Vinton Huffey Autobiography

Born on the Seventh Day, by Vinton Earl Huffey. Xlibris, 2007.

Reverend Vinton Huffey has lived a life of adventure. Living by faith began when he experienced conversion in a St. Louis, Missouri church at age eighteen. A poor farm boy, he had been riding the rails, a hobo, planning to head north to Alaska, and no one was more surprised than he to find himself called of God to preach the gospel. Despite extreme financial hardship, he attended Central Bible Institute (Springfield, Missouri) and North Central Bible Institute (Minneapolis, Minnesota) and began his life of ministry, marrying Lillian Crouse, a young Assemblies of God evangelist, raising four children, always listening to see where God told him to go next. Reverend Huffey’s gift for storytelling is a mix of American farm wisdom and a long life based on practical and daily faith. Reverend Huffey pastored several churches in Iowa (Oelwein, Le Mars, and Ames) and then moved to southern California where he pastored the Monrovia Assembly of God (now New Life Assembly, Duarte, California) for twenty years. While pastoring, sometimes earning only one dollar a week, he discovered that God had given him the gift of wisdom in business, and as he became wealthy, he pioneered a missionary outreach to America’s inner cities, to communities the church has abandoned, funding some of the work with the money God has given him.

Born on the Seventh Day is a history told in human stories. Ninety-two years old, Huffey takes us to the poignant moments of his youth, and to the funny and impossible moments of life on the Assemblies of God frontier, and to the surprising work of God in one of his servants, a witness to the early years of the movement.

Reviewed by Rhoda Huffey.

Read the article, “The Life and Ministry of Vinton Huffey,” as told to Augustus Cerillo, Jr., Assemblies of God Heritage 27 (2007): 42-46.

Paperback, 81 pages, illustrated. $15.99 plus postage. Order from: amazon.com.

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Doris Dresselhaus Menzies Autobiography

Young at Heart: The Story of a Heart Transplant Recipient, by Doris Dresselhaus Menzies. Springfield, MO: Celebration Publishing, 2007.

Doris Dresselhaus Menzies has had two famous last names. Her husband, Dr. William W. Menzies, is one of the most highly-regarded educators in the Assemblies of God. Her cousin, Dr. Richard Dresselhaus, served as the long-time pastor of San Diego (CA) First Assembly of God and continues to serve as an executive presbyter of the Assemblies of God. Few people can claim to be related to one statesman of their caliber, much less two!

But Doris Menzies has her own story to tell. In Young at Heart: The Story of a Heart Transplant Recipient, Menzies recounted her testimony — from her Assemblies of God upbringing in Iowa, to her years in the ministry with her husband, to her roles as wife and mother, to her recent medical triumphs as a heart transplant recipient and as a cancer survivor.

Born on a frigid December day in 1932 on an Iowa farm, Doris was reared in the sturdy Willard and Beatrice Dresselhaus family. Her mother taught Sunday school, and her father was the Sunday school superintendent of the Decorah Assembly of God. Willard, a farmer, served as Farm Bureau president for Winneshiek County, was involved in local politics, and owned his own plane. Young at Heart challenges the assumption, held by certain historians, that early Pentecostals were disinherited or socially uninvolved.

Doris met Bill Menzies, her future husband, at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Bill graduated in 1953 and accepted the pastorate of the little Assemblies of God church in Big Rapids, Michigan. They married soon after Doris’ 1955 graduation and settled into pastoral ministry.

Encountering God at the Altar

Encountering God at the Altar: The Sacraments in Pentecostal Worship, by Daniel Tomberlin. Cleveland, TN: Center for Pentecostal Leadership and Care, 2006.

 

Since the beginning of the Pentecostal movement, experiencing the Spirit of God has been central to Pentecostals in both private and corporate worship. When it comes to congregational worship, Pentecostals have critiqued what they deem to be dead ritualism devoid of a personal experience of the Holy Spirit. As a result, Pentecostals have questioned many traditional practices relating to the sacraments (often viewed as theologically or historically suspect because of their relation to the Roman Catholic Church) and have opted for the term “ordinances” instead. The latter is often seen to be more of a faith-based means rather then a works-based means of experiencing the Spirit.

 

Daniel Tomberlin, pastor of Bainbridge Church of God (Bainbridge, GA) and chairman of Ministerial Development for the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) in South Georgia, has authored a book that will raise some eyebrows. In it, Tomberlin claims that Pentecostalism and sacramental worship are not mutually exclusive. Rather, he provides a stimulating discussion of how he believes Pentecostal worship is sacramental. This volume, which aims to provide an introduction to the subject for Pentecostal church leaders, is possibly one of the first educational resources of its kind published by a classical Pentecostal denomination.

