| December 25, 2012 |
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Early Pentecostals had high expectations of themselves and of God.
It is significant to put these figures into a context. Pentecostals were living at a time when they had high expectations of themselves and of God. There is an interesting comparison with another Elim minister, John Dyke, who was evangelising around that time. After a campaign in Merthyr, he sent the following statistics to Elim’s headquarters: 78 Commitment Cards had been received. Of these, 24 people were saved or attending regularly; 20 were definitely not saved; 11 had returned to other churches; 3 had moved away; 6 old people had found the distance too great; 1 had joined the Dowlais church; 9 were attending another church, they were ‘runabouts’; 4 were not traced. Dyke summed up the experience, ‘I think that this experience has been the most humiliating of my Christian life.’
8 Hathaway agreed, ‘it is most unsatisfactory’.
9 These figures would be expected, and even welcomed, in contemporary church missions. The expectations of the Pentecostals at that time were very high.
What did Jeffreys believe concerning revival?
Jeffreys’ views concerning revival were not the result of abstract theologising, but had been gained as a result of his own experiences as a young Christian. Having experienced the revival in Wales, Jeffreys longed to see Pentecostalism achieve similar results. Brooks wrote that it was apparent to everyone who heard him speak whether in private or in public, that Jeffreys was ‘indebted to the Welsh Revival not merely for his conversion but also for his dominating vision and passion for religious revival’.10
Jeffreys was deeply affected by the Welsh Revival.
Although the Welsh Revival had begun to wane by 1906, Jeffreys joined his brother Stephen in attending midweek meetings led by William Hill at the home of Mr and Mrs Bedford, Bridgend Road, Cwmfelin. Hill, previously a Welsh Baptist pastor, had left the ministry after having been baptised in the Spirit.
11 There were many such groups that developed during this time. They called themselves ‘Children of the Revival’; they were people, deeply affected by the Revival, who longed for God to continue the work that they had witnessed in the previous years. Because some had been ostracised from their churches and chapels, they met to worship in homes.
12 Barratt designated these groups as the recipients of ‘the fresh glorious flow of Revival grace and power’ that the ‘older Christian communities … [had]…shut out’.
13 Their meetings were flexible, free of traditional ecclesiastical organisation, and the believers were expectant, fervent and desirous of more of God’s blessing in their lives.
14 These house meetings, in which the Jeffreys’ brothers were participants, became the natural loci for the later Pentecostal outpourings to find acceptance. Therefore, Jeffreys’ initial experience of church life was the extraordinary fervour of the Welsh Revival and its aftermath. This influenced his expectation of normal church life. His experience of revival was that it had spectacular effects upon all who encountered it; his experience of church life was dominated by a stress on organised spontaneity and a lack of clerical control.
Revival is a present reality rather than a future hope
Having been formed as the Elim Evangelistic Band by Jeffreys in the aftermath of the Welsh Revival, much of Elim’s early existence and aspiration revolved around revival.15 Jeffreys’ team that ministered with him was termed the ‘Revival Party’. Jeffreys believed that revival, having been inaugurated at Pentecost, should be experienced constantly by every Christian and church. He wrote, ‘The revival which the Church needs has arrived, and there will be no other.’16 He pointed to the ongoing life of the churches as evidence for this view; when holiness was taught, the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit manifested, obedience shown to Christ’s commands by individuals and prayers answered, these were evidences of revival. He argued, ‘We see no other pattern for revival in the New Testament, and the church or leader who rejects this is rejecting the answer to their own prayers for revival.’17
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Tags: Elim, George Jeffreys, pentecostal history, revival
Category: Church History, Fall 2012, Pneuma Review
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