 I’m odd and I know it. A Pentecostal who appreciates the church calendar? Who among the Pentecostals recognizes the seasons of the church calendar? Who among the Pentecostals uses the lectionary? And sacraments? About 5 years ago, I discovered the liturgical year and the lectionary. Probably through my engagement with scholars like Scot McKnight and N. T. Wright, I discovered a different approach to church life shaped by the story of Christ: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and the Season After Pentecost. Some of those terms you’ve probably heard, others may be new or foreign if you come from a Pentecostal background. Pentecostals and liturgy are not often thought of together, yet Andrew Wilson wrote a book a few years ago that suggests that charismatic experience and the liturgy are not enemies. In fact, he argues for what he calls “Eucharismatic Worship,”[1] based on his study of 1 Corinthians, particularly chs. 11-14, that when the church comes together, there’s the presence of the Charismatic and the Eucharistic. Chapter 11 gives instruction on the practice of the sacrament of communion while 12-14 deal with the manifestation of the spiritual gifts. Thus, Paul believed that the Lord’s Supper and Prophecy, Communion and Speaking in Tongues, belonged together in the worship of the church. Thus, the eucharist and the charismatic are both elements of a Biblical worship service. Further, Paul recognized the timing of Pentecost as he set his travel schedule with the Corinthians (1 Cor. 16:8-9). This recognition of the feast of Pentecostal suggests that the worship calendar informed his travel schedule. Did Paul use a liturgical calendar? Are such practices Pentecostal, though? A Rejection of Formalism Early Pentecostals, especially in the Assemblies of God, struggled with the perceived deadness and ritualism they perceived in the liturgical churches. Their stance against religious formalism led them to distance themselves, even in their language, from the ideas of liturgy and sacraments, choosing rather to refer to them as ordinances and ceremonies.[2] In his article on Pentecostal liturgy, J. C. Holsinger highlights that despite this rejection, ceremonies and ordinances are still important elements of a culture. He points specifically to the marriage ceremony where couples repeat very similar words as they affirm their vows to one another. He states, “one of the most valuable purposes of ceremony—to educate and reaffirm important truths held in common, not just to provide a private or personal experience.”[3] Too often, however, as Holsinger notes, we have become such an individualistic culture that our church landscape has been so focused on individual spiritual experience that we’ve missed the larger, culture-shaping ordinances and ceremonies that remind us who we are as the community of God. Even in affirming these things, Holsinger still looks down on the idea of “liturgy” and “liturgical” worship.  Other Pentecostals have often recognized that sometimes the liturgical practices can, in a sense, be used to cover otherwise pagan lifestyles. Blanche King writes of those who practice the season of Lent first engaging in all sorts of gluttony and immortality before entering into a time of consecration and reflection in Lent.[4] He also suggests that the times of consecration and repentance in such liturgical seasons of Lent are present in Pentecostal revivals and thus unnecessary in the Pentecostal church. Perhaps he’s right. But what if we do need structured times of remembrance to shape our imaginations and lead us into the various seasons of a healthy Christian life? What if there are seasons, ordinances, and practices that, if present on a regular basis, remind us of who we are? An Embrace of the Reminder While I would say that the majority of Pentecostals probably follow the perspectives above in a rejection of liturgy and ritual, that cannot be said of all. As I was combing the pages of past Pentecostal periodicals on the subject, there are small articles and suggestions that the church calendar and her seasons can actually become part of a Pentecostal community. In April 1956, the Pentecostal Holiness Advocate included an editorial on the Church calendar, explaining the various times and seasons. Within that article, there’s an interesting, balanced perspective on these issues: “Our church does not go in for the paraphernalia of high church ritualism. And it's well we don't. But by the same token it is entirely possible to swing so far from this that we reach the other extreme of missing many significant and spiritual events.”[5] After the highlights of Easter, Eastertide continues to celebrate the 40 days Jesus walked with the disciples, leading up to Pentecost. In another editorial, the Advocate suggests that Pentecostals embrace this season to engage in active discipleship in Pentecostal doctrine: encourage reading, preach a series of sermons, plan prayer meetings, and conduct revivals.[6] What if we fully embraced the seasons of the church calendar and found Pentecostal expressions of discipleship within each season? There are many Pentecostals, hungry for a rooted, historical faith, that have truly been moving towards more liturgical practices. In fact, there are many former Pentecostals who have transitioned to the Anglican denomination and style of worship. Known as the Convergence Movement, there are whole denominations of Charismatic Anglicans uniting Charismatic experience of the Holy Spirit with Anglican, High-Church liturgy. William DeArteaga has observed this movement and writes of the growth of these new expressions of Charismatic Christianity. He notes some important issues, however, as many of these new Charismatic Anglicans have a tendency to emphasize the liturgy over the Charismatic. He writes:
Does Liturgy always lead to formalism? Is it possible to embrace structured remembrance in pursuit of revival? A Piece of Our Heritage There’s a forgotten link in Pentecostal history that might suggest that there’s a place for liturgy in the midst of revival fire. I know, I know. That sounds like a contradiction. What does the Anglican Prayer Book have to do with Pentecostal revival? Well, just ask John Wesley about that. DeArteaga notes that John Wesley remained a committed Anglican throughout his life, and oversaw the kindling of revival that birthed the Methodist movement globally. His revivals were marked by manifestations of the Holy Spirit that mirrored those of Toronto or Brownsville, where openness led of bodily experiences of the Spirit’s power such as laughing in the Spirit or falling under the power.[8] In fact, the Wesley brothers pursued an openness to the Spirit while at the same time distancing themselves from emotionalism and fanaticism. While the early Wesleyan revivals were very Pentecostal, they were also very liturgical or sacramental. The Wesleyan holy clubs were nicknamed “The Sacramentarians” because they took communion weekly.