Recent History of Open Bible Churches

Heart for the Harvest, Stories of Vision, Faith, & Courage, by Jeff Farmer and Andrea Johnson. Des Moines, IA: Open Bible Publishers, 2009.

Two Pentecostal groups starting from revival movements in the Northwest in 1919 and in Iowa in 1932 eventually discovered they shared most of the same doctrines and passion for spreading the gospel around the world. After comparing notes, praying, and attending each other’s conferences, they reasoned that they could more effectively minister for the Kingdom together than apart. They consolidated their efforts in 1935, becoming the Open Bible Standard Churches with headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa. Today the group—much larger than in 1935—is known as Open Bible Churches and still operates from the capital city of Iowa.

The Northwest group began when Fred Hornshuh and other young Pentecostal ministers associated with Florence Crawford and her Apostolic Faith group in Portland, Oregon, came to disagreements with the leadership. They struck out on their own as the Bible Standard Mission to evangelize and plant churches. And they soon sent missionaries to foreign fields; created two periodicals: Bible Standard and Bible Standard Overcomers; and launched a Bible school in Eugene, Oregon.

Their evangelizing passion and excitement during the 1920s and the Great Depression apparently knew no bounds. Big game hunter Hornshuh could throw up revival tents, dig church basements, hammer nails, and advertise his meetings as well as he could preach from street corners and crude tent pulpits.

Sixty years after he pioneered as the Bible Standard Mission, Hornshuh reminisced: “We did things on the spur of the moment. We had no higher officer to consult like a district superintendent or board of evangelism. We had to find the mind of God quickly and then move as he directed. When we acted without analyzing all the difficulties, everything fell into line. As we bulldozed ahead, the Lord met us.”

Two of Hornshuh’s “bulldozing” efforts still remembered in Eugene Oregon, are the Lighthouse Temple, built in 1926 to seat 3,000, and Eugene Bible College.

Now, what about the group in Iowa?

Aimee Semple McPherson, founder of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, had sent graduates of her Los Angeles Bible school to Des Moines. She recognized the leadership abilities of a Kentucky farm boy, John R. Richey, and placed him in charge of her Midwest churches and a Bible school in Des Moines.

But like differences in Portland between Hornshuh and Crawford a dozen years earlier, the Foursquare ministers in the Heartland began to question McPherson’s policies and her personal life. As a result, Richey and others separated from Foursquare in 1932 to form the Open Bible Evangelistic Association. The group named the dynamic Richey as their leader.

Richey and his wife Louise were as energetic as Hornshuh, preaching and teaching almost daily in the former Methodist church building they bought at 19th and Crocker in Des Moines. Their exuberance rubbed off on others, creating excitement throughout the upper Midwest.

The Great Depression was a deterrent to pioneering, but Richey viewed it as a time to trust God rather than a road block. The Foursquare Bible school now became the Open Bible Training School, the Open Bible Messenger magazine was launched, and soon young men and women with “hearts for the harvest” scattered throughout the Midwest and into foreign fields.

One of the organizing ministers of the Open Bible Evangelistic Association, R. Bryant Mitchell recounted the history of the two groups in his Heritage & Horizons in 1982. He and his wife Lucille followed this book in 1995 with a missionary history, Heritage & Harvests.

But as time passed and the founders passed off the scene, a new generation was urged to record history of the movement since 1982. With President Jeff Farmer and editor Andrea Johnson leading the way, Heart for the Harvest began to take shape with original articles and reprints from the Open Bible Message.

The result is a 528-page biographical history of Open Bible Churches—1982-2007. Some might prefer an academic and critical approach with foot or end notes, but the intent is to inspire readers to see how God has led the younger generation to plant churches in the U.S. and foreign countries, see answers to prayer, and bring the fellowship together as a united force for the Kingdom.

Former Open Bible Churches president, Ray Smith, spoke to denominational members when he wrote, “As you read Heart for the Harvest you will be proud

Marcus and Elva Mae Bakke

Marcus and Elva Mae Bakke: On Divine Assignment, by Virginia Dohms. Minot, ND: Grace Publishing, 2008.

