Pneuma Review speaks with Dean Merrill about his book, 50 Pentecostal and Charismatic Leaders Every Christian Should Know (Chosen, 2021).

PneumaReview.com: Please tell us about your own involvement in the Pentecostal Movement.

Dean Merrill: My parents—good Midwestern Quakers—were drawn toward a fuller experience of the Holy Spirit about the time I was born. My personal infilling came while I was still a boy, a year after my conversion. Sensing a call to ministry, I trained at a Pentecostal school (Chicago Bible College) and was ordained thereafter by Philadelphia Church, Chicago. My convictions have remained the same throughout my life, even though much of my editing and publishing work has been in generically evangelical circles.

PneumaReview.com: Where did the idea for this book come from?

Dean Merrill: Actually, it was the idea of the publisher (Chosen Books, part of the Baker Publishing Group). They had published two similar volumes: 50 People Every Christian Should Know (2009) and 50 Women Every Christian Should Know (2014). They approached me to keep the series going.

PneumaReview.com: Were there specific criteria that were used to determine which Pentecostal and Charismatic leaders would be included in this volume?

PneumaReview.com: In the book you mention that you and at least one other family member received ministry from a couple of the people whose stories are in the book. Please tell our readers a little bit about those encounters.

Dean Merrill: I was about ten years old when, at an Oral Roberts campaign in Des Moines, Iowa, my father guided me into the healing line to receive prayer for my enlarged adenoids. It was the last night of the campaign, so Roberts was moving us through quickly, trying to touch everyone who hadn’t been able to come up previously. He laid his hand on my head and prayed a short prayer. My problem went away thereafter, never requiring surgery.

PneumaReview.com: As you have studied the lives of the leaders who are included in the book, what would you say are some of the key factors that caused them to be so effective?

Dean Merrill:

• They were incredibly bold, courageous, “gutsy.” Think about Maria Woodworth-Etter facing down a half-drunken mob intent on burning down her tent. Or David Wilkerson reaching out to hostile New York City gangbangers.
• They paid very public, no-apologies attention to the ministry of healing. They were confident that the God who saves us is the God who heals as well.
• If they felt God had told them to do something or had promised to provide, they didn’t flinch. No second-guessing.
• They had a laser focus on Spirit empowerment, not just human flash and flair.
• They prayed like crazy, all the time.

Is there one person in the book that you found to be particularly interesting?

Dean Merrill: Oh, my—that’s like asking a parent which child is their favorite. I’m intrigued with them all!

PneumaReview.com: How can the stories in this book challenge Pentecostals and Charismatics today?

Dean Merrill: They show us that Book-of-Acts Christianity is not just a historical relic. They tell us that it’s not all that important whether we keep our membership in what I call “the evangelical club.” In the book I quote Donald Gee (the British writer/editor), who wrote back in the 1950s, “Revivals are never launched without someone going to an extreme…. There has to be an extremism to move things…. Miracles of healing occur when faith refuses to be logical, and blinds itself to arguments, based on plenty of contrary experience.”

PneumaReview.com: How can the accounts in this book encourage Pentecostals and Charismatics today?

Dean Merrill: They assure us that the wind of the Spirit still blows in our time, if we will only take notice. The Holy Spirit has not gone off, like a grizzly bear, into a long hibernation. He is alive and active wherever given a welcome. Those who listen to him can do remarkable things for God’s cause.

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Publisher’s page: http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/50-pentecostal-and-charismatic-leaders-every-christian-should-know/404900

Dean Merrill is a veteran writer. He has written books of his own, has collaborated with others to help them tell their stories, and contributed to various publications. In this his latest book he tells the stories of a number of people who have had powerful experiences with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Miracle Invasion is not a theology book per se (though there is certainly some biblical theology in it), it is really a book of testimonies. In these brief testimonies we have a collection of contemporary accounts which demonstrate that the gifts of the Holy Spirit that are mentioned in the New Testament are still very much with us today.

The book begins with the foreword which is called “Setting the Stage.” This part of the book is written by Jeff Farmer, the president of Pentecostal/Charismatic Churches of North America. In it Farmer presents a brief explanation of each of the nine gifts of the Spirit that the apostle Paul lists in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10. After this brief teaching section, the book moves on to tell the stories of people who have had powerful encounters with the Holy Spirit. There are thirty-nine chapters of testimonies in this volume.

Read an excerpt from Dean Merrill’s, Miracle Invasion: Amazing true stories of the Holy Spirit’s gifts at work today.

David Killingsworth may have been the honored guest speaker that Sunday night at a multicultural church in Phoenix, but this didn’t stop a humble Navajo lady from approaching him at the end of the service to prophesy. “The Lord is going to give you understanding and wisdom concerning the old ways of the Native people,” she announced. “You will not get this from a book or a tape, but you will get it by revelation, because the Lord is going to use you to help redeem the culture and bring deliverance.”

Miracle Invasion: Amazing true stories of the Holy Spirit’s gifts at work today (2018).

Pastor Killingsworth welcomed this message in light of his ongoing interest in reaching Native Americans. His church, Green Forest Christian Center¹ back in northwest Arkansas, had already sent several work and outreach teams to the small reservation town of Jeddito, Arizona, a Navajo enclave within the Hopi tribe’s larger territory. The town had a small log cabin church building where various groups had tried over the years to start a congregation without success.

The pastor flew home that Monday. When he showed up at his office the next day, a staff member reported, “There was a missionary on sabbatical who stopped by the Sunday night prayer meeting; after we had all prayed for a while, he said, ‘I have a word from the Lord for the father of this house.’ We told him, ‘Well, he’s not here; he’s in Arizona.’”

