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The rise, growth, and expansion of Pentecostalism is one of the key religious developments to occur within Christianity in post-missionary Africa. Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity is best defined through its core religious emphases of movements that in biblical fashion, aim to value, affirm and consciously covet and promote the experience of the Holy Spirit as normative to Christian spirituality. It is this experiential emphasis on encounters with the Holy Spirit that differentiates Pentecos…

Pentecostalism, as a movement associated with the experience and manifestation of the Holy Spirit, has been an important stream of Christianity in Ghana since the beginning of the twentieth century. At the turn of that century African Christians, having experienced mission activity through Western evangelization for nearly a century, started forming their own independent churches. Indigenous prophets beginning with William Wadé Harris who arrived in Ghana around 1914 spread his charismatic form …

The theory that world Pentecostalism had its origins in the Azusa Street Revival of 1906 has been disproved by various studies. However, scholars are certain that missionaries from Azusa Street who travelled across the world to preach the gospel arrived in Liberia before 1920. If we consider that Pentecostalism is about the experience and ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit then one of its pioneering prophets as far as Liberia is concerned, would be Prophet William Wadé Harris. He was an in…

Overview Since the latter decades of the 20th century, the term “spirituality” has taken on increasing prominence within North American Christianity and popular culture. While a large majority of adults in the United States professes belief in God, how such belief is expressed and lived has shifted dramatically in these decades, and “spirituality” is a catchword for such change; being “spiritual but not religious” defines large numbers of Americans, particularly in younger generations. And people…

1. NT and Early Church 1.1. Term and Usage The term “worship” (from “worth-ship”) has established itself as a general word for the service that is rendered to God in praise, prayer, proclamation and hearing of the Word, and administration of the sacraments. An older term is “divine service” (cf. the German Gottesdienst, which M. Luther used as a technical term for gatherings for worship), though along with its specific use this term has a broader reference to Christian life and diakonia. A common phrase today for gatherings for worship is “worshi…