North Dakota has produced many outstanding leaders within the Assemblies of God, and Marcus Bakke is one of them. After almost sixty years in ministry, Marcus and Elva Mae Bakke continue to let their lights shine brightly for Jesus. On Divine Assignment is an engaging account of this Norwegian-American couple’s life and ministry in North Dakota, with stories of changed lives and miracles, and vignettes of life in the rural Great Plains worthy of Garrison Keillor. In our age of impermanence and rootlessness, it is remarkable that the Bakkes have had only three ministry assignments: thirty years in pastoral work in Bowman County, nineteen years as District Superintendent, and their current ministry in Selfridge. The Bakkes have served their communities, the Assemblies of God, and their family well, demonstrating warmth, humor, and faithfulness.

–George O. Wood, General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God

Paperback, 221 pages. $14.95, plus $4 shipping. Order from dakotabooknet.com or from the author: Virginia Dohms, 701 46th Ave NE, Minot, ND 58703. Contact the author by phone (701-852-2339) or email (dohms@srt.com).

In the Steps of Smith Wigglesworth

In the Steps of Smith Wigglesworth, by Philip B. Taylor. England: The Author, 2007.

This a beautifully produced book. It contains over 150 photographs, many in colour of places connected with the ministry of Smith Wigglesworth. Here are the house and churches of the young Smith. From the humble beginning from his christening in 1859 to his conversion in Menston Chapel aged eight, all of these buildings are shown within the narrative of the story. Other places from Bowland Street in Bradford to All Saints’ in Sunderland and Glad Tidings in Wakefield where he died are all shown in full colour. Anyone interested in the life and ministry of Wigglesworth will want to add this sumptuous volume to their collection. For anyone wishing to follow the Wigglesworth trail or simply view the places when reading about him it makes an ideal companion. The compiler is congratulated on his production that is a valuable addition to the history of Pentecostalism in Britain.

Reviewed by Desmond Cartwright, Elim Pentecostal Church

Paperback, 128 pages, illustrated. £10.99 plus postage. Order from: www.smithwigglesworth.com

Mission Possible

Mission Possible: Paul Williscroft’s Epic Christian Struggle Against Nazi & Communist Oppression, by Gladys L. Williscroft. Enterprise, OR: Biography Press, 2000.

Paul and Gladys Williscroft were newlyweds when they left the U.S. as missionaries to Eastern Europe in January 1938. In less than 2 years they were leaving Europe as World War II plunged the continent into total disorder, change, and unbelievable bloodshed.

As German troops massed on the Polish border, the couple caught the last trains out of two stations and were assigned the last cabin in a ship out of Oslo bound for the U.S. They returned almost as refugees to the United States, yet they lived for the time when they could return to Germany and pursue their mission.

During the 1940s they pastored in the Montana District. They returned to Europe after the war where they ministered for a total of 37 years, producing Sunday school materials, introducing Royal Rangers, and teaching in the German Bible School in Erzhausen. Paul died in 1987, and Gladys in 2002.

Excerpts from the book are included in “Fleeing an Explosive Europe as Adolph Hitler Begins World War II” in the Fall 2003 issue of Assemblies of God Heritage.

Paperback, 414 pages, illustrated. $15.95, plus $2.00 postage. Order from: R. G. Williscroft, P.O. Box 1087, Studio City, CA 91614-0087.

Stanley M. Horton: Shaper of Pentecostal Theology

Stanley M. Horton: Shaper of Pentecostal Theology, by Lois E. Olena with Raymond L. Gannon. Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 2009.

The second half of the twentieth century has seen Pentecostal scholarship emerge and thrive. Out of that emergence, few names are more recognizable than Stanley Horton. Called to teach Bible while a chemistry student at UC Berkeley, Horton did the unthinkable and went to Harvard to prepare for ministry as a Pentecostal scholar. The long shadow of Horton’s influence among Pentecostals began humbly and now stretches around the world and into the first decade of the twenty-first century. You may have read his books, but Stanley Horton: Shaper of Pentecostal Theology will tell you “the rest of the story.” As you read, be encouraged and see what a long obedience in the same direction can yield.

–Dr. Byron Klaus, President, Assemblies of God Theological Seminary

I am very happy to see in print this tribute to Stanley Horton, one of my esteemed professors, a model of godliness, sacrifice, and scholarship. I am also delighted to learn more about his life, and through it the history of the Pentecostal movement in North America. All who have been touched by this rich heritage will appreciate this work.

