That explosive growth has occurred in just over 100 years. The Pentecostal movement began with a few churches (usually on the other side of the tracks) that appealed to a marginal population. Mainstream Christianity labeled them such terms as fanatical or excessive. Some called them weird or heretical—or much worse.
It all went viral when a 1906 revival broke out in an Azusa Street mission church located among the poor in Los Angeles. Visitors came from all over the world to be touched by the Holy Spirit, and then went back launching Pentecostal/Charismatic denominations/movements that in turn touched the world. Today, some of the largest congregations in the world are Pentecostal driven (see Warren’s list at www.leadnet.org/world).
A second greatest phenomenon in the last 100 years has been the explosive growth of house churches in Communist China. When the bamboo curtain slammed down in 1958, many Westerners thought the light of Christianity would be extinguished and all the missionary work for hundreds of years would be lost.
However, we’ve learned in recent decades that one of the greatest church movements in the world has been the underground church in China, multiplying exponentially without foreign mission supervision, Western missionaries, seminaries, denominational structure or even buildings. They have none of the physical assets we find in American Christianity, yet the world marvels at what God has done.
A third trend in the Christian church has been the growing interactions of people, leading to multicultural and multi-ethnic churches around the world. After World War II, the restrictive borders in most nations came down, and the church entered the era of the Interstate and the Internet (i.e., the Interstate stands for an explosion in transportation, while the Internet stands for explosion of communications). People from various cultures that make up the many nations of the world have travelled extensively, and most of the churches have thrown their doors open to win any and all to Jesus Christ. While America has struggled to overcome its background of slavery and segregation, many churches have led the way in modeling worship that welcomes every tribe, nation, people and language (Rev. 5:9) so that what the children sing in Sunday school is true: “Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.”
A fourth phenomenon is the largest church in history, the Central Full Gospel Church in Seoul. In 2007, the church reached 760,000 members when its pastor, David Yonggi Cho, retired and turned the reins over to a second-generation pastor, Yong-hoon Lee. This church was not built on massive evangelism in large meetings; or through radio, television, or the media; or even through evangelism experienced in the church services of its home on Yoido Island. Rather, 35,000 small groups located in living rooms, laundry rooms, restaurants and apartment building exercise rooms have produced unparalleled growth and influence around the world. Yonggi Cho has said, “Just as the physical body grows by the division of its biological cells, so the spiritual body of Jesus Christ grows by the division of its spiritual cells.”
The fifth chapter describes the exponential growth of the Southern Baptist Convention, which grew from a small denomination located primarily in the southeast United States in 1900 to become the largest Protestant denomination in America. While many contributing personalities and policies are responsible for the growth of Southern Baptist, the most illustrative example is the First Baptist Church in Dallas, where Dr. W.A. Criswell motivated and organized lay workers of a large wealthy downtown church to build the biggest church in America through Sunday school visitation. They expanded their Sunday school classes, and as a result the church grew.
A sixth trend among churches is reflective of the ever-expanding educational growth in the United States as well as throughout the world. A history of preaching reveals that most sermons were devotional, motivational and/or topical three-point messages followed by a poem. But C.I. Scofield might have been the man who changed the focus of sermons.
