A Classical Pentecostal Approach to Discipleship in Missions

Abstract

Most contemporary Pentecostal missiologies advocate a move away from classical Pentecostalism’s historic emphasis on the priority of evangelization (commonly described as the narrow sense of missions). In many ways this move parallels similar missiological perspectives among Evangelicals through the influence of the Lausanne Congresses between 1974 and 2010. In this essay the author argues that Scripture does not emphasize the church’s call to transform the world but the church’s need to be transformed itself within the world as a testimony of God’s abiding presence. Building especially on the work of Paul Pomerville, Johannes Blauw, and Harry Boer, the author offers a fresh take on an old missiology, one in which the church in the age of the Spirit must especially be understood in light of God’s concern for the nations.