–Dr. Craig Keener, Professor of New Testament, Palmer Theological Seminary

Who has been a greater luminary in the twentieth-century Pentecostal galaxy than Dr. Stanley M. Horton? Many make their mark on but one island of ministry, but heroes impact many. This book shows how this scholar-saint set the standard for Pentecostal scholarship as a model professor, left a unique Gospel witness across the globe, and kept on “getting it right.” In a nation of conflicted social policies and in a church of confusing racial standards, he showed how one man’s life could clearly reveal Christ’s Church. May this volume inform others as much as my teacher Dr. Horton reformed me. Paul said in 1 Timothy 5:17 to give double honor to the elders who rule well; this read is just a portion of such honor.

–Bishop Lemuel Thuston, Kansas East Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, Church of God in Christ

Paperback, 318 pages, illustrated. $19.95 retail. Order from: Gospel Publishing House

No Place for Plastic Saints

No Place for Plastic Saints: Earthquakes, Chicken Feet, and Candid Confessions of a Missionary Wife, by Margaret A. Register. Xulon Press, 2009.

In this delightful memoir, Margaret Register speaks in a conversational tone, drawing the reader first into her early years as a Methodist “preacher’s kid” who, with her parents, became Pentecostals while she was still young. She is authentic in describing, sometimes with great humor, the struggles, setbacks, and joys of her preparation for ministry—first as a pastor’s wife and then in answer to her missionary call—and the unexpected traumas of life as a “foreign” missionary for the Assemblies of God.

From language study to the country of Chile, and later in Paraguay, Register rejoices in miracles of provision, in miraculous healings in a tent church, in protection on steep Andean mountain roads. We cry with her as she describes disappointing resistance by some whom they went to serve. She recounts vividly an earthquake and many other unusual happenings (including dead bodies, chicken feet, and outhouses) as they ministered first in Temuco and then in Viña, Chile, and later in Paraguay, where, in addition to pastoring and teaching, they began a very successful television ministry that would eventually reach all of Latin America.

“But sometimes I felt false because ‘on stage’ [at American churches] my holy-self was demonstrated with wonderful stories from Viña,” writes Margaret Register, who with her husband, Joe, served Latin America as missionaries for 38 years starting in 1967. “Missionaries never talked in public about the painful times. I dared not mention the pain of Temuco. I felt like a plastic saint.”

Intrigued with Register’s transparency, a pastor states, “I could hardly put the book down to do other things. I laughed, sometimes had tears, and was amazed at the stories. I learned of the tremendous struggles that missionaries go through—finances, sickness, rejection, etc. I guess to us here in the States, missionary life looks a little too glamorous.”

“Who knew that missionary life was more than love offerings and extended vacations to exotic places?” says another reader.

Margaret Register has done a great service to the body of Christ in writing No Place for Plastic Saints. She excels in painting delightful and vivid word pictures so that you, the reader, feel you are there with her as she walks through each dramatic story. This is truly an authentic account of the good, the bad, and the miraculous in the life of a dedicated Pentecostal missionary family. This book is a must read!

Reviewed by Juanita Cunningham Blackburn, AGWM missionary

Paperback, 440 pages, illustrated. $22.99 retail. Order from: amazon.com

Out Behind the Barn

Out Behind the Barn, by Jon Liechty. Jamestown, ND: the author, 2008.

The Liechty family has been a fixture in the Assemblies of God in North Dakota since before the North Dakota District Council was organized. Spirit-baptized in the Egeland Free Mission (Egeland, ND) in the 1910s, John H. Liechty helped to organize a small but sturdy independent Pentecostal congregation, Minnewaukan Gospel Tabernacle. Of Liechty’s seven children, Jon, Paul, and Silas went on to become ministers or layleaders in the North Dakota District, using their business acumen, work ethic, and heart for ministry to build the church in the state.

In Out Behind the Barn, Jon Liechty tells his heart-warming testimony, which demonstrates the provisions and faithfulness of God. Liechty reminisces about people, places and events that will be familiar to many in his corner of the world. This book will be welcomed by the numerous people whose lives have been impacted by the Liechty family and by those who are interested in learning more about the development of Pentecostalism in North Dakota.

