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...countries like Portugal, Italy, Britain, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Bulgaria, and especially the Ukraine and Romania with significant Pentecostal populations. There is reasonably strong charismatic or renewal movement within European established churches, and in England charismatic Anglican churches are among the largest in the country. In some countries Pentecostalism is continuing to grow and defy the assumption of Christian decline. (2) Since the disintegration of communism there has been more freedom for Pentecostals in Central and Eastern Europe but this has not been without challenges. In particular, new Pentecostal groups from the West on a quest for mission have flooded former communist countries with aggressive evangelistic techniques that have lead to opposition from dominant Orthodox churches and even from national governments. Some of the new churches resulting from this approach have succeeded in attracting large crowds; there is a church in Kiev led by Nigerian Sunday Adelaga that boasts of a congregation numbering twenty thousand, possibly the largest single congregation in Europe. (3) However, there have been other developments: the institutionalizing of Pentecostal denominations and the creation and expansion of Pentecostal theological colleges have resulted in more inward-looking Pentecostal movements in some countries.
This paper will start with a tentative response to the papers and conclude with some suggestions on lessons that can be learned from the experience of Pentecostalism in Europe.
A tentative response
I will briefly attempt to give what I think would be a response of many Pentecostals and charismatics to the presentations. First, I think many Pentecostals and charismatics would be somewhat bemused by this discussion of adapting to the decline in Christianity in Europe. They would say that this decline is not their experience, and that it is happening in churches that have lost their ability to attract people whose need is to be revived and transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. There is still a current of restorationalism in Pentecostalism: the belief that the institutional churches of Europe have lost their vision and mandate to evangelize the world. In these 'last days', Pentecostalism believes God is pouring...
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