Joyce Stuart (Lee), one year old

Dear Friends:

You are invited to a celebration of Joyce Lee’s faithful service to the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). Joyce is slated to retire as FPHC Archivist on March 28, 2013.

Please join Joyce’s colleagues and friends for victuals and merriment on March 28, 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm, at the Branch Café, Assemblies of God National Office, 1445 North Boonville Avenue, Springfield, Missouri.

Joyce will have dedicated just under 26 years and 11 months of her life to preserving and promoting our Pentecostal heritage. She worked approximately 55,972 hours at the FPHC, during which she oversaw the creation of almost 90,000 catalog records. She assisted countless thousands of researchers by phone, letter, email, and in person. The FPHC became the largest repository of Pentecostal treasures in large part due to Joyce’s meticulous attention to detail and skilled bibliographic organization. Most importantly, though, Joyce’s passion for archiving flowed from her faith. In her work and throughout her life, she has shown a love for God, His Church, and His people. The world needs more Joyces.

If you have any questions, please contact Jeanine Bartels, Administrative Coordinator for the FPHC.

Jeanine Bartels
Administrative Coordinator
Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
Phone: 417.862.2781 Ext. 4400
Email: jbartels@ag.org

U.S. Missions: Celebrating 75 Years of Ministry. Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 2012.

The Assemblies of God USA has always been dedicated to the mission of God, domestic and abroad, since its founding in 1914. While Assemblies of God World Missions (AGWM) was created in 1919, it was not until 1937 that Assemblies of God U.S. Missions (AGUSM) was created to bring greater organization to home mission efforts. This full-color, lavishly-illustrated coffee table book celebrates the 75th anniversary of AGUSM. This volume provides an overview of the history of U.S. Missions, as well as its seven departments, and is a wonderful tribute and memoir to Assemblies of God U.S. missionaries and their efforts to reach America with the gospel, that none perish.

Chapter 1, “Highlights of 75 Years of U.S. Missions,” is an adapted and edited from A History of Home Missions of the Assemblies of God (1992) by Ruth Lyon.

In Chapter 2, Kirk Noonan provides an overview of Chaplaincy Ministries, which includes industrial/occupational chaplains, prison chaplains, and military/VA chaplains. The Chaplaincy Ministries Department was started in 1973. Noonan reports, “Chaplains minister to service personnel, prisoners, the sick, dying people in crisis and trauma, athletes, truckers, bikers, cowboys, law enforcement personnel, fire fighters, factory workers, retirees, people involved in human trafficking, politicians, etc. To put it simply, where there is someone in need, there is a chaplain” (p. 21).

Sarah Malcolm traces the history of Chi Alpha in chapter 3. Chi Alpha is the national ministry of the Assemblies of God USA to reach students, including over 700,000 international students, who are attending colleges and universities in the U.S. Founded in 1953, Chi Alpha is currently the fourth largest evangelical campus ministry in the U.S. Malcolm states, “Chi Alpha is not just a program, it is a culture of disciple making. The transformed students and committed missionaries of Chi Alpha are laying the ground work for the next generation of the Assemblies of God and its leaders” (p. 50).

Chapter 4, written by William Molenaar, explores the history of Intercultural Ministries. While intercultural ministries and evangelism have been a part of the Assemblies of God since its founding, the Home Missions Department was tasked with overseeing intercultural ministries in 1937. Later in 1945, the Intercultural Ministries Department was created within AGUSM. America’s multicultural past, present, and future creates both a great evangelistic challenge and a great evangelistic opportunity for the Assemblies of God USA. Molenaar focuses on five of the earliest and historic ministries: Jewish ministries, Native American ministry, ministry to the Blind, ministry to the Deaf, Alaskan ministry, and the various ethnic-language branches, districts and fellowships of the Assemblies of God USA.

Joshua R. Ziefle wrote Chapter 5, which covers the history of Missionary Church Planters and Developers (MCPD). Originally founded in 1947, MCPD is tasked with identifying, supporting and resourcing church planting and development missionaries appointed by U.S. Missions. Ziefle notes, “For almost a century, the Assemblies of God has been a leader in church planting. Early Pentecostals were visionaries and entrepreneurs, buoyed by a vision to save the world and anchored by a deep commitment to Christ and God’s Word” (p. 71).

Chapter 6 features a history of Teen Challenge International, U.S.A., written by David Batty, Ethan Campbell, and Patty Baker. The authors trace the inspiring story of David Wilkerson’s ministry in New York City to the global growth of the Teen Challenge. It is widely held that Teen Challenge is “one of the world’s largest and most successful drug recovery programs” (p. 89). Teen Challenge has been running over 50 years now with more than 1000 centers in 93 countries around the world.

