For British Pentecostals, the desire for revival and the unending search for its first signs are activities that have formed their prayers and shaped their activities during most of their twentieth century existence. Looking back and reconstructing historical events into potential future paradigms of revival, they have lived hoping for God to repeat his activities in Ulster in 1859, Wales in 1904 and the Hebrides in 1948. When these events have felt too distant chronologically, they have turned their attention overseas, Korea, Argentina, Colombia, wherever God seems to be doing more than he is in their own land. The ongoing search has led them to work harder, pray more fervently, support every religious endeavour and yet has ultimately led them to disappointment and, in some cases, disillusionment. However, history suggests that, at least on some occasions, when revival is encountered the consequences are not as glorious as one might have expected.

This paper will examine the case of George Jeffreys as a revivalist, his development and self-understanding and the result of having a revivalist as a denominational leader. In 1940, George Jeffreys (1889-1962), the founder of the British Elim Pentecostal Churches, resigned after policy decisions he had desired to introduce into the Movement were rejected by the ministers within the denomination. He then instituted a rival denomination. George Jeffreys had been the supreme charismatic leader within Elim for 25 years.

George Jeffreys: His development and evangelistic success

George Jeffreys

George Jeffreys was born in 1889 in Maesteg, Wales and converted, aged 15 years, in November 1904, the year that the Welsh Revival began. His whole life and ministry would reflect the impact made on him by the Welsh Revival.

After supporting his brother, Stephen Jeffreys, in evangelistic campaigns in Swansea, he attracted the attention of Alexander Boddy, who had been at the centre of British Pentecostalism since 1908 and the publication of the magazine, Confidence. In 1913, Boddy went to Wales to visit the two brothers.² It was during this visit that he invited George to speak at the Sunderland Convention. It was Jeffreys’ task to preach the gospel each evening, after the other main speakers had delivered their addresses. Jeffreys had been catapulted into the midst of leaders who were older and vastly more experienced in ministry. This opportunity to take a major part in the meetings, which was a focal point for Pentecostalism, sealed his future. Firstly, it gave him a platform to attract the attention of Pentecostals who had gathered from all over Europe. Secondly, it placed him amongst the older leaders of the new Pentecostal Movement; it was obvious that his role would become more significant as the older generation continued to age. For Jeffreys, the fact that he, a young man from a poor family in South Wales, had been given the platform to speak to leaders from Europe was seen to be God’s commendation of his life and ministry. Thirdly, it was here that William Gillespie, an Irish Pentecostal, heard him preach and invited him to Ireland. As a result the Elim Evangelistic Band was launched, with the aim of evangelistic meetings being conducted and churches planted.

Pentecostalism’s Heritage

Pentecostalism’s formation and development looks to the nineteenth century Holiness Movement for its parentage. Perhaps every generation has looked at the Church they have inherited, compared it with the biblical account of the early Church and pronounced the diagnosis that something fundamental was awry. Certainly, by the late nineteenth century, Evangelicalism was ill at ease with itself and had spawned many agencies seeking to kick start the Church back into life.

In Britain, the Holiness Movement, particularly as mediated through the Keswick Convention, became a significant breeding ground for proto-Pentecostals. The theology surrounding this ecumenical event (its motto was ‘All one in Christ Jesus’) focused on the desire for a victorious Christian life that many of its delegates desired above all else. The answer to this overwhelming desire was to be found in an experience of a life lived in the ‘fullness of the Spirit’. Rejecting the more extreme views of ‘sinless perfection’, the clear expectation was that the believer, once justified by faith, could have a distinct divine experience which would become the gateway into leading a ‘life of overcoming’. This life would then be transformed into service—the work of the Spirit would provide the disciple with power to witness.

For many Evangelicals, convinced of the fact that too often the Church was leading a spiritually substandard life, this was deemed to be the obvious answer. Many early proto-Pentecostals became frequent visitors to the convention in Keswick, returning to their mission halls and prayer meetings having claimed this experience of sanctification by faith. That this was the answer to the problems of the Church was given credibility when the Welsh Revival broke out in 1904. Led by the trio of Holiness revivalists: Seth Joshua, Joseph Jenkins and Evan Roberts, the freewheeling dynamism of the Revival awakened many people’s imaginations to the possibility of a much wider spiritual renewal. The Welsh Revival was to be a significant precursor to Pentecostalism for a number of reasons. Some future Pentecostal leaders were converted in the Revival; others, such as Rev. A. A. Boddy, visited Wales and returned to their home churches having witnessed the radical freedom of the services, believing this to be a hallmark of the Spirit in action. A third reason related to the fact that the post-revival period was marked by small home-groups that delineated themselves as ‘Children of the Revival’. It was amongst these groups that Pentecostalism would break out. They had experienced the freedom of the Revival, were convinced that this was what churches had been missing for years and were not content to return to the formalism of non-conformist churches.