#Pentecostal Church

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Worshippers at the Pentecostal Faith Church of All Nations in Harlem participate in one of their weekly baptism ceremonies, 1934.

Photo: Bettmann Archive via the NY Times

[neice1176]

Happy Wednesday, it's time for Bible Study 📖 I hope your week is going good. Please pray for me and the kids struggling to get everything we need done before my surgery and trailer repairs before snow. 💜✝️🛐🤲🕊

I pray you all have a blessed week and weekend 🙏 🫂

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

The reality is that the Pentecostal / Charismatic / Third Wave, with all its emphasis on signs and wonders, has produced nothing verifiable that qualifies in the New Testament sense as an authentic sign of wonder.

John MacArthur

[spokanefavs]

"Talk about getting your paradigm rocked. I began spending 40 hours a week interviewing, observing and worshipping among groups I’d hardly known existed.

Looking back, I find I’ve learned something about God and his purposes from nearly every faith tradition I’ve encountered."

[dorrance30]

The Holy Spirit.

[maigetheplatypus57]

at mass and the priest mentioned something abt "st jude the patron saint of lost causes" and it took less than a second for my brain to go "oh so ctommy?" I hate it here <- here being inside my chronic inniter brain

[secretariatess]

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

I think it's a dang shame that we'll put celebration of the day the church split over the day the church was formed.

It's not that I think what the Catholic Church was doing at the time that instigated the Reformation was good or in no need of correction, but rather that God's church was split and created factions upon factions where we now squabble with each other. We went from a united church to one with many denominations that fight with each other about which ones are the "true" ones, or which denominations are "wrong."

Don't get me wrong, I like being Nazarene. I like what the Nazarene church offers, and I agree with Nazarene theology. And it wouldn't be possible without the Reformation. I don't agree with Catholic theology. I think there are many things where they are off base. But there are still those in the Catholic church who are Christian, and I'm not going to write them off because of the Protestant/Catholic chasm.

The Reformation was necessary. I'm not sure it was necessary to celebrate. The Church split. It split. The Church, where Jesus said that the world would know us by the love we have for each other, split.

To put it another way: God's family split. How is that not heartbreaking? I am under no delusion that everyone was working in harmony previously, but still . . . .

When Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses up, his goal was not to split the church. It was to correct the church. But he had lobbed a hand grenade at a festering rot, gone too far deep to accept correction and instead desired to keep its corruption.

There's a lesson in the Reformation. There was good in the Reformation. I do believe God worked in the Reformation. But I feel like the lesson and warning of the Reformation is lost when we celebrate "no longer being Catholic!"

The Reformation should be sobering.

And if we are going to celebrate a formation of the church, why are we putting so much stock on the Reformation, and ignoring the Pentecost, where God came down again?

What is the purpose in celebrating the Reformation, and what is the excuse in forgetting Pentecost?

[alittlewoozyhere]

Rural California

[ichtios]

10.11.2024

Today I wanna tell you a little bit about my church in case anyone is interested, also to make you realize how small it is.

So I belong to pentecostal church, and my congregation rents a place in this building, only the part of the ground floor. You can tell that there's some church at all here by this small banner on the right side (the big one belongs to a car detailing company which owns a workshop on the left).

The members of my congregation are:

me

pastor and his wife and daughter (exactly my age)

one Polish family, mother of 2 little children, she is younger than me, and her husband (I'm not sure about his age)

1 Ukrainian family with like 9 kids (fled from war, pastor made a huge effort to bring them here right before war, and God told him to do it even before there was a war in sight, that's why they managed to fled on time)

1 Belarusian family, with 2 girls (fled from repressions in Belarus)

1 guy who used to be a criminal, robber, now 100% for Jesus. Has a family but only he belongs to us

older lady with his husband

a few other older ladies

middle aged man, "church elder" (pastors aid)

another middle aged man, also church elder and his wife

another middle aged man, Ukrainian, also kind of pastors aid

I'm not sure if I missed someone... there used to be a big Georgian family but they moved, and a Georgian guy, but I don't see him often lately. I may missed few people, but that's basically it.

