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).

Maine Pentecostal history

Prevailing Westerlies (The Pentecostal Heritage of Maine): The Story of How the Pentecostal Fire Spread from Topeka, Kansas to Houston — to Los Angeles — to Bangor, Maine, written by James E. Peters, researched by Patricia Pickard. Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 1988.

Prevailing Westerlies documents the early history of the Pentecostal movement in Maine. This 604-page book features hundreds of photographs, as well as accounts of Holy Ghost meetings and supernatural movings of God in tents, downtown missions, Bible schools, and street meetings in New England.

Read about firebrands preaching until the rafters rang. During one tent meeting, rain came down in buckets and water poured into the tent. One sister hollered, “Look out for my piano!” Pa Sweeney kept right on preaching and said, “It ain’t pianos we want to save—it is souls!” It will light a fire in your bones for the renewed move of God in your own life.

Prevailing Westerlies, importantly, recounts the breadth of the early Pentecostal revivals, which crossed the various divides. Stories about early believers — Trinitarian and Oneness, Assemblies of God and independent, male and female — are all included. Years of research yielded previously unpublished information about significant early Pentecostal leaders such as Mattie Crawford, Aimee Semple McPherson, the Crabtree family, and a host of others. This volume includes 34 interviews with people who recounted the early Pentecostal fire which entered Maine in 1907 and spread throughout the area. Includes comprehensive index.

The author, James Peters, served as pastor of Glad Tidings Church (Bangor, Maine), which was founded by Rev. Clifford A. Crabtree and the Davis Sisters. Patricia Pickard, who did the research for this volume, is former archivist for Zion Bible College (Haverhill, Massachusetts) and has authored numerous historical books and articles about New England and the Pentecostal movement.

Softcover, 604 pages, illustrated. $15 postpaid to U.S. addresses. Order from: Patricia Pickard, 144 Poplar Street, Bangor, ME 04401 (email: primrose301@msn.com)

Quad Cities Pentecostal history

Reclaiming Our Forgotten Heritage: A Memorial to the Church in the Quad Cities, compiled by Kenneth Richard Kline-Walczak. Revised version. Hillsdale, IL: The Author, 2008.

Reclaiming Our Forgotten Heritage is the second in a projected four-volume series of books about the history of the Pentecostal movement in the Quad Cities (Moline and Rock Island, Illinois and Bettendorf and Davenport, Iowa). The first volume cataloged the influence of healing evangelist Maria Woodworth-Etter in these towns along the Iowa-Illinois border. Now, in this second volume, Kenneth Richard Kline-Walczak has assembled an impressive collection of articles concerning the region’s Pentecostal heritage and its roots in earlier Christian traditions.

Reclaiming Our Forgotten Heritage is divided into five chapters. The first chapter (p. 1-43), “The Mass Mound and the Blessing of Davenport,” documents the ministry of Father Charles Felix Van Quickenborne, a Jesuit priest-missionary who is believed to have conducted the first Christian service in the area in 1835. Kline-Walczak describes the priest’s work as “miraculous” and “apostolic.” The second chapter (p. 45-78) traces the influence on the Quad Cities of the 1857-1858 revival which originated from the Fulton Street prayer meetings in New York City. The third chapter (p. 79-168) provides detailed information about a local congregation affiliated with noted healing evangelist John Alexander Dowie, the founder of the Christian Catholic Church (headquartered in Zion, Illinois).

The fourth chapter (p. 169-346) presents information about campaigns in the Quad Cities held by various healing evangelists from 1900 to 1960. The chapter, organized chronologically, includes both the mundane (such as the times and locations of services) as well as controversies covered by the local press (including the 1929 departure of the “blonde evangelist” Mattie Crawford due to disagreement over finances). Some of the evangelists in this chapter include: 1900s – Martha Wing Robinson, Maria Woodworth-Etter; 1910s – Wilbur Glenn Voliva, James L. Delk; 1920s – A. W. Kortkamp (founder of Moline Gospel Temple), Mattie Crawford, Louise Nankivell, Lilian B. Yeomans; 1930s – Watson Argue, Mrs. A. A. Carpenter, Joseph Mattson-Boze, Everett B. Parrott, Kathryn Kuhlman; 1940s – R. F. DeWeese, Charles S. Price, Lorne F. Fox, Raymond T. Richey, Leonard E. Page, Oral Roberts, Charles L. Hollis; 1950s – O. L. Jaggers, Frank R. Lummer, William Freeman, James W. Drush, William Branham, David J. DuPlessis, Lloyd Huffey, A. A. Allen, Billy Adams, Velmer Gardner, Maurice Hart, Gordon Lindsey, Morris Cerullo.

