Has either your study or experience shown decades-past were times of AOG averages to feast on the baptism of the Holy Ghost?
Brother Hagin showed us
here that there is no question to us of the importance, so much so, sometimes to lay low and let God exalt the ministry. Still, does not touch on those in the ministry who dabble to cast a negative tone an ultimate 'don't turn off the hungry soul'. I tire of describing those who can't bring themselves out of that 'cozy' spiritual condition they emit.
That is a good word in two ways. It is a reminder that many of the earlier tongue talkers faced quite a bit of resistance. Now, few seem to mind. Secondly, we are reminded that it is all up to God for any believer, so there is no glory in self. In another thread I was reminded of the role of holiness in the operation of the gifts. It could very well be that the decline of tongues and the gifts are related to the condition of the believer's heart? This decline too seems to have reduced prayer meetings and often those prayer meetings don't have people really interceding in the spirit, like I witnessed in the 80s and even 90s.
All I can say is that I am glad to have been able to stay a bit in Asia off and on. Growth is great and I do not notice the doctrinal issues that I saw in the USA. I rarely see the freedom in tongues and the gifts that I witnessed in the wave of the 80s. That is a pretty hard standard to achieve because charismatic churches were exploding, the mega churches were just getting their starts.
So the healing revivalists in the 50s, carried the church to the gifts in the 80s, and seemingly the last two or three decades have been at best tepid. There has been some movement in churches like the Vineyard, and Bethel (Redding) or the Intl House of Prayer (Kansas City) Their doctrine and vision is somewhat different
Expansion has come from churches like the Intl House of Prayer with their 24/7 worship and movement in doctrine. This doctrine seems to cast of the rapture notions and to various extent replace it with Kingdom now/dominionist type of thinking. While they have been successful too, I think that God is and will further broaden out the renewal/revival. I think their movement could very well decline with Trump if things go poorly as some expect. The new emerging church is I think one of a diffusion of power, that God is not looking for great individual leaders, he is looking for a church that is about doing what is on his heart involving as many lay people that will heed His call. Of course my views can be subject to vast error but is there a feeling that something has to give to break us out of the current status quo? I'd love to hear other's vision for what they thinkwGod is leading them into in the next few years or so.
To answer more directly on the question were their more baptisms of the Holy Spirit in the past the answer is i believe so. I'll try and find those stats I mentioned. That the AOG noted that the baptism rate was very low seemed to be a real concern. (I was in a meeting where this was briefly reported). In a sense I think the AOG could be losing their branding. Some of the most successful AOG churches in the USA don't even use the AOG in their name. I went to one top 20 in attendance AOG churches in the USA and the months I was there I can't recall them ever mentioning AOG in a service. It seemed to repurpose itself into a community church and it was working as far as attendance goes. People were getting saved, praise God but I rarely saw any gifts in operation. Perhaps there is a plan for this though, I can't judge it to be wrong, but we have seen lots of denominations change over the years. Some ministers too have left the AOG, some for being restrained (Hagin comes to mind) and perhaps some for being too liberal?