William Molenaar wrote chapter 7 regarding the U.S. Mission America Placement Service (MAPS) Department. U.S. MAPS “is the ministry within Assemblies of God U.S. Missions that assists churches, schools and ministries by coordinating volunteers with construction and evangelism projects” (p. 99). MAPS originated in 1967 as an inter-departmental effort of the Assemblies of God National Office to mobilize laity to participate in the mission of God both home and abroad, and today has a thriving RV volunteer ministry.

Finally, Chapter 8, written by Kevin Dawson, traces the development of the Youth Alive Department. Dawson explains, “Youth Alive is a missionary movement dedicated to equipping and releasing students to reach the middle school and high school campuses of the United States” (p. 118). Youth Alive not only develops campus clubs, but it mobilizes young people to be missionaries to their schools. Today, Youth Alive is in 15 percent of the middle schools and high schools in the U.S.

Readers will enjoy reading the substantive histories of U.S. Missions, as well as browsing the historical photographs throughout the book. Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center staff provided images and significant editorial assistance in the production of the book: William Molenaar authored two chapters, Glenn Gohr checked facts and citations, and Gohr and Darrin Rodgers provided extensive editorial work. Few books are both attractive and add to the body of scholarly literature. This book achieves both. U.S. Missions: Celebrating 75 Years of Ministry will be warmly received by both scholars and those who lived the history.  This commemorative volume should be added to your personal library and is also ideal for your coffee table, waiting room, or as a gift.

Hardcover, 128 pages. $25.00 retail. Order from: Gospel Publishing House.

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John and Anna McConnell, May 27, 2011, eating brunch in their Denver home with Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center Director Darrin Rodgers.

John McConnell, Jr., the Pentecostal founder of Earth Day, passed away Saturday night, October 20, 2012, in Denver, Colorado. He was 97 years old. A memorial service will be held at St. John’s Lutheran Church, 700 South Franklin Street, Denver, Colorado, at 10:30 am, Friday, November 2, 2012.

McConnell’s grandfather was at the Azusa Street Revival and his parents were founding members of the Assemblies of God.

Read about McConnell in the article, “John McConnell, Jr. and the Pentecostal Origins of Earth Day,” published in the 2010 edition of Assemblies of God Heritage magazine.  Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center Director Darrin Rodgers recorded an oral history interview with McConnell and his wife, Anna, on July 15, 2009, at Timberline Church, Fort Collins, Colorado.

McConnell deposited materials relating to his Pentecostal faith and the lives and ministries of his parents and grandparents at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.

The following obituary was posted on the Monarch Society website:

John Saunders McConnell
(March 22, 1915 – October 20, 2012)

Founder of Earth Day

The public is invited to attend the dedication of the Grant Wacker Collection, to be held at Riggs Hall, Evangel University, on Thursday, October 11, at 3:30 p.m.

Dr. Grant Wacker, one of the most prominent historians of American religion, deposited his Pentecostal research collection at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center. The grandson of Assemblies of God General Superintendent Ralph Riggs, Wacker was an Assemblies of God pastor’s kid. He went on to earn his Ph.D. at Harvard University and has taught American religious history at Duke University Divinity School since 1992.

Pentecostal history has been one of Wacker’s primary research interests, and his 2001 book, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture, has become a standard text on the subject. Few scholars have left a greater mark on the study of Pentecostal history than Grant Wacker.

Wacker is now writing a book on Billy Graham and has put aside his research into Pentecostal histo­ry. Wacker deposited his Pentecostal research materi­als at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center. The Grant Wacker Collection consists of 13.75 linear feet of files plus numerous books, which together constitute the raw materials from which he crafted his scholarly assessments of the Pentecostal movement.

Evangel University President Robert Spence will formally dedicate the collection in Thursday’s ceremony, and Wacker and Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center Director Darrin Rodgers will also offer remarks.

Wacker will also present a lecture on Friday, October 12, 2012 at 2 p.m. in the William J. Seymour Chapel at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary. His lecture, entitled “Billy Graham and the Shaping of Modern America,” will reflect his recent research about the famous evangelist for a book of the same title, under contract with Harvard University Press. The public also is invited to attend this lecture at AGTS.

A symposium honoring the late Bishop J. O. Patterson, Sr., is scheduled to be held in Springfield, Missouri, September 17-18, 2012. James O. Patterson, Sr. (1912-1989) served as Presiding Bishop of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States, from 1968 to 1989.

The Bishop J. O. Patterson, Sr. Symposium will celebrate the centenary of Patterson’s birth and also will dedicate the Bishop J. O. Patterson, Sr. Collection. Patterson’s widow, Mother Mary P. Patterson, deposited Bishop Patterson’s personal papers at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC). The FPHC, located in Springfield, Missouri, in the national offices of the Assemblies of God, is the largest Pentecostal archive and research center in the world.

