George Jeffreys (1889–1962) healing evangelist, revivalist and founder of the Elim Pentecostal Church was born to a coal mining family in Maesteg, South Wales, in 1889. George and Stephen, his older brother (1876–1943), attended Siloh Independent Chapel. More dramatic and more formative than ordinary church-going was the Welsh Revival of 1904–05 during which Stephen and George were converted.After leaving school at the age of 12 George worked, like Stephen, in the coal mines. At first the brothers were opposed to Pentecostalism but, when Edward, Step…

No Pentecostal/Charismatic missionary works had been established in Taiwan prior to the end of the Japanese colonial era (1895‒1945), with the exception of the Japan Apostolic Mission (although no detailed records remain about it). In 1948, China Assemblies of God (中國神召會) initiated a missionary enterprise in Taiwan. This AG body was organized in Wuhan, China, in 1948. It was a constellation of Pentecostal churches planted by missionaries from various countries that were scattered throughout Chin…

Darlene Joyce Zschech (1965–) is a world renowned composer, worship leader, author and conference speaker. She is an ordained minister of Australian Christian Churches (formerly Assemblies of God in Australia) and has been credited as one of the leading pioneers of the contemporary worship and music movement worldwide.Darlene Zschech (née Steinhardt) was born on September 8, 1965 in Brisbane, Australia. She is the eldest of four children to Des and Joan Steinhardt. From ten years old she sang, danced and hosted a weekly children’s television…

At the inception of modern anthropology in the 1920s, anthropologists studied small, bounded communities on the margins of the world’s political and economic centres. Since they treated local forms of religion as integral to the functioning of supposedly unchanging indigenous cultures, many early anthropologists either ignored missionaries, preachers and Christian conversion or described their corruptive influence. By the 1950s, anthropologists working in rapidly changing colonial contexts started de…

Bethel Church is a non-denominational charismatic megachurch based in Redding, California, USA, pastored by Bill Johnson, and as of 2019 attracting some nine thousand weekly attendees. On its website Bethel calls itself  “a community of believers passionate about God’s manifest presence,” who “believe that God is good and our great privilege is to know and experience him,” and who “exist to ignite individual hearts until Heaven meets Earth.” The congregation exerts a global influence through its…

Deeper Life Bible Church is one of the largest and oldest neo-Pentecostal denominations in Nigeria. Founded by William Folorunso Kumuyi (b. 1941), it has planted over 6,000 branches across Nigeria and has multiple branches in other African countries, Europe, Asia, Australia/Oceania, and the Americas. Its headquarters church in Lagos attracts around 150,000 attendees to its Sunday services, and its recently-completed 30,000-seater worship centre in Lagos is one of the largest church auditoriums i…

Albert Page (1882–1918) was an Australian born evangelist and Love Lou Farrington (1886–1919) was an American school teacher. They met in the U.S. Love was her first name and by all accounts this was her nature. She was known by her middle name of Lou.In 1905, Albert spent time in India working in the Government Service prior to coming to the U.S. where he encountered a Pentecostal mission and accepted Christ. Shortly after, he went to New York where he established a church and was later ordained as a Pentecostal Minister. Albert and L…

Since its early beginnings, the spread of Pentecostal Christianity has depended to a great extent on the distribution of media forms such as booklets, radio tapes, flyers, but also music, dance and other performances that transport the Holy Spirit. “Media” here are understood to be carriers of divine messages and of spiritual energies.Many of the Pentecostal media initially originated in the United States, which has ever since remained a global center of Christian media production. Gradually, throughout the twentieth century, Pentecostal media ce…

The Pentecostal landscape in the Caribbean is as complex and rich as the region itself. From afar, the Caribbean is a conglomeration of islands with tropical weather and beautiful beaches that expand throughout the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. However, as we move closer to this paradise-like region, we are quickly reminded of the undeniable influx of cultures, religions, and politics that are interconnected since the area became the first stop during the colonization era. A glance throu…

This article offers an overview of Pentecostal participation in ecumenism around the world. The term “ecumenism” derives from the Greek word oἰkouméne, which since antiquity has referred to “the whole, inhabited world”, that is, the “household of creation”. Its modern usage refers primarily to work done to restore unity and renew the Church, the “household of God” (Eph. 2:19). Ecumenism begins at the spiritual level for all who are “in Christ” but it involves more than interdenominational cooperation. It includes th…

Over the past 120 years, the global Christian community has experienced a profound change in its cultural and linguistic composition. In 1900, over 80 percent of all Christians were European or North American. Today, that percentage has fallen to 33 percent (Johnson & Zurlo 2019b, 2). This demographic shift has formed the basis for most major analyses of world Christianity in the past 40 years. With the expansion of Christianity in the Global South there has been a proliferation of new denominat…