Organizing Revival : the story of how the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel and the Norwegian Pentecostal movement sought to facilitate for growth

Abstract

Revival is God’s work. I don’t think we can organize for revival. However we can pray and do our best in removing possible roadblocks, but from revival history we learn that revival is God’s work. My title for this paper could give an impression that my focus would be the preparing part for revival, it’s not. Revival is messy. The pastors, the preaching, the people, the phenomena makes up a mix of human involvement in the revival. In spite of all shortcomings of the human involvement, revival still happens and has contributed to an exceptional growth in the church worldwide. My paper is not looking at that either. Revival has been the beginning for many churches and denominations. That’s what this paper will look into. The Norwegian Pentecostal movement (NPM) and the International Church of the Foursquare gospel (ICFG)1 are fruits of revival. The title “Organizing revival” indicates that I will take a closer look at how these two movements sought to facilitate for growth in the midst of and in the aftermath of revival. My research endeavours to find the roots of how the organizations sought to organize themselves to preserve the fruits of the revival and what we might be able to learn from this. To find answers in my research I have combined reading a lot of relevant literature covering historic documentation, theology, and organizational models related to the topic. It has also been my privilege to meet and interview key people who have been able to cast some light to how it all happened. The people mentioned in the acknowledgments have been vital in bringing pieces to the puzzle. Both organization solved the challenge to keep the harvest in different organizational models. We know that organization is not the only way to keep the fruits of revival, but it is definitely one of the key factors in caring for people and to move them forward in discipleship.