Reviewed by Darrin J. Rodgers

Paperback, 232 pages, illustrated. $12.99 postpaid. Order from: Jon Liechty, PO Box 758, Jamestown, ND 58402.

Correspondence of Lewi Pethrus

Lewis brev: urval ur Lewi Pethrus korrespondens, by Joel Halldorf. Foreword by Per Olof Enquist. Örebro, Sweden: Libris, 2007.

Sometimes it is not obvious how an investigation should be conducted and what methods are most appropriate for working through subject matter. Sometimes we think that the strict scientific approach is superior. Other times we learn that there are perspectives that can help us reach insights that go beyond what is determinable by scientific method. We might discuss the relative merits of keeping a distance from the subject, or at least attempt to not be too positive towards it. However, some serious scholars and philosophers claim that an inside perspective towards a subject is, in their scientific judgment, a precondition for doing justice to the material. Everything must be understood from the inside.

These thoughts ran through my mind while reading Joel Halldorf’s book, Lewis brev: urval ur Lewi Pethrus korrespondens (in English, Lewi’s Letters: Selections from Lewi Pethrus’ Correspondence), which is based on the correspondence of Swedish Pentecostal leader Lewi Pethrus (1884–1974). Halldorf shoulders a number of roles as author of this book. He unearthed letters to and from Lewi Pethrus that until now had not been public. He places this correspondence in its historical context. And he also conducted journalistic interviews with children and close friends of the correspondents. Halldorf acts as a critical and constructive presenter of the Pentecostal movement of which he himself is part.

This is a beautiful book. By the choice of title and preface-writer it is also connected to Per Olof Enquist’s great novel about Lewi Pethrus. It also works through, with new perspectives, some of those tensions and conflicts documented by Enquist. The book is well-designed, with different fonts for the regular text and the letters, and it also includes a number of pictures and photographs. The author provides commentary alongside the correspondence, and the book also lists the sources used. This demonstrates great care on the part of the author. An investigation of this kind is particularly welcome since the scholarly treatment of the life of Lewi Pethrus was previously limited to one dissertation. Neither are there any reasons to question the author’s insights concerning the material or his willingness to uncover sources. All the stones have been turned.

Also interesting are some of the author’s own comments about the journalistic method he at times employs, in particular because he belongs to the very movement he studied. There is no need for an apology. I think his broad investigation yielded more insights than if he had limited his methods. The journalistic interviews that are included not only shine brightly, but they provide depth to the related comments, due to the author’s ability to link them to both the present day and the his own insights concerning our own times. Halldorf’s connection to the Pentecostal movement often adds color to his comments and makes it possible to see different connections, although at times it runs the risk of becoming “a book inside the book” when the author does not clearly identify his own opinion concerning the early debate on whether to provide education for ministers.

What, then, is the picture of this Pentecostal leader offered through these letters? And how does it complement earlier presentations? I am not sure of the answer to these questions. Here, too, we meet the modernity of Lewi Pethrus to which Carl-Gustav Carlsson introduced us in his dissertation (Människan, Samhället och Gud, Lunds Universitet, 1990). Lewi Pethrus was the man of the great projects. The man who was able to see around the corner, and to make it there, in his building of an empire. He was a leader whose building of the kingdom of God demanded sacrifices, not only of his own personal comfort, but also of friends and colleagues. Nothing important must stand in the way of the most important.

The new things, that we earlier might have guessed but can now see more clearly in this material, are the tenderness in friendship and the awareness of the price of leadership that Pethrus was willing to pay. He does really write to his colleagues in love. His friendship extended also to ordinary people who asked simple questions. He was a center of communication, not only on stage – the stages of the whole world – but he also gave time and room to give advice, counsel and direction, and often in a tender way. It is a beautiful portrait.

Halldorf’s method also demonstrates how this leader lived with and, over time, reflected over his own leadership. He could write a letter on how every leader must be ready to be tried and face challenges in his everyday work, and then in another context view these challenges in darker colors as something that has to be fought and weeded out. The leader Lewi Pethrus had a sense of timing. And when he claimed to be ready to step aside after facing opposition from the wife of one of his colleagues, one really wonders how this was possible. His cause was greater than his own position, at least that was his own view on things. And this might be the salt of every great leader: that the personal comfort, but also the personal position, might have to give room to a greater cause.

