Assemblies of God

[ltwin]

Can anyone give me a crash course here?

It might help some people familiar with the AG respond to your question better if you gave a description of the congregation you have come in contact with. For example, are they very extroverted in their worship style: speaking in tongues, emotional preaching, etc? Or are they more subdued? How large is the church? Is it contemporary or more traditional? Is it trying to attract families or is it trying to be youth oriented? Is this a majority white church or is it more ethnic?

 

[Ridgerunner]

The world headquarters of AG is practically in my back yard, and i know a lot of members. I don’t have anything to add to what other posters have said, except to perhaps underline that they are not unlike the Southern Baptists in one way. There is considerable variation among the congregations. It’s not really a “doctrinal” church, in the same way the So. Baptists are not. Beliefs held by all are very limited.

There is an enormous amount of money brought in by the AG. It’s very easy to tell that.

 

[AmateurPianist]

My particular AG church is medium large (not a megachurch), ethnically diverse, contemporary and “seeker sensitive”, rather like a smaller version of Hillsong, except that we don’t go for the “prosperity gospel”. There is some influence from the less extreme Emergent thinkers, such as Donald Miller and Rob Bell, which IMO is a good thing.

That sort of sounds like mine…maybe not that etnically diverse since my county in New England is not. My assistant pastor who I am friends with is a big fan of JT Wright.

 

[ltwin]

The world headquarters of AG is practically in my back yard, and i know a lot of members. I don’t have anything to add to what other posters have said, except to perhaps underline that they are not unlike the Southern Baptists in one way. There is considerable variation among the congregations. It’s not really a “doctrinal” church, in the same way the So. Baptists are not. Beliefs held by all are very limited.

There is an enormous amount of money brought in by the AG. It’s very easy to tell that.

There are some similarities to the Southern Baptists, accept the SBC is somewhat hostile to the charismatic gifts and is big on perseverance of the saints. The AG believes in conditional security. E. N. Bell, the first AG superintendent, was a Southern Baptist pastor before he accepted the Pentecostal message.

Yes, the part about the money is true. Among the Pentecostal denominations, the AG is by far the wealthiest. However, its important to note that the AG is big on tithing, and to my knowledge most of the money stays with the local congregation unless they voluntarily contribute to a national activity. (I could be wrong about this, let me know.)

 

[Izdaari]

I don’t like how the pastor was able to give me a “membership card” when I didn’t request one. I was concerned about that when I came back to the Catholic Church.

I was a youth group leader, married to an elder, whose sister, brother and dad were all A of G pastors.

Hmm, that’s not quite like my experience. In order to join, I had to attend a membership meeting at the pastor’s house, spend about 2 hours going over the doctrines of the church, and then sign a statement of faith and affirm that I was validly baptized (trinitarian and by immersion). And then the board of elders voted on all the applications, which was just a formality I’m sure, because I’ve never heard of anyone who applied being rejected. I never did get a membership card. I don’t think we have them.

 

[Izdaari]

That sort of sounds like mine…maybe not that etnically diverse since my county in New England is not. My assistant pastor who I am friends with is a big fan of JT Wright.

Ah, which Wright? I like N.T. (Tom) Wright, the Anglican Archbishop of Durham. I’m not too fond of Obama’s old pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who preached Black Liberation Theology.

 

[AmateurPianist]

Ah, which Wright? I like N.T. (Tom) Wright, the Anglican Archbishop of Durham. I’m not too fond of Obama’s old pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who preached Black Liberation Theology.

D’oh me bad. N.T. Wright.

 

[graceandglory]

That is a very generalized description. Can you back that up? Every denomination has a few bad apples, but you don’t see the AG going the route of the Episcopal Church or the Presbyterian Church (USA) or the Evangelical Lutheran Church, etc which are splitting over the refusal of their leadership to condemn heretical teaching and practice. The AG still believes that Jesus is the only way to the Father and takes the Bible seriously. A lot of Christian churches can’t say that.

My knowledge is first-hand, from being in a AG family. I am familiar with their annual pastoral conferences which every year “votes” on what they want to continue to believe or not. Divorce/remarriage? “we’ll vote on it this summer.” You name it, it’s up for a vote.

You can’t run a denomination on the vote of the majority.