[9] Wesley used the Book of Common Prayer to guide the worship of the Methodists, but edited it to leave more room for the Spirit. Later holiness leaders followed suit. Phineas Bresee, the founder of the Church of the Nazarene, followed much of the Methodist Discipline in organizing his worship, but as his biographer put it, “While the Nazarenes respected traditional forms of worship and sometimes drew on them, they were interested primarily in the spiritual vitality that had produced those historic forms.”[10] Nazarenes originally called themselves the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene, but later dropped Pentecostal because they did not embrace the Pentecostal distinctive of evidential tongues. Bresee’s first church, founded in 1898, was nicknamed “The Glory Barn.” There was a pursuit of Spiritual fulness and fire, even if they rejected the evidential doctrine of tongues. Today, there are Nazarenes who are fully evangelical in their worship and yet embrace elements of the liturgical worship such as the use of the lectionary in preaching. In my opinion, they offer some of the best examples of evangelical, sacramental worship in the Wesleyan spirit. Pentecostals and Liturgy I want to suggest that Pentecostals be open to the Spirit in the ordinances and liturgy of worship. Perhaps an embrace of the church calendar could structure our life together and aid us in forming disciples of Christ. What would Liturgical, Classical Pentecostal worship look like? What could it be like for the fires of Pentecost to burn bright in churches that build their life together around the story of Christ? What could the power of the Spirit bring to the baptismal waters and communion tables if the real presence of Christ were recognized? I, in no way, want to argue for cold formalism or dead ritualism. I do, however, wonder if our Wesleyan heritage could inform our worship where structured fires burn strategically. What if the next Pentecostal revival was a controlled burn? Could the liturgy help form people for Pentecostal fullness? [1]Andrew Wilson, Spirit and Sacrament: An Invitation to Eucharismatic Worship (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018). [2]J. C. Holsinger, “Pentecostal Liturgy?,” Advance, 30, no. 5 (1994): 38. [3]Holsinger, 38. [4]Blanche L. King, “The ‘Lenten Season’—Is it Past?,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate, 46, no. 50 (1963): 2. [5]Dallas M. Tarkenton, “The Church Calendar,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate, 39, no. 48 (1956): 2. [6]Dallas M. Tarkenton, “Easter to Pentecost,” Pentecostal Holiness Advocate, 39, no. 44 (1956): 2. [7]William DeArteaga, “The Wesleyan Revival as a Model for the Convergence Movement,” Refleks, 5, no. 1 (2006): 79. [8]DeArteaga, 85. [9]DeArteaga, 85. [10]Carl Bangs, Phineas F. Bresee: His Life in Methodism, the Holiness Movement, and the Church of the Nazarene (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 1995), 231.
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 As Pentecostal people, we love the power of the Spirit of God. Pentecostals are a people defined by a desire to see people step into the New Testament experience of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Pentecostalism began with hungry people desiring more of the Holy Spirit, and specifically to find out the biblical sign they had been brought into Fullness of the Spirit. Students at Charles Parham’s Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas read the book of Acts, and came to believe that speaking in other tongues was the initial physical sign one had been baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Power for Service Many of these early Pentecostals were baptized in the Holy Spirit, packed their bags in a coffin, and headed overseas to give their lives as missionaries for Christ. The missional, service impulse that flooded their souls with the filling of the Spirit was exceptional. Early leaders emphasized that Spirit-baptism brought power for witness and service, and rightly so, for Acts 1:8 clearly states “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (ESV). Power to be a witness is a primary purpose of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Power for Life If you look a bit further back to the roots of this movement, you’ll find the holiness movement. Just before the outbreak of the modern classical Pentecostal movement, many Holiness people were preaching the baptism in the Holy Spirit as power for life, power for sanctification. The Holiness Movement emphasized that through the power of the Holy Spirit, Christians could be made holy and transformed inwardly. Through the Spirit, Christians had the power to love God and love neighbor as God desired. This, they believed, was the fruit of the fullness of the Spirit—a life of love. Paul taught this fruit of transformation in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). Both/And Pentecostals – Life and Service If you look at the confession of faith of the Assemblies of God, the Statement of Fundamental Truths, our belief in the baptism in the Holy Spirit embraces both. Speaking of the Baptism of the Spirit, we believe that “With it comes the enduement of power for life and service, the bestowment of the gifts and their uses in the work of the ministry.”[1] Life and service. I believe much harm has come in modern Pentecostalism because we’ve forgotten our roots. We miss that dynamic combination of both life and witness, holiness and service, in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Fullness of the Spirit will bring much more than just speaking in tongues. It will also help you live a holy life. The Baptism in the Spirit brings spiritual power both to make you holy in your life and anoint your lips of witness. Church, let’s embrace a both/and faith from our heritage. Let us never be content with power for service without a transformed life. May we see the enduement of power as power for both life and witness, and may our lives and lips both be anointed to testify to the transforming grace of God. This article was originally written for publication in The Epistle, the publication of Abundant Life Assembly of God. [1]“Assemblies of God Statement of Fundamental Truths,” Assemblies of God USA, available from: https://ag.org/Beliefs/Statement-of-Fundamental-Truths; accessed 27 March 2025. |
Dr. jake TrueDr. Jake True is a teacher, pastor, and scholar in Southern Illinois. He is a Pentecostal pastor at Abundant Life Assembly of God, and a teacher in a Charlotte Mason School, Ambleside School of Marion. He loves exploring learning and discipleship, with an emphasis on the role of the Spirit in education. Archives
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