Experiencing Life in the Spirit: an interview with Frank Billman

PneumaReview.com: One of the things you teach is the Life in the Spirit Seminars. Tell us what those are.

Frank Billman: One of the local church renewal events that ARM does is the Life in the Spirit Seminar. This is usually a weekend event on teaching about and experiencing the Holy Spirit. The team members share teaching on different ministries of the Holy Spirit found in Scripture and then they balance that with personal testimony about how they have experienced that aspect of the Spirit’s ministry in their own lives. There are teachings on Kingdom Encounters from the book of Acts, Fruit of the Spirit and Gifts of the Spirit. During the seminar there is worship interspersed between talks and opportunities for participants to receive prayer for baptism in the Holy Spirit, impartation of Spiritual gifts, healing or whatever else the Spirit has in mind. ARM has multiple coordinators and team members available to lead these across the country and around the world.

I have led these seminars from Delaware to California, from Michigan to Florida, and in Liberia, Nepal, and Tanzania (including in 2 refugee camps there). I hosted them in the 3 churches I pastored. All over the world I have seen God use this seminar to bring people into a deeper experience with the Holy Spirit. ARM is willing to take this seminar wherever invited, not just in UMCs.

 

PneumaReview.com: You are also involved in a doctoral program in supernatural ministries at United Theological Seminary. Please tell us about the program and the tracks of study they offer.

Frank Billman: After ARM had done several sessions of the Methodist School for Supernatural Ministry, Dr. Peter Bellini, a faculty member at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, contacted the ARM office asking if ARM would be willing to partner with United in providing a Doctor of Ministry in Supernatural Ministry group and ARM said they would. Since I was the one on the ARM staff with an earned doctorate and since I founded the Methodist School for Supernatural Ministry, that task was given to me to lead this program. As far as I know United is the only seminary in the country where you can get a DMin in Supernatural Ministry that is fully accredited by ATS.

Randy Clark’s Global Awakening has a Randy Clark Scholars DMin group at United as well. There are probably 25+ different DMin groups there. The student body comes from a wide variety of denominational and non-denominational backgrounds and there are numbers of international students as a part of the programs as well. United’s DMin program is one of the largest in the country. United also offers a Master of Divinity and Master of Arts in Christian Studies degrees with a Global Charismatic Emphasis. And what is remarkable is that United is one of 13 seminaries of the United Methodist Church. God is doing a supernatural work at a seminary of a denomination that is in the midst of heresy, ecclesiastical disobedience and on the verge of a major split.

It would not be unusual to walk down the halls of the seminary and overhear students and teachers praying for healing or deliverance or speaking in tongues. At the DMin Intensive weeks it is not unusual to witness people resting in the Spirit, singing in the Spirit, giving words of knowledge or displaying other manifestations of the Spirit. The first Friday in December they host a Holy Spirit conference at the seminary co-sponsor with ARM. In April United will be hosting a four-day session of the Methodist School for Supernatural Ministry also co-sponsored with ARM.

In our DMin in Supernatural Ministry group each project that the students come up with has to have an element of dependence upon the Holy Spirit to succeed. So, one student did his project on teaching UM pastors in America to do spiritual warfare. Another did hers on creating a spiritual boot camp on a US Navy base in Italy to teach people to pray for healing and deliverance. Another did his on training ten and eleven-year-old children to hear from God and pray for adults in a UM church.

 

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For Further Reading:

Frank Billman introduces an excerpt from his book, The Supernatural Thread in Methodism: Signs and Wonders Among Methodists Then and Now.

• Author’s Introduction
• A Pentecostal Season: The Methodists in England and America, Part 1
  (Summer 2018)
• A Pentecostal Season: The Methodists in England and America, Part 2
  (Fall 2018)

The Holy River of God: Currents and Contributions of the Wesleyan Holiness Stream of Christianity reviewed by David Belles.

Watch: John Wesley and Pentecostalism: an interview with Frank Macchia

Daniel Jennings, The Supernatural Occurrences of John Wesley reviewed by Tony Richie.

Winfield Bevins, “Wesley and the Pentecostals”

This article will attempt to briefly discuss the historical development of Pentecostalism by making a special application of John Wesley’s contribution.

Watch: Miracles: John Wesley, with Craig S. Keener

Winfield Bevins, “Historical Development of Wesley’s Doctrine of the Spirit”

There is no telling what will happen when the church rediscovers Wesley’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

Peter Althouse, “Wesleyan and Reformed Impulses in the Keswick and Pentecostal Movements”

Neil Hudson, “You Will Never Know Where You Are Going Until You Know Where You Came From: British Pentecostals’ past development and future challenges”

Winfield Bevins, “A Pentecostal Appropriation of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral”

From the beginning, Pentecostals have always emphasized the importance of Scripture.

Gary Best, Charles Wesley: A Biography reviewed by David Malcolm Bennett.

Gary Best captures Charles Wesley as a man of courageous action as well as a thoughtful churchman, theologian and poet. He also gives some wonderful insights into early Methodism.

 

 

Tags: billman, experiencing, featured, frank, interview, life, spirit

Category: Ministry, Summer 2018