Mission-driven Pentecostal ecclesiology

Abstract

Pentecostal ecclesiology is shaped by its missionary drive and hence is global in scope. However, most studies have concentrated on a Pentecostal understanding of local churches and assumed a congregational model of the church. In this article I suggest a Pentecostal ecclesiology based on trinitarian mission fellowships. This develops some of the existing studies, drawing together themes of community, context, mission, Scripture, Christology, Spirit baptism and holiness within a trinitarian framework. In addition, the article proposes that a global and catholic aspect of Pentecostal ecclesiology can be seen in network structures. Networks form flexible structures that are neither congregational nor hierarchical and have been naturally formed as a part of Pentecostal mission. Such an ecclesiology brings together the work of the Holy Spirit with the story of the growing church in Acts and is suggestive of a fresh approach to catholicity.

Keywords:

• ecclesiology
• Pentecostal
• mission
• networks

Notes

¹ Apostolic Faith, 1, no. 1 (1906): 2–3. I am using the term ‘Pentecostal’ to embrace the many kinds of Pentecostalism, within which classical Pentecostals form a part. See Lord, Spirit-Shaped Mission, 2–4.

²McClung, “‘Try to Get People Saved”’, 36.

³Anderson, Spreading Fires, 289.

⁴Ibid., 212, 215–23, 232–41.

⁵The proposal here relies on the more detailed argument in Lord, ‘Network Church’.

⁶Chan, ‘Mother Church’, 180.

⁷Land, Pentecostal Spirituality.

⁸Pinnock, Flame of Love; Pinnock, ‘Church in the Power of the Holy Spirit’, 147–65.

⁹Kärkkäinen, Toward a Pneumatological Theology.

¹⁰Yong, Theology and Down Syndrome, 193–226.

¹¹Yong, The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh, 121–66.

¹²Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit.

¹³The classic challenge to the neglect of the Father is Smail, The Forgotten Father. Elsewhere I have suggested that this neglect of the Father can be seen to help explain the Pentecostal neglect of contextualisation, Lord, ‘Pentecostal Mission Through Contextualisation’.

¹⁴Cerillo, ‘The Beginnings of American Pentecostalism’, 229–60.

¹⁵Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism, 199.

¹⁶See Apostolic Faith 1, no. 1 (1906): 11,13; and Seymour `River of Living Water', 15.

¹⁷Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism.

¹⁸In this regard see Cartledge, Testimony in the Spirit.

¹⁹Congar, Dialogue Between Christians, 102.

²⁰Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, Vol. 2, 17.

²¹Taylor, The Go-Between God.

²²On this see, for example, Volf, After Our Likeness, 1–18.

²³Coulter, ‘Development of Ecclesiology in the Church of God’, 59–85.

²⁴Kay, Apostolic Networks in Britain.

²⁵Ibid., 289; Castells, Rise of Network Society, 246.

²⁶Castells, Rise of Network Society, 501.

²⁷Sugden, ‘International Partnership in Mission’, 289–91.

²⁸On these themes see Taylor, Uncancelled Mandate.

²⁹For a review of some of this wisdom see Brown, ‘International Relationships in Mission’, 207–73.

³⁰Volf, After Our Likeness, 200–20.

³¹Kay, Apostolic Networks, 67.

³²Schnabel, Early Christian Mission, 1320.

³³Dunn, Acts of the Apostles, 195.