The visitor was not dissuaded. He asked if they might tape his message, to be played when the senior pastor returned. They accommodated him by bringing out a cassette recorder.

Now at his desk, Pastor Killingsworth sat down to listen. He punched the Play button and began to hear the following words: “The Lord says, ‘I will give you understanding and wisdom concerning the old ways of the Native people. You will not get this by book or by tape, but you will get it by revelation. And I will use you to redeem the culture and bring deliverance.’” It was virtually the identical message he had been given 1,200 miles west at essentially the same hour back on Sunday night.

In response, “Our church began to pray ever more seriously about this over the next period of time,” says the pastor. “We kept up our connections to Navajo people we’d already met and tried to extend our network. We came to believe God wanted us to try again to plant a church in Jeddito.”

And so it was that in August 2001, a team of some fifteen Green Forest people, including committed intercessors, came to the town once again to pray for a spiritual awakening. Several Navajo believers from Phoenix joined them, asking God to break through the dark superstitions of the culture with the light of the gospel. During one prayer meeting, a woman in her sixties, named Judy Magner, began to bear down in urgent entreaty, interceding in a flow of tongues.
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PneumaReview.com speaks with Dean Merrill, the author or co-author of almost 50 books, about his latest book that investigates amazing and true stories of the work of the Holy Spirit today.

PneumaReview.com: Please tell our readers about any ways in which the Pentecostal or Charismatic movements have touched your life.

Dean Merrill: My parents, originally Quakers, were edging into a fuller life in the Spirit about the time I was born. So I was plunged from the beginning into the notion of taking Scripture, especially Acts and the Epistles, at face value; this was “normal Christianity” as far as I was concerned. My salvation occurred during my grade-school years, and my initial infilling with the Spirit on a Sunday night in an Assembly of God church took place a year or so later. I’ve never relinquished my trust in the empowering Holy Spirit to do what only he can do, regardless of contrary opinions. Despite my decades of work in the wider Christian publishing field, I’m as Pentecostal today as I’ve always been.

PneumaReview.com: Where did the idea for the book Miracle Invasion originate?

Dean Merrill: It started with my good friend Jeff Farmer, president of the Pentecostal/Charismatic Churches of North America (PCCNA), who envisioned a collection of true, authentic, credible stories of spiritual gifts in OUR time (not 80 or 100 years ago) on OUR continent (U.S., Canada, Mexico). I quickly signed on to do the research and writing. The book came onto the market in February 2018.

PneumaReview.com: How were the testimonies that were included in the book gathered?

Following this, I began doing dozens of phone interviews with the actual people or their pastors. From these, I wrote drafts for sending back to get their approval and adjustments before proceeding to publication.

PneumaReview.com: The stories you shared in the book all come from North America. Why do you think that many believe that the exercise of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is more common in the Global South?

I love what the brilliant missionary scholar Del Tarr (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) wrote in one of his books about “the dangers of any attempt to make God’s dealing with humanity through the cross of Christ or His baptism of fire a ‘reasonable’ one. Pentecostals are not meant to be ‘mainstream,’ and God help us if we get there.” (The Foolishness of God: A Linguist Looks at the Mystery of Tongues, p. xvi. [Editor’s note: Read the review by Jon Ruthven.])

Dean Merrill, Damage Control: How to Stop Making Jesus Look Bad (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2006), 174 pages, ISBN 9780801065651.

From the journalist and author of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Church (1997) comes yet another volume which speaks to the too often “narrow-minded, exclusionary, and pushy” (back cover) presentation of the Christian Gospel. Believing that Christians do not live as individuals, but that they are “viewed as a collective body and representation of their leader Jesus Christ”, Merrill is very quick to affirm that what Christians do “reflects on the entire group, including its leader, Jesus Christ.” For Merrill, Christians and Christ are “inseparable in the public mind” (Merrill, 16).

Far from being a negative critique of current Christian testimony, Merrill also affirms the positive ways many Christians live out their faith in today’s world. He describes the responses of many Christians he recently interviewed for this book. When asked this question: “What makes you proud to be a Christian?” his respondents were quick to share their delight with the “ongoing programs of help for the needy, the sick, and the disadvantaged”. They admired” the bravery and endurance [of many] in the face of persecution, especially among Christians in the developing world”. His interviewees believed that “there is less denominational partisanship these days than in times past”, and that the Christian effort was effectively reducing “racism in American life”. Respondents also extolled the seeker sensitivity of many churches (Merrill 17). In the main, these Christians were generally satisfied with what they perceived as the Christian impact on the world.

Dean Merrill

In light of all this, he concludes with encouragements for his Christian reader to “bridge build”, to be a “representative of a higher kingdom based on love [leading] to the Way, in the pursuit of shalom” (117). Christians, says Merrill, should be persons of “one-way kindness” (chapter 11), “engaging real difficulties in a real world [giving] substance to the faith [they] possess” (131). He, therefore, calls for a Christian to present a clear and attractive message (chapter 11, 12).

Ultimately, Christian readers could do well by including this book in their devotional reading; and Damage Control could also serve as a discussion guide for groups seeking to be even more authentic in their witness for Christ.

Reviewed by Carolyn D. Baker

Further Reading:

The Pentecostal Evangel from the Assemblies of God interviewed Dean Merrill in 2006: http://www.ag.org/pentecostal-evangel/conversations2006/4810_Merrill.cfm