Reviewed by Dr. Runar Eldebo, Stockholm School of Theology
This review was originally published in Swedish in Kyrkohistorisk Årsskrift , 2007.
Posted with the permission of the author and publisher.

Hardcover, 359 pages, illustrated. SEK218 plus shipping. Available from Libris.se

Portraits of a Generation

Portraits of a Generation: Early Pentecostal Leaders, ed. by James R. Goff, Jr. and Grant Wacker. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2002.

Portraits of a Generation talks about many of the early Pentecostal leaders. Instead of giving a large, drawn-out list of every leader in the Pentecostal movement, it gives the testimonies and interests of those leaders that maybe weren’t quite as famous. It gives insight into who really had the vision and those who desired seeing those visions put into real life. In this book, they represent leaders from all different walks of life. They differ on areas from ideas about theology, ethnic and social background, and areas of living. There is a common view that Pentecostalism was a movement without structure or leaders, but this book instead shows that the movement had a strong sense of both.

Portraits of a Generation is separated into three sections: “Forerunners,” “Visionaries,” and “Builders.” All of the chapters are about individual early leaders. Many of the contributors are known scholars of Pentecostalism while others aren’t very well known in the academic world.

In the first section, “Forerunners,” the leaders that the editors include are John Alexander Dowie, E. L. Harvey, Charles Price Jones, Frank Sandford, and Alma White. They are all leaders who paved the way toward the formal Pentecostal movement. These leaders were not directly tied with the Pentecostal movement, and some didn’t believe in the same standards that Pentecostals do today, such as speaking in tongues. Though not specifically under the Pentecostal umbrella, they laid out some of the ground beliefs and ideals that were later accepted into Pentecostal doctrines.

In the section on “Visionaries,” there are discussions about Minnie F. Abrams, Frank Bartleman, William H. Durham, Thomas Hampton Gourley, Alice E. Luce, Francisco Olazábal, and Maria B. Woodworth-Etter. These leaders were between the forerunners and the builders. They were the ones who envisioned what the movement eventually became and helped provide for the structure. Francisco Olazábal was one of the main contributors in the growth of Pentecostalism in the Hispanic culture while Minnie F. Abrams, Alice E. Luce, and Maria B. Woodworth-Etter gained popularity in being some of the first female leaders for the Pentecostal movement.

“Builders,” the last section, discusses the leaders Florence Crawford, G. T. Haywood, Charles Harrison Mason, Carrie Judd Montgomery, Antonio Castañeda Nava, Ida B. Robinson, George Floyd Taylor, and A. J. Tomlinson. In this section, Pentecostalism begins to take on the form of classical Pentecostalism. The people included in this section are those who heard and saw what the other leaders were trying to do and started to put their beliefs and ideals into action.

Because the volume is collective, there are some essays that were different in the quality of their sources than others. Some of the arguments had limited sources so are based on suppositions. Overall, the quality of the essays is very professional. All twenty-two chapters looked at Pentecostalism in three different lights: those who came before, those who had the vision, and those who put the vision into action. This gives us a good understanding of the early stages of the Pentecostal movement and how it was viewed by those with whom it began.

Reviewed by Samantha Beck, Evangel University student

Softcover, 430 pages, illustrated. $34.95 plus shipping. Available from amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com

Wayne and Evelyn Pitts biography

Touching Lives the Jesus Way!: Sixty-nine Years of Ministry, Wayne and Evelyn Pitts, Stories of Lives Changed by the Gospel, by Wayne and Evelyn Pitts with Londa Duncan. Xulon Press, 2008.

From stories of their childhood in Texas in the 1920s and 1930s, to memories of God’s provisions during the Great Depression, to accounts of healing and early Pentecostal revivals, Wayne and Evelyn Pitts’ new book will be warmly welcomed by the thousands who have been touched by their lives and ministry. Wayne Pitts, ordained by the Assemblies of God in 1943, and his wife Evelyn enjoyed long-term pastoral ministry in Florida.

Hardcover, 284 pages, illustrated. $25.99 retail. Order from: amazon.com