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Pentecostal/Charismatic Churches and Ecumenism: An Interview with Mel Robeck

| January 15, 2003 | 1 comment

 

We could place the support of theological education higher on the agenda in our local congregations. While this would focus more narrowly on the training of our pastors … it would also contribute to the education of the majority of our people, because the sermons we hear would be different from many that are preached today.

Fourth, Pentecostal and Charismatic leaders could open up various forums in which the issue of ecumenism is openly discussed from a variety of perspectives. Currently, such forums do not exist in which either pastors or laypeople can learn or participate. There is currently no institutional organ published by any classical Pentecostal denomination that is willing to carry any story that provides positive information on efforts to develop greater Christian unity. By being better informed about other Christians, and by speaking about their strengths as much as we have been willing to speak of their weaknesses in our classrooms, from our pulpits, and in our periodicals, we would be forming new attitudes about the nature of the Church.

Finally, each year there are a number of times in which cooperative efforts between congregations may be possible. Most of us are familiar with such things as Good Friday services or Easter Sunrise services. Often we do not think of these services and celebrations as having genuine ecumenical significance. But they do! Most Pentecostals and charismatics, however, do not know that for nearly a century the “Week of Prayer for Christian Unity” has existed and a vast number of historic churches participate in it. In some countries this week has been linked with the events of the Easter season. In the United States and Canada, it has typically been celebrated during the month of January. Sometimes the impetus comes from local or regional councils of churches, but frequently there are joint prayer services that are offered within this context.

Many families have learned how to love one another across these ecumenical divides, and most frequently, they have arrived at the decision to love one another precisely because they have been willing to sit down with one another around a common table and get to know one another. Ecumenical dialogue is like that.

The Pentecostal congregation in which I worship has made this event a priority for itself for several years. Our pastor preaches a sermon based upon the same text that has been chosen for the celebration of this week worldwide. Later that day, the churches in the Los Angeles area worship together. We have enjoyed rich ecumenical worship and fellowship experiences in settings as diverse as Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, African Methodist Episcopal and Presbyterian churches. Some members of our congregation have developed long term relationships with people from these other congregations. They would not want to return to their previous position of isolation.

 

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Category: Ministry, Winter 2003

About the Author: Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., Ph.D. (Fuller Theological Seminary), is Senior Professor of Church History and Ecumenics and Special Assistant to the President for Ecumenical Relations at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He is an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God who has served at the seminary since 1974. His work on the Azusa Street revival is well known. His ecumenical work, since 1984, is highly respected around the world by Christian leaders outside the Pentecostal Movement. He continues to serve as a bridge between Pentecostalism and the larger church world, leading international dialogues, participating in ecumenical consultations, and working on and writing about church-dividing issues. He appears regularly on the AmericanReligious.org Town Hall weekly telecast. He co-edited The Cambridge Companion to Pentecostalism (Cambridge, 2014) with Amos Yong, The Azusa Street Revival and Its Legacy (Wipf & Stock, 2009) with Harold D. Hunter, and The Suffering Body: Responding to the Persecution of Christians (Paternoster, 2006) with Harold D. Hunter. He is also the author of The Azusa Street Mission and Revival: The Birth of the Global Pentecostal Movement (Thomas Nelson, 2006 and 2017) and Prophecy in Carthage: Perpetua, Tertullian, and Cyprian (Pilgrim, 1992). Faculty page

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