 

[graceandglory]

Hmm, that’s not quite like my experience. In order to join, I had to attend a membership meeting at the pastor’s house, spend about 2 hours going over the doctrines of the church, and then sign a statement of faith and affirm that I was validly baptized (trinitarian and by immersion). And then the board of elders voted on all the applications, which was just a formality I’m sure, because I’ve never heard of anyone who applied being rejected. I never did get a membership card. I don’t think we have them.

So basically you’re saying, that even within the A/G beliefs and practices are so varied it might just be thousands of denominations within one name.

What you experienced is probably because your pastor may have had theological training, or was raised in a more mainline church, so it was his choice to have a member go through that. It is not denomination-wide. I have many years of experience from MANY A/G churches in about five states. FL, OH, WA, ID, OR.

 

[ltwin]

My knowledge is first-hand, from being in a AG family. I am familiar with their annual pastoral conferences which every year “votes” on what they want to continue to believe or not. Divorce/remarriage? “we’ll vote on it this summer.” You name it, it’s up for a vote.

You can’t run a denomination on the vote of the majority.

That’s pretty much any Protestant denomination: Methodists, Episcopalians (ironic that a church whose name means “church of bishops” would decide things by democratic legislatures), Presbyterians. It’s not unique to the AG. The Pope is even elected.

What do you really expect? They are Protestants. It goes back to the whole “Popes, bishops, and councils may err” thing. No man or group of men is infallible. Therefore, there is always a need to strive to interpret Scripture correctly. That also means that there is an admission that a general or district council may err; one hopes and prays they do not.

However, whether one has a democratic government or not is beside the point. Going back to your original quote:

There is little Christian orthodoxy, even from a protestant standpoint, taught within many AG churches.

This is not true. Taken as a whole, minus the exceptions that exist in every denomination or group (even the Catholic Church), the AG is very theologically orthodox.

 

[couponfit]

I agree they are considered a denomination under the Pentecostal belief system. They are a large denomination with a loose network of 140 groups of over 300,00 churches worldwide. There is only one group in the USA-- AoG USA. This group has a 16 set doctrine: ag.org/top/beliefs/statement_of_fundamental_truths/sft_full.cfm

The AoG is a loose affiliation, and AoG USA does not own the AoG congregations within the USA.

I like to refer to AoG as ana-baptist Charismatics. But simply put they believe in Salvation through being born again, which means that a person enters a AoG service and during a service accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal lord and Savior, a minister lays hands on or near this member who then may be slain by the power of the Holy Spirit and born again (with or without being slain).

Personal means all graces and forgiveness is between the member and God. The emphasis is on showing evidence of this relationship with Jesus through ones inward and outward actions and deeds. Thus a person maintains a relationship through attendance in a congregation and through their own personal belief. There are no sacraments in AoG but they do have communion and baptism and marriage which are in essence not considered to be the Grace of God. Rather to receive God’s Grace a person is Baptized in the Holy Spirit through fire (no one is set on fire and there is no real fire in church). In essence a person feels God Grace and receives a baptism to spread gods ministry through personal witness. Early evidence of this Baptism is the ability to speak in spiritual tongues. There is no written documentation of being born again in spirit or in Baptism in the Holy Spirit but many AoG members write this date down or remember it.

AoG tends to be described as experiential and I tend to feel they are very active in both commitment and activity. They have strong pro life activity. And they have a strong faith formation, youth ministry, and Royal Ranger program.

Because ones must constantly relate to Jesus on a personal level for repentance and their actions, they must essentially spread evidence. AoG members believe that Salvation is a singular event but can be repeated as a sign of evidence which means once saved a person is always saved.

AoG doctrine does not add to or remove any part of the KJV Bible, meaning there are no additional books in the Bible and the Revelation of God is considered to be complete. But they do believe the experience of God is ongoing and can be manifested by God’s Grace in the form of speaking in spiritual tongues, actual tongues, prophecy, spiritual discernment, miracles, healing others, mind reading, dictating future events, being a prophet, levitation, turning objects into new objects, and even being spiritually glued to an object but they do not believe that a person will necessarily experience all of these events. Care should be exercised that one cannot control or command the Holy Spirit but would rather be a tool of the Holy Spirit for a short or long period of time now or at a much later time.

AoG can be a unique experience and quite moving both emotionally and spiritually.