 

Encountering God at the Altar touches on topics such as Pentecostal worship and spirituality. Tomberlin develops a Pentecostal theology of the sacraments and also explores the practice of the sacraments in Pentecostal worship. In following Church of God theologian Kenneth Archer, Tomberlin argues for the retrieval of the term sacrament over the term ordinance, claiming that the ordinances are sacramental — a “means of grace” where one encounters the Holy Spirit (p. 24). The author rightly points out that Pentecostal spirituality is centered on encountering the Holy Spirit. “Therefore,” Tomberlin states, “the center and focus of Pentecostal worship is the altar” (p. 19).

 

When addressing whether life in the church and the sacraments are essential to salvation, Tomberlin identifies the church and sacraments as “secondary salvific gifts,” compared to the Son and Spirit as “primary salvific gifts” from the Father. At the same time he ultimately admits “that participation in the sacramental life of the church may not be absolutely essential to salvation due to God’s prevenient grace” (p. 27).

Reaching Single Adults

Reaching Single Adults: An Essential Guide for Ministry, by Dennis Franck. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007.

Dennis Franck has made history in single adult ministries in the Assemblies of God. In 1979, when Franck started his first full-time ministry position — as Single Adults pastor at First Assembly in Billings, Montana — he was one of five known paid single adult pastors in the Assemblies of God in the United States. He discovered great need within the single adult community — and the group in Billings soon attracted 125 singles, hailing from 27 church backgrounds, to its Sunday morning meetings. Not bad for a church of 400 people.

Today, Franck serves as National Director of Single Adult Ministries for the Assemblies of God, a position he has held since 2000. He is a frequent speaker at single adult conferences, retreats and leadership training in the Assemblies of God and in other denominations. Pastors and ministry leaders now have access to Franck’s research and hard-won ministry lessons in his new book, Reaching Single Adults. This book is significant for several reasons. Not only is it the first book on this subject to be published in the United States in eight years, it is the first known ministry/leadership book about ministry to single adults published by an Assemblies of God author.

Uldine Utley: Why I am a Preacher

Uldine Utley: Why I am a Preacher, compiled by T. J. Lavigne. Kissimmee, FL: Cloud of Witnesses Publishing Co., 2006.

Ted Lavigne has developed a passion for discovering and researching child evangelists and their unique role in presenting the gospel. To my knowledge, this topic of child evangelists has never been discussed in a book or dissertation. This makes his research all the more important. It is significant that just as child preachers of yesteryear filled a vital role in communicating the gospel, there are still child evangelists today in the U.S. and abroad. You will be blessed by reading some of their stories.

In this volume, which is the opening text in a child and teen preacher series, he focuses on the life of a well-known girl evangelist, Uldine Utley. She preached in Madison Square Garden in 1926 at the age of 14 and ministered other places across the U.S. She was also featured in American Magazine, the Boston Sunday Post, the New York Times and many other publications.

Lavigne includes a timeline of significant events concerning her ministry, rare photographs, an extensive bibliography, and interesting bits of information about Utley and her family that previously were unpublished. This book includes excerpts from Uldine Utley’s book, Why I am a Preacher: A Plain Answer to an Oft-repeated Question (1931), and from her Petals from the Rose of Sharon newsletters, with related information about some key evangelists connected with her ministry.

The serious reader of church history will be delighted and inspired by the testimony of this girl evangelist and will look forward to additional volumes in this series.

Reviewed by Glenn Gohr

Paperback, 149 pages (8.5×11 in.), illustrated. $29.95, plus $6.00 shipping. Order from: Cloud of Witnesses Products.

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Off-Road Disciplines: Spiritual Adventures of Missional Leaders

Off-Road Disciplines: Spiritual Adventures of Missional Leaders, by Earl Creps. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2006.

Church statistics tell us that overall, but with some exceptions, western churches are declining in membership. Certainly one factor for this decline is that much of western Christianity has lost part of its identity as a missional community, a community which prophetically partners with the Holy Spirit in His mission. As a result, church leaders are seeking the heart of God for both vision and empowerment for continuing in Jesus’ ministry of reconciliation in the contexts in which they are called. Slowly but surely, the community of Christ is recognizing its missional weakness when it comes to both the lifestyles of the individual followers of Christ, and the structure of the community itself.

Reacting to these shortcomings, the emerging church movement has arisen to fill the missional gaps by applying a relevant, contextualized gospel to those whom the traditional or even “contemporary” churches would not ordinarily reach. In the past, classical pentecostals have not contributed prominently in the emerging church movement. That is, until now.