So you can see it is a small church, but very family-like, pastor is very father-like and he and his wife care for me more than my parents ever did, on the emotional/spiritual/mental level if you know what I mean. Sometimes I got teary when I think how good they are to me. We don't agree in every theological matter, but I appreciate them a lot.

[spurgie-cousin]

i haven't thought about it in so long, but i totally remember being told Catholics worship idols (Mary, saints) in church 😭 the same church where we immediately idolized any politician who name dropped Jesus and prayed for their success in controlling the government.

it was never as hostile as this lady's experience though, it was more like ohhhh they're on the right track, just kinda misguided. at the end of the day, we needed the Catholics for the interchurch Christmas bake sale.

[theexodvs]

“Cult” (n.) and “cultic” (adj.)

There is great confusion when describing certain groups and movements as "cultic." Since the most famous examples of cultic groups and movements in living memory include the Manson Family, People’s Temple, the Branch Davidians and Heaven’s Gate, the popular conception of a cult has become a centralized group with one leader with a type-A personality. This is not how most cultic groups take shape.

"Cultic" and "centralized" are not synonyms. They are entirely different concepts, and whether one group or movement is one has no bearing whatsoever on whether it is the other.

The United Pentecostal Church International and Pentecostal Assemblies of the World are both cults. They are part of the Oneness Pentecostal movement*. Note, the UPCI and PAW are not in fellowship with each other and have no official relations. This is because this movement is decentralized, encompassing various different groups that are united in few if any ways besides (some) similar teachings. Whatever leadership and governance model they have, shared or contrasting, is secondary, because Oneness Pentecostalism as a set of doctrines is itself cultic, meaning any group that espouses it is a cult by definition.

Christian Identity is a more pronounced example of a cultic movement that is decentralized. It is a white supremacist group that teaches that white people are the descendants of the ancient Israelites, and that "gentiles" (people who aren't white) can never be saved. Its footprint is almost entirely made of websites, prison gangs, and local congregations, which are not in fellowship with each other or with any larger group. I would hope any decent person would be opposed to this movement and its teachings, but an attempt to treat "cultic" and "centralized" as synonyms might keep one from recognizing CI as something that should be avoided.

Other decentralized movements that are cultic include the Word of Faith movement, the Men's Right Movement, dispensationalism, neurodiversity, the Sovereign Citizens movement, BDSM, the New IFB, kinism, and the Black Hebrew Israelites. Every group that is part of these is a cult, thought they may not be in fellowship with other groups within the same movement.

*The Oneness Pentecostal movement is not representative of Pentecostalism as a whole. Most of the world's Pentecostals belong to the Assemblies of God which has taught the Trinity for its entire existence. Pentecostalism is not necessarily cultic. Oneness Pentecostalism is.

[gramarobin]

[religiousqueer-inbox]

Black queer pentecostal culture is feeling left out even in queer christian spaces because there is a conception that all pentecostals are homophobic and brainwashed and that the only way a queer christian can be safe is if they go to a predominantly white Unitarian church. Because of this I feel distant from God

.

[iscariotapologist]

this pentecost i have found myself attending an episcopal church to my mild surprise

[artandthebible]

The Descent of the Holy Ghost

Artist: Sandro Botticelli (Italian, 1444-1510)

Genre: Religious Art

Date: 1495-1505

Medium: Oil on Panel

Collection: Birmingham Museums Trust, Birmingham, England

The descent of the Holy Spirit, also known as Pentecost, is a significant event in the Bible that marks the beginning of the Church of Christ's missionary work. Some say it's the "birthday of the Church of Christ" because the apostles began spreading the Gospel after this event.

The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost (Acts 2:2-4)

"When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them."

[pashurr]

Are you wiser than Daniel... is no secret hidden from you

Ezekiel 28:3