The fifth chapter (p. 347-368) is dedicated to Dr. Charles L. Hollis and his wife, Ruth Vingren-Hollis, who served as pastors of Moline Gospel Temple from 1949 to 1999. This chapter includes transcriptions of an oral history interview of the Hollises by the author and of an interview of the Hollises by Kathryn Kuhlman, which was broadcast on her television program in 1976.

The bulk of Reclaiming Our Forgotten Heritage consists of hundreds of articles from regional newspapers, assembled for the purpose of introducing the region’s readers to its Pentecostal past. Kline-Walczak also includes helpful interpretive and bibliographic essays about the subjects at hand. By reproducing such a vast assortment of historical materials, the compiler allows readers to get a sense of the mood of early Pentecostals (and, at times, that of their detractors). Kline-Walczak, through his back-breaking research efforts, has given Pentecostals in the Quad Cities a valuable documentary account of their origins and development.

Reviewed by Darrin Rodgers

Paperback, vi, 368 pages, illustrated. $20, plus $4.00 shipping. Order from: Ken Kline, P.O. Box 162, Hillsdale, IL 61257 (email: woodworth65@yahoo.com ; phone: 563-210-3282).

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Grandview Church, Elk City, Oklahoma

From Boom to Bust and Back: The Story of Elk City, Oklahoma and Grandview Church, by Bob Burke and Marcia Shottenkirk with Mark Little. Oklahoma City, OK: Commonwealth Press, 2006.

Times were great in Elk City in 1982, when the oil and gas flowed freely, as did the prosperity in this western Oklahoma town. God was at work, creating a church called Grandview Assembly of God, bringing hundreds of believers into His flock. But, by the winter of 1983, the good times were gone. The oil and gas boom went bust — decimating the town’s economy and crushing the spirits of its people. This story, of how the faith of Grandview’s staff and members was tested during this difficult time, is an inspiring one — full of trial and triumph and the power of God’s faithfulness and grace. Featuring dozens of testimonies of transformed lives — including Pastor Mark Little and members of Grandview Assembly who, through God’s grace, overcame addictions, poverty, sickness, and loneliness — this book shows that God does truly offer hope in today’s complex world.

–Adapted from cover

Paperback, 206 pages, illustrated. $10.00. Order from: Mark Little Ministries, P.O. Box 1145, Elk City, OK 73648.
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Northern Harvest: Pentecostalism in North Dakota

Northern Harvest: Pentecostalism in North Dakota, by Darrin J. Rodgers. Bismarck, North Dakota: North Dakota District Council of the Assemblies of God, 2003.

Northern Harvest documents the rise of Pentecostalism in North Dakota from a few scattered congregations at the turn of the twentieth-century to its present status as the state’s fourth largest religious group. While many historians contend that revivals in Topeka, Kansas (1901) and Los Angeles, California (1906-09) became the focal point of the emerging worldwide Pentecostal movement, Rodgers unearthed evidence that earlier revivals in Minnesota and the Dakotas provided it with precedents and leaders. North Dakotans, Pentecostals, and historians will be intrigued that a network of Scandinavian immigrant churches on the northern Great Plains practiced tongues-speech and healing before the better-known Topeka and Azusa Street revivals. This is the first significant study of Pentecostal origins in Scandinavian pietism in Minnesota and the Dakotas, exploring the movement’s roots outside the American Wesleyan and Holiness traditions.

The Sparkling Fountain

The Sparkling Fountain, by Fred T. Corum and Hazel E. Bakewell. Windsor, OH: Corum & Associates, Inc., 1989, c1983.

The Sparkling Fountain is a 278-page book with eyewitness accounts of the beginning of Pentecostalism in the Ozarks. The book was started by Fred T. Corum and his sister Hazel E. Bakewell. Then James and Kenneth Corum, sons of Fred Corum, helped to preserve this slice of history and see it through to production. First marketed in 1983, it is offered again on the 100th anniversary of Central Assembly in Springfield, Missouri.

The Azusa Street Mission story is recapped in beginning chapters, but for our purpose here the story begins in 1905 when Fred and Hazel moved to the Ozarks from Oklahoma with their parents, James and Lillie Harper Corum.

James and Lillie were never credentialed ministers but are considered the pioneers of Pentecost in Springfield — holding together a nucleus for several years until a church was set in order. I have an idea many other lay people throughout our history deserve special recognition for beginning and/or keeping local congregations together (including unfortunate splits) until a pastor assumed the leadership.

The Corums soon became active in a Baptist church where Mr. Corum served as Sunday school superintendent. But in the fall of 1906 they heard about the Pentecostal outpouring and became interested. Then in May 1907 they were introduced to this new experience which would dramatically put their lives on a new course.