An engaging history of the Shepherding Movement, an influential and controversial expression of the charismatic renewal in the 1970s and 1980s. This neopentecostal movement, led by popular Bible teachers Ern Baxter, Don Basham, Bob Mumford, Derek Prince and Charles Simpson, became a house church movement in the United States. The Shepherding Movement is a case study of an attempt at renewing church structures. Many critics accused the movement of being authoritarian because of its emphasis on submission to a personal pastor or "shepherd" as they termed it.

Ministry leader and author Dr. Bill Peters is a highly decorated former Marine Corps combat officer, having served in special operations as a Marine Force Recon team leader in 1969 during the Vietnam War. As the leader of 23 missions with six and eight-man teams, Dr. Peters successfully planned and executed missions deep in enemy-controlled territory. Bringing his faith, experience, and perspective to bear, Dr. Peters's powerful book shows readers how the Holy Spirit uniquely equips individuals-and the church as a whole-for the special task of winning others to Christ in a turbulent and sometimes volatile world. In Special Ops Church, Dr. Peters shows readers how small special ops churches or mega-churches with a special ops ministry can prepare for and achieve the mission of discipling the nations. Book jacket.

“Our weekly Charismatics Anonymous meeting is about to begin. Join me, will you?” It’s like we’re caught between a rock and a hard place. We’re “continuationists.” We believe all the gifts of the Holy Spirit are alive and well and essential for today. But we’ve also been burned by unbiblical teachings, spiritual abuse, and the gaslighting subculture of pneuma-fomo (fear of missing out on the next great move of the Spirit). We yearn for the Spirit’s presence and power in our lives. We don’t want to “throw the baby out with the bathwater,” but the water’s teeming with spiteful pathogens. It’s time to roll up our sleeves and take responsibility for disinfecting the tub. Toxic beliefs have produced spiritual casualties among Pentecostals and charismatics for far too long. Our Kairos moment has arrived. Let’s hone the charismata of discernment.

Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen provides an up-to-date survey and analysis of the major ecclesiological traditions, the most important theologians, and a number of contextual approaches to both the unity and the diversity of ecclesiastic understandings and practices.

This is the first extensive examination of the life of Ken Sumrall and his firm belief in the modern-day apostolic restoration movement. It presents Sumrall's journey from his Baptist beginnings, through his experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, through his learning struggles with Liberty Fellowship of Churches and Ministers, and into his birthing of Church Foundational Network. It represents Sumrall in his own light, while dealing with his paradigm changes concerning church government the heart of which revolved around the restoration of modern-day apostles. Godly government was grounded in godly relationships with one's apostle, whom Sumrall understood as a "spiritual father." For Sumrall, the best biblical government for the New Testament church today is a theocracy. Instead of a centralized, hierarchical church government, Sumrall advanced a decentralized network of churches connected relationally. This volume contains the major influences upon Sumrall's thinking and the progress of his comprehension of the life of the church as "family." Moreover, it engages some of the apprehensions that have surfaced over the present-day apostolic movement and provides insights of the direction and survivability of the movement.

DIV God is building His body around the world in the most unexpected ways through the most unexpected people. Take a self-test to find out where your gifts lie and what area of ministry God may have custom-designed you for. /div

From Justin Bieber, to Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, to the controversial documentary Jesus Camp (2006), the New Apostolic Reformation's influence can be seen everywhere in mainstream America. Beginning with an examination of the Latter Rain, Church Growth and Shepherding movements, this book explores how the new Reformation has become one of the most powerful movements in modern evangelical Christianity and a major influence on American political and cultural life. The author describes the New Apostolic Reformation's organization, how the movement spread and its national and international objectives.

Winner of the 2014 Christianity Today Book of the Year First Place Winner of the Religion Newswriters Association's Non-fiction Religion Book of the Year The Jesus People movement was a unique combination of the hippie counterculture and evangelical Christianity. It first appeared in the famed "Summer of Love" of 1967, in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, and spread like wildfire in Southern California and beyond, to cities like Seattle, Atlanta, and Milwaukee. In 1971 the growing movement found its way into the national media spotlight and gained momentum, attracting a huge new following among evangelical church youth, who enthusiastically adopted the Jesus People persona as their own. Within a few years, however, the movement disappeared and was largely forgotten by everyone but those who had filled its ranks. God's Forever Family argues that the Jesus People movement was one of the most important American religious movements of the second half of the 20th-century. Not only do such new and burgeoning evangelical groups as Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard trace back to the Jesus People, but the movement paved the way for the huge Contemporary Christian Music industry and the rise of "Praise Music" in the nation's churches. More significantly, it revolutionized evangelicals' relationship with youth and popular culture. Larry Eskridge makes the case that the Jesus People movement not only helped create a resurgent evangelicalism but must be considered one of the formative powers that shaped American youth in the late 1960s and 1970s.

This collection of essays from established scholars and rising stars offers fresh perspectives in eschatology for the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. The fresh readings of eschatology in this volume are valuable because they demonstrate that Pentecostals no longer need to look to others to interpret their theology for them but can stand as scholars and thinkers in their own right.

Bill Johnson, Joyce Meyer, Heidi Baker. The fame of these names is evidence enough that, though the controversies are less intense, the Charismatic Movement is alive and well today. It continues to attract thousands of adherents who find its vision of a supernatural lifestyle uniquely compelling. Now, for the first time, all that is most theologically innovative about the movement is synthesized into five distinct and original ideas. These five brand new theologies have been created, not by theologians, but by practitioners who believed their concepts were inspired by the Spirit: Inner Healing, Shepherding, Word of Faith, Spiritual Warfare, and Signs and Wonders. Plenty of studies have been written by Pentecostal scholars about Pentecostal theology, but these tend to group the very distinct approaches of Charismatics together with Classical Pentecostals. Bold Faith aims to analyze and evaluate the ways in which practitioners within independent Charismatic networks, especially in their Anglo-American expressions, have responded to the challenges of secular modernity.