Four Church of God in Christ dignitaries will be participating in the Bishop J. O. Patterson, Sr. Symposium:

•Mother Mary P. Patterson
•Bishop Lemuel Thuston (Kansas East Jurisdiction, COGIC)
•Dr. David Daniels (the foremost COGIC historian)
•Sara Jordan Powell (Gospel music artist and founder of the COGIC Fine Arts Department)

SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE

Monday, Sept 17, 2012
10:30-11:30 am
Honoring the Centenary of the Birth of Bishop J. O. Patterson, Sr.
Speaker: Bishop Lemuel Thuston
Location: Central Bible College chapel, 3000 N. Grant Ave., Springfield, MO 65803

3:30-5:00 pm
Reception for Mother Mary P. Patterson, David Daniels, and Sara Jordan Powell
Location: Assemblies of God Theological Seminary Great Hall, 1435 N. Glenstone Ave., Springfield, MO 65802

Tuesday, Sept 18, 2012
8:00-9:00 am
Dedication of the Bishop J. O. Patterson, Sr. Collection
Speaker: Dr. David Daniels
Location: Assemblies of God National Office chapel, 1445 N. Boonville Ave., Springfield, MO 65802

Mother Mary P. Patterson organized an earlier event, held on July 19 at the Tower Center in Memphis, commemorating the centenary of Bishop J. O. Patterson, Sr.’s birth. The event made the front page of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal.

The Bishop J. O. Patterson, Sr. Collection is an important part of the expanding collection of African-American Pentecostal treasures at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center. These historical materials provide the basis for ongoing research and reflec­tion about our shared Pentecostal heri­tage and are attracting increasing num­bers of students and researchers to Springfield.

The Patterson collection takes its place alongside other significant collections, including the original Azusa Street newspapers and Smith Wigglesworth’s original sermon notes. In the last year, ten major research collections were deposited at the FPHC, including collections assembled by these scholars, church leaders, and institutions: Pentecostal historians Grant Wacker, William W. Menzies, and Steve Durasoff; Hispanic-American Pentecostal pioneer H. C. Ball; German-American Pentecostal pioneer George H. Rueb; Bethany University; and African-American Oneness collector Robert James McGoings, Jr.

The dedication of the Patterson Collection is not just about archiving history. Mother Mary P. Patterson believes it has much broader implications. The 2011 edition of AG Heritage magazine (p. 73) reported the following:

Mother Patterson believes that establishing the Bishop J. O. Patterson, Sr. Collection at the FPHC is part of a larger divine plan. “My husband worked to build bridges between the Church of God in Christ and other churches. I believe this could be a catalyst for significant bridge-building between our Pentecostal churches. God is bringing things together in a miraculous way.”

Patterson is excited about the broader implications of this archival relationship. She states, “I am entrust­ing the Assemblies of God to help preserve and promote my husband’s materials. I want to send a signal that our two churches can and should cooperate in areas like education and historical archives.”

Bishop J. O. Patterson, Sr. often quoted Mark 12:37: “And the common people heard Him gladly.” According to Mother Patterson, the symposium in Springfield will pro­vide “an opportunity for the ‘common people’ — not just leaders — from the churches to rub shoulders and to get to know each other.”

The Bishop J. O. Patterson, Sr. Symposium is free and is open to the public. An oral history video interview is also scheduled to be recorded with symposium participants. Gospel music artist Sara Jordan Powell will provide sacred music for the two chapel services. For additional information about the symposium, contact the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center by email (archives@ag.org) or toll free by telephone (877-840-5200).

Register, Margaret. A Place for People, Puppets, and Cockroach Soup: Pioneering Delightfully Over-the-Top and Seriously Under-Budgeted Christian TV Productions. [S.n.] : CreateSpace, 2012.

Once again, Margaret (Maggie) Register delights us with an outstanding memoir. This time she chronicles, with humor and pathos, the formation of STAR Ministries, an Assemblies of God World Missions television and radio production studio. Margaret Register speaks in a conversational tone, drawing the reader first into her experience in Guatemala where 18,000 children came to a basketball stadium to see the “stars” of Lugar Secreto, the children’s show she and her husband, Joe, produced. She is authentic in describing, sometimes with great humor, the struggles, setbacks, and joys of learning television production—first as “talent,” then as floor director, and finally as producer—and the unexpected traumas of life as a “foreign” missionary based in the States and working with dozens of volunteers.

After ten years as missionaries in Chile and Paraguay, South America, Joe and Margaret Register wanted to produce a television talk show in Spanish. But, how does one begin a first-time-ever ministry of Spanish Television and Radio? Joe and Margaret did not even consider doing a show for children. Not at first.

