God over Google: Pentecostalism and our search for answers
There’s a generation now turning to the web to find the answers we once asked our parents. Good thing God is indeed God over Google.
I recall being a younster at age 11 when first becoming interested and puzzled by youth leaders describing Pentecostal…
There's a generation now turning to the web to find the answers we once asked our parents. Good thing God is indeed God over Google.
I recall being a younster at age 11 when first becoming interested and puzzled by youth leaders describing Pentecostalism and asking me about my lack of experience with Spirit-baptism. After being asked on a mission by one of my leaders, "have you been 'empowered' by the Spirt?", I remember on my return going to my Father, an elder in our bretheren church: "Dad, I want to be empowered by the Spirit."
He gave me a big black reference Bible and showed me how to used the concordance. "Look it up in the Bible" -- seemed like straightforward advice at the time, and I went away feeling that if I could just nail down what the Bible said about this experience, I'd be a step closer to getting what I was obviously missing.
I went straigh back to my bedroom and sat on my bed attempting to look up the word 'empowerment' in the back of this old bible, of course with no joy. And with no idea why I might find nothing under the word 'empower' in the Bible at all, and having nowhere else to turn, I went back to my youth group leaders and friends, asking them for the answers.
That moment of frustration--sitting alone on the bottom of my bunkbed with no adequate access to a proper understanding from either my Father or from the Bible--that was the beginning of what became a 2 year slide into Pentecostalism, as I turned and came more and more under the influence of those with first-hand testimony, relying increasingly on their stories of their experiences.
In September 2006, some fifteen years later, I looked back on that bible flicking moment and had the realisation that if I was that 11 year-old again, but in the present day, I know that now I would have turned at that moment, not straight back to my friends, but first, of course, to Google!
And that's where the idea for this blog came from. And it's the reason I'm continuing to write and post-out to a world of online searchers who are now looking to the web and their social media networks for answers.
I'm looking to be there for those 'young ones' out there who are asking the questions that I once was, who are now going to Google and typing in "how to be empowered by the Spirit?". Hopefully more and more seekers asking these questions will increasingly be finding their way to my site, where they can get some more adequate answers than I first did at that crucial and vulnerable time, now twenty years ago.
The contents of articles in this blog to-date have investigated topics including: the Pentecostal Movement, Pentecostals and their beliefs, the Day of Pentecost, the Charismatic movement and Charismatics, Evangelical beliefs and the Holy Spirit; in particular special focus is given to the origin and history of the Pentecostal movement, baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, gifts of the Spirit and miracles, divine healing and the Word of Faith movement, prosperity doctrine and health-wealth teaching, the Praise and Worship movement, guidance, revelation and hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit.
INTRO
What is Pentecostalism
Why talk about it
More information
ORIGINS
Why origin is important
The dawning of Pentecostalism
The history of tongues
The theology of John Wesley
The legacy of Edward Irving
The Holiness movement
Why Pentecostalism began
How Pentecostals saw themselves
Why Pentecostalism was successful
How Pentecostalism developed
Australian Pentecostalism
SPIRIT BAPTISM
What Pentecostals believe
The basis of Pentecostalism
What the Scriptures say
What is it & what it does
The Apostles' experience
The day of Pentecost - The Event
The day of Pentecost - The Promise
The day of Pentecost - The meaning
The examples in Acts - Part I
The examples in Acts - Part II
Tongues and Spirit-baptism
The pattern of tongues in Acts
Why tongues were given
Filled with the Spirit
'Witness' in the Book of Acts
GIFTS
What Pentecostals believe
The Pentecostal basis
Speaking in tongues
1 Corinthians 14
Mark 16:9-20
Miracles
Healing
Prophecy
John Wimber changes his mind
PROSPERITY
Changing views on money
What Pentecostals believe
Reformation
Perfectionism
Divine Healing
New Thought
Word of Faith
A critique
A corrective
How to get really rich
Americanized Christianity
Neither Poverty nor Riches
How to pray
WORSHIP
What Pentecostals believe
Why Stephen died
What is worship
Why and how
Why we meet
What's at stake
Do we need the Bible
The centrality of Preaching
Prophecy & preaching
Music in church
GUIDANCE & DESTINY
What Pentecostals believe
Experiencing guidance
Listening to the Spirit
The Purpose Driven Life
The Gospel Driven Life
PROS & CONS
Positive characteristics
Negative tendencies
BARNETT & JENSEN
The Quest for Power
The Bewildered Believer
What Neo-pentecostals believe
Reading the Bible
The Holy Spirit in John
The Acts Passages
Holy Spirit and Conversion
Weakness and Power
Pentecostals and Conservatives
FOUNDATIONS
John Owen on the Spirit
Where to draw the line
The Answer for Pentecostalism
Starting from the Beginning
The Problem of Predestination
God, Evil & Sovereignty
TESTIMONIES
My Story
Mark Strom
James Brinkhoff
CORRESPONDANCE
Motives?
Born again at Pentecost?
Pentecostalism from Wesley?
Prosperity doctrine from Branham?
I recall being a younster at age 11 when first becoming interested and puzzled by youth leaders describing Pentecostalism and asking me about my lack of experience with Spirit-baptism. After being asked on a mission by one of my leaders, "have you been 'empowered' by the Spirt?", I remember on my return going to my Father, an elder in our bretheren church: "Dad, I want to be empowered by the Spirit."
He gave me a big black reference Bible and showed me how to used the concordance. "Look it up in the Bible" -- seemed like straightforward advice at the time, and I went away feeling that if I could just nail down what the Bible said about this experience, I'd be a step closer to getting what I was obviously missing.
I went straigh back to my bedroom and sat on my bed attempting to look up the word 'empowerment' in the back of this old bible, of course with no joy. And with no idea why I might find nothing under the word 'empower' in the Bible at all, and having nowhere else to turn, I went back to my youth group leaders and friends, asking them for the answers.
That moment of frustration--sitting alone on the bottom of my bunkbed with no adequate access to a proper understanding from either my Father or from the Bible--that was the beginning of what became a 2 year slide into Pentecostalism, as I turned and came more and more under the influence of those with first-hand testimony, relying increasingly on their stories of their experiences.
In September 2006, some fifteen years later, I looked back on that bible flicking moment and had the realisation that if I was that 11 year-old again, but in the present day, I know that now I would have turned at that moment, not straight back to my friends, but first, of course, to Google!
And that's where the idea for this blog came from. And it's the reason I'm continuing to write and post-out to a world of online searchers who are now looking to the web and their social media networks for answers.
I'm looking to be there for those 'young ones' out there who are asking the questions that I once was, who are now going to Google and typing in "how to be empowered by the Spirit?". Hopefully more and more seekers asking these questions will increasingly be finding their way to my site, where they can get some more adequate answers than I first did at that crucial and vulnerable time, now twenty years ago.
The contents of articles in this blog to-date have investigated topics including: the Pentecostal Movement, Pentecostals and their beliefs, the Day of Pentecost, the Charismatic movement and Charismatics, Evangelical beliefs and the Holy Spirit; in particular special focus is given to the origin and history of the Pentecostal movement, baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, gifts of the Spirit and miracles, divine healing and the Word of Faith movement, prosperity doctrine and health-wealth teaching, the Praise and Worship movement, guidance, revelation and hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit.
INTRO
ORIGINS
SPIRIT BAPTISM
GIFTS
PROSPERITY
WORSHIP
GUIDANCE & DESTINY
PROS & CONS
BARNETT & JENSEN
FOUNDATIONS
TESTIMONIES
CORRESPONDANCE