Is it any effect of a conversion in a Pentecostal tradition? Those who experienced a conversion in the context of Iris Ministries, do they change behavior towards their family, work place and the society in general?

Abstract

There has been a Charismatic and Pentecostal revival in many countries in the world. In Brazil, the Charismatic movement has exploded into a revival and millions of people have converted to Pentecostalism. David Martin has called our time "the largest global shift in the religious market place". According to Dena Freeman, there has been half a billion souls who have been converted to Pentecostalism and the Charismatic movement over the last centuries. Alan Anderson also mentioned that the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement includes over half a billion members. This revival has been developing over the last centuries and includes a quarter of all Christians. My thesis is about the growth of Pentecostalism and individual conversions. I personally think this thesis is important because it doesn't seem that the Pentecostal and the Charismatic movement are stopping, but grows even faster than before. Harvey Cox and Victor Tomas wrote the book The secular city in 1965, where he mentioned that the religious time was over and that secularization had taken over, but in 1995 he took a full inversion and wrote the book Fire From Heaven - the Rise of Pentecostalism and Reshaping of religion in the twenty first Century. In the introduction Cox wrote that their first thesis have proved wrong and that Pentecostalism is not dying but growing as a revival in around the world. My qualitative studies are from Africa and Mozambique. An interesting issue according to Iris Ministries in Mozambique is that churches expand all over Mozambique and also to the neighboring countries. The importance of this organization is that the organization has according to themselves planted 10 000 churches since 1980, and Iris Ministries said that one million people have been converted. Personally I cannot confirm or deny these numbers, but I am going to visit Iris Ministries in Mozambique to gain better inside information.