A Place for People, Puppets, and Cockroach Soup recounts amazing, funny, heart-warming, sometimes near-tragic stories of how God took His plan and wrapped it around the far-reaching dreams and hard work of a dedicated family—Joe, Margaret, daughter Crysti, and son Timmy—and a host of God-sent volunteers. They did not know how to build sets, run cable, operate cameras, develop “characters” or write scripts. They learned by trial and error, with a budget always stretched to the limit. But God gave creative ideas and sent gifted volunteers and delightful puppets. The result was El Lugar Secreto (The Secret Place), a series of award-winning shows for Spanish-speaking children.

These true stories display fascinating, unique events as God’s grace and wisdom astound Joe and Margaret as they developed a very successful television ministry that would eventually reach all of Latin America and be broadcast on fourteen satellites into 200 countries.

From language study in Mexico to the country of Chile and then to Paraguay, Margaret, in her first book, No Place for Plastic Saints, recounts vividly an earthquake, a dead body on a table, and chicken feet in soup. Joe and Margaret lived in Temuco and in Viña, Chile, and later in Paraguay, where they began a very successful television ministry that would eventually reach all of Latin America (the story she tells in this, her second book).

Margaret Register has done a great service to the body of Christ in writing A Place for People, Puppets, and Cockroach Soup. She excels in painting delightful and vivid word pictures so that you, the reader, feel you are there with her as she walks through each dramatic story. This is truly an authentic account of the good, the bad, and the miraculous in the life of a dedicated missionary family. This book is a must read!

Reviewed by Juanita Cunningham Blackburn, Assemblies of God missionary

Paperback, 273 pages. $17.99 retail. Also available in Kindle. Order from: Amazon.

Collection of PTL Club Tapes, held by the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center, Springfield, Missouri

The Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (the official archives of the Assemblies of God) is pleased to announce that it is partnering with The Mansion, a theater in Branson, Missouri, to digitize and make accessible music and other programming recorded on the PTL Club television broadcast (1974-1989). The PTL Club, hosted by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, included appearances by notable Pentecostal pastors, evangelists, missionaries, and musicians. The programs were recorded on high-quality film and constitute an unparalleled treasure trove of footage of many heroes of the faith who have since went to be with the Lord.

The Assemblies of God was given legal title to the collection of 20,160 PTL Club tapes following the 1989 bankruptcy proceedings relating to the PTL Club. However, before the Assemblies of God took physical possession of the property, approximately 6,000 tapes from the collection were removed. Anyone who has knowledge of the location of these missing tapes is requested to contact Darrin Rodgers, Director of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center:

Darrin Rodgers, J.D.
Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
1445 N. Boonville Ave.
Springfield, MO 65802
(417) 862-2781, ext. 4400
drodgers@ag.org

Abraham, John. Living in the Supernatural Dimension: Right Choice Now—Best Life Forever. [Laurence M. Van Kleek, Editor]. Bloomington, IN: WestBow Press, 2012.

A new autobiography of missionary evangelist John Abraham, Living in the Supernatural Dimension, shares the story of his worldwide ministry that has extended over six decades. The ministry of Abraham, who is ordained by the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, can be divided into two segments: during his first 35 years his focus was in the Western world; during the past 26 years Abraham and his wife, Shirley, have focused on global missions.

Born in Northern Ireland to Plymouth Brethren parents, Abraham was converted to Christ as a child and filled with the Holy Spirit as a teenager. He was personally tutored by renowned Brethren biblical scholar Dr. F. F. Bruce. Since childhood Abraham had a passion to win people to Christ. He was a child preacher and later became loved as a pastor’s pastor around the world.

In one of his many providential “forks in the road” Abraham left Ireland to study in a Pentecostal Bible college in Canada. Upon graduation he became an associate evangelist in the United Kingdom for six years with John Wesley White, who later served as an associate evangelist of Billy Graham. Abraham has a deep passion for the gospel, which he internalized. God has worked throughout Abraham’s ministry through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. From the time that he ministered on the streets of Northern Ireland as a teenager God used John in all of the gifts of the Spirit recorded in 1st Corinthians 12—especially the gifts of healings and the working of miracles.

In one humorous anecdote, Abraham recalled that, after a revival meeting in Southeast Asia, the organizers had to pay a surcharge to a clean-up company, because of the large quantity of crutches, braces and wheelchairs that had been left on the rented field. Abraham noted that all he could do was stand by in amazement and watch the miracles occur.

David R. Wells, General Superintendent of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, wrote the preface. Laurence M. Van Kleek served as editor and also wrote the foreword. Living in the Supernatural Dimension is inspiring and challenging Christian reading and will be particularly well-received by charismatics and Pentecostals.

Submitted by Laurence M. Van Kleek, MDIV, MA, MLS
Van Kleek serves as Librarian/Administrator of Summit Pacific College (Abbotsford, BC Canada)

Paperback, 297 pages. $22.95 retail. Also available in hardcover and Kindle. Order from: Amazon.com