2008 Heritage hot off the press

The 2008 annual edition of Assemblies of God Heritage magazine is hot off the press and will shortly be mailed to all credentialed Assemblies of God ministers. Additional copies may be ordered online or by phone: 877.840.5200 (toll free).

Download selected free articles from the 2008 edition from the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center website. If you like what you read, consider ordering the entire 2008 edition of Heritage for yourself, or as a gift for your friends or relatives. We think you will agree that Heritage magazine is a keepsake!

The 2008 edition features the following articles:

Dr. Charles S. Price: His Life, Ministry and Influence
This Oxford-educated pastor became one of the most noteworthy Pentecostal evangelists of the twentieth century.
BY TIM ENLOE

Teen Challenge: 50 Years of Miracles
What began as an outreach by David Wilkerson to the gangs of New York City has developed into one of the largest and most successful Christian drug-treatment programs.
BY DAVID BATTY AND ETHAN CAMPBELL

Conflicted by the Spirit: The Religious Life of Elvis Presley
The “King of Rock ‘n Roll,” the most famous Assemblies of God Sunday school prospect from the 1950s, experienced an all-too public struggle between his religious upbringing and the temptations of the world.
BY JAMES R. GOFF, JR.

Rev. B. V. Robison to celebrate 100th birthday

On February 2, 2008, Rev. Bernice Vance (B. V.) Robison will achieve something that few Assemblies of God ministers can claim – he will celebrate his 100th birthday. Reared in the Waurika and Terral areas in Oklahoma, Robison later moved to Texas, which became his home state. In 1927, at the age of 19, he began traveling with Floyd Hawkins. Together, they held revivals in towns and communities across Texas, bringing the Pentecostal message to many people for the first time. Numerous Assemblies of God churches were organized as a result of their efforts.

In 1929 Robison married Lillie Mae Holdridge. Following a 1930 revival campaign held in Freeport, Texas, he remained to pioneer a church, which became First Assembly of God. In the early days of the Assemblies of God, most pastors were bi-vocational, and they were expected to be competent in multiple skills. Robison’s natural building abilities meant that, in each of his pastorates, he would erect a church building.

After a hurricane destroyed the first building he erected for the Freeport congregation, he built a second one. To date, five Assemblies of God congregations have been birthed from the Freeport church. In 1935 he moved to Sherman, Texas, to serve as one of the early Assemblies of God pastors in that city. In 1939 he returned to south Texas to pastor the assembly in Cuero. His first project there was to build a new church building. The congregation worshiped in that building until 1993.

In 1942, again feeling the call of God to a city without an Assemblies of God witness, Robison moved 28 miles to Victoria, Texas. World War II was raging,

Christmas testimonies from beyond the grave

In the West, Christmas has become a symbol of excess. For most Christians in other times and places, however, Christmas has been a reminder that God came down to meet each one of us at our point of need.

The following Christmas testimonies are from some of our Assemblies of God saints who blazed the trail that we now tread. Listen to how they celebrated Christmas, compare it with your own celebrations, then reflect about how God met each one of these dear saints at the point of their need. You will see that God didn’t always meet needs with provisions; sometimes He provided lessons.

C. M. Ward was the voice of the Revivaltime radio broadcast from 1953 to 1978. He and his fiancée, Dorothy, set their wedding date for Christmas Day, 1929. Of course, one month before their wedding, the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began. Ward couldn’t afford to buy a wedding ring, much less presents, for their first Christmas. He later learned that times of deprivation like this birthed one of two things: either desperation or despair. Desperation spurred people to work hard and be creative, while despair caused people to simply give up.

Daniel W. Kerr was the primary author of the 1916 Statement of Fundamental Truths. One of the early parsonages he and his family lived in was actually an abandoned log chicken house that Kerr made into living quarters. One Christmas, his two children each received one penny in their stockings. And for Christmas dinner — they boiled potatoes. With our material prosperity, we sometimes forget that many go without. When God does provide for our needs, but not our wants, do we express gratitude or do we grumble?

John Kolenda was a German District pastor and missionary to Brazil. His daughter, Graceann, recalled that “Dad always practiced and taught us to put God first, others second, and ourselves last.” She explained that, to her and her young sibling, “This seemed entirely wrong.” Two days before Christmas, Kolenda took his children aside and said that — absent a miracle — there would be no Christmas presents that year. After providing for the needy children in the Sunday school and for other people, he explained, there was nothing left to give his own children. Graceann recalled that her parents prayed in an unusually fervent manner that evening. The next day an unexpected check arrived in the mail, which provided for a memorable Christmas. When the situation seems hopeless — do we still pray to God to intervene?