The two great, successful religions - I'm sorry to brand it in such market-driven terms - of the 20th century were Islam, which grew pretty astronomically from about 300 million to around about a billion. The other one which is arguably even more successful was Pentecostalism, which went from nobody in 1900 to close to 500 to 600 million by the end of the century.
Taken from an interview on Lateline.
I heard once that the pentecostal movement in South America is the largest social movement in the history of humankind.* What I've also noticed in my time in Redfern is that those on the poorer end of the spectrum tend to be attracted to a pentecostal-style service over our often rigid Anglican ones.
In my opinion more biblically minded persons need to leave evangelical institutions and join a pentecostal church and become people of influence there.
*Ahh blogs, where all unsubstantiated claims roam free
4 comments:
I can only agree! This is why I like and respect Louie Giglio a lot.
The area I grew up in is a poor suburb, but I'm uni educated, as were my parents and theirs. Sometimes I feel I don't really know how to relate to those around me. And I don't think going pente would help with that...
How do you think someone like Driscoll would resonate with those in Redfern? If people don't like a formal style service, can it be scrapped altogether?
Mmmm rambling thoughts. Sorry Geoff!
i think it was donald mcgavran who did this - the whole market-driven analysis of church. he was (and remains) a very influential missiologist.
katay talks about this on his blog too.
to what degree do you believe you could change the foundations of a church where you might disagree on so many peripherals? by that i mean i'm happy to say we agree on the central things, but there are a lot of secondary things that you might disagree on that would make any constructive dialogue hard to happen. (i could elaborate more if need be).
think of how much our friend is and will be able to have any influence where he is.
To what extent do I think I could? not much at all. It also depends on how you want to go about changing the foundations of the church, and how long a time frame.
But having said that, the biggest thing we have in common with penties is a love for the Bible, as so that's at least a starting point for enacting change.
I've met guys from Hillsong who were talking to me about being 5 point Calvinists and knew all about the christological controversies from the early church. There's more common ground than we think, and there's a hunger to know more too.
I don't think I understand the "friend" comment though Doug, are you refferring to someone we know?
a friend of ours who goes to hillsong - i wonder how much he'll be able to engage with/challenge/understand certain of their emphases.
a love for the bible and a love for exegetical preaching of the bible is probably one difference, biblical theology, eschatology, eschatology and music a few others.
Grant Retief in SA had some interesting things to say on pentecostalism at KYLC, where he actually sees the impacts of this (in an environment in many ways not dissimilar to redfern). he's quite slamming of them.
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