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GIRL, 10, FUNDS AFRICAN WELLSPAGE 4

CHURCH REWARDS MISSIONARY CANDIDATES PAGE 3 • HELPING FORGE NEW LIFE IN STEEL CITY PAGE 5 • SOMETHING

SUPERNATURAL: WORLD MISSIONS SUMMIT PAGE 5 • THIS WEEK IN AG HISTORY PAGE 8

IMPROMPTU GIFT COMES FULL CIRCLEPAGE 6

A CALLING BIGGER THAN BASEBALLPAGE 7

A COLLECTION OF THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES FROM PENEWS.ORG

SUNDAY,OCT. 30,2016

THIS WEEK IN AG HISTORYBY GLENN W. GOHR

Myer Pearlman (1898-1943) was one of the foremost educators and writers in the early Pentecostal movement. Born in Scotland, he moved with his family to England when he was 7.

He immigrated to the United States (New York) in 1915 and enlisted in the Army Medical Corps when he was 19. After the war he moved to California where one night he felt drawn inside the Glad Tidings Mission (now Glad Tidings Church) in San Francisco. After several months of attending the church, Pearlman converted to Christ and was baptized in the Holy Spirit.

He graduated from Central Bible Institute (CBI) in Springfield, Missouri,

in 1925, and was immediately asked to join the faculty.

Pearlman, a prolific writer, was a premier Assemblies of God theologian in systematic theology of his era. He is best known for his synthesis classes on the Old Testament and New Testament. He was fluent in Hebrew, Greek, French, Spanish, and Italian.

Well-loved by his co-workers and by the faculty and students at CBI, Pearlman, unfortunately, died at the age of 44.

Read Myer Pearlman’s article, “Christian Growth,” on page 9 of the Oct. 27, 1934, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel online at s2.ag.org/oct271934.

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A CAMPUS AND CITY LAUNCH PAGE 2

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During the years Eli Stewart served on Chi Alpha Campus Ministries staff at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, 165 of the interns from that school went on to full-time ministry, 84 percent of them in other Chi Alpha chapters across the nation.

Twenty became Assemblies of God world missionaries. Yet only five of those Sam Houston interns ended up ministering in local churches.

Stewart saw a troubling statistic. While a vibrant, growing local church is essential to sending more missionaries, only 3 percent of the nation’s largest Chi Alpha program’s interns ministered in local congregations.

Clearly, there needed to be a greater emphasis on planting congregations. Even so, Stewart and his wife, Mandy, sensed the Holy Spirit calling them to relaunch a Chi Alpha campus ministry at the flagship campus of America’s fourth-largest university, Texas A&M in College Station.

Then the AG North Texas District approached Stewart’s team to do something never tried before: simultaneously start a Chi Alpha

chapter connected to a church plant. It sounded daunting. “We felt presumptuous even having

ideas,” Stewart says. Yet at the same time, the concept

seemed intriguing, as did the latitude that the district offered Stewart and his team in starting a church connected to the Texas A&M Chi Alpha chapter.

“I just feel like the Lord wants us to try,” says Stewart, an Assemblies of God U.S. missionary.

Then he discovered that College Station was among the top 10 most populated cities in the United States without an AG congregation.

So in March, through the Church Multiplication Network, the Stewarts will launch Mountain Valley Fellowship with 14 missionary associates. Stewart, an Alaska native, has discovered it’s an excellent partnership as the whole church staff is missionary funded.

“We can fully focus on launching Chi Alpha and the church without having to worry about salaries,” Stewart says. The new Chi Alpha is up and running with 25 small group leaders, including staff. Each small group has an average attendance of five, he says.

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T H E A B C s O F S A L V A T I O N

ACCEPT that you are a sinner, and God’s punishment for yoursin is death and separation from God forever.

BELIEVE that Jesus paid God’s price for your sin when He died on the cross.

CONFESS “Jesus, I believe You are who the Bible and historydeclares Your are – the Son of God. I humble myself and surrender to You. Forgive me. Make me spiritually whole. Change my life. Amen.”

A CALLING BIGGER THAN BASEBALLBY MEL SURFACE

The abrupt end of his professional baseball career marked the beginning of God’s dream for evangelist Fred Felton III.

“All I wanted to do was play professional baseball and tell people about Jesus,” Felton says. He enjoyed a stint as a minor leaguer in the Philadelphia Phillies organization, and today he circles the globe sharing the gospel.

Felton commands attention in and out of the pulpit, and he connects with audiences of all ages, especially men and anyone interested in sports.

He attended college on a baseball scholarship. His life’s dream began to take shape, he thought, when the Philadelphia Phillies offered a minor league contract.

Felton completed one season and trained for a second in the New York-Pennsylvania Class A League. Individuals in the organization excited him with comments that they would see him in the majors within three years.

Everything changed on his 23rd birthday when a letter from the Phillies organization announced his release. Wondering why, he remembered a conditional promise he had made in prayer. He says the Holy Spirit reminded him the only way he would enter full-time ministry was if he had finished playing baseball.

After more than 20 years in ministry, Felton defines the role of the evangelist as not just to proclaim the gospel, but also to equip Christians to share and be the message. Felton makes equipping men in a local church context a ministry priority. His Empowerment Weekend events aim to help men apply biblical principles to be godly at home and in the workplace.

A CAMPUS AND CITY LAUNCHBY DEANN ALFORD

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Ten-year-old Ava Heath of Longview, Oregon, says she took water for granted until a few months ago, when she watched a video about two little girls from the Republic of the Congo, who were adopted by an Oregon family.

Though the African girls were offered dolls and iPhones, they instead kept clinging to their prized empty water bottles.

“All they wanted was the water,” observed Ava. “They didn’t want anything else.”

The two newly adopted girls had never experienced the blessing of bountiful clean water. In their country, more than 37 million people don’t have access to safe water. Ava decided she wanted to help children in Africa have potable and plentiful water.

“This is the day God told me to build a well,” Ava wrote in her journal on March 5, 2016.

Ava’s pastor told her about the Africa Oasis Project, a water initiative of Assemblies of God World Missions. Ava got excited and expressed a desire to raise the $12,000 needed to drill a well in Africa.

Rather than discourage her with the enormity of the task, her pastor, Steve Berry of Alston’s Corner Assembly of God in Rainier, and her mother, Amanda Richardson, told Ava to pray, dream, and work to see what God would do.

With the prayerful support of Alston’s Corner AG — a congregation of less than 100 regular attendees — Ava began to talk to everyone she could about Africa’s drastic need for clean water and for Jesus. Ava spoke in other churches, talked to home school chapels and business owners, operated a lemonade stand, and shared her burden on social media.

One of Ava’s largest fundraising endeavors was a taco soup supper and auction. Alston’s Corner AG hosted the productive event.

God blessed Ava’s prayers, heart, tenacity, and drive. In only six months, $12,500 had been raised. With this gift, the Africa Oasis Project will be able to drill a well “in a village, by a church, for children in Africa,” just as Ava dreamed.

When she is older, Ava says, she wants to be a missionary in Africa and go see her well.

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GIRL, 10, FUNDS AFRICAN WELLSBY MARK ALEXANDER

IN STEEL CITYBY JANET WALKER

Dan and Stephanie Cudmore launched Steel City Church one year ago on Oct. 4 in Lackawanna, New York, a city of about 18,000 known as the hub of the steel manufacturing industry for most of the 20th century.

The Cudmores’ desire is that the ministry of Steel City Church will be more about engaging the community outside its walls rather than just “having church.”

Steel City Church, which used AGTrust and Church Multiplication Network Matching Funds to help establish itself within the community, participates in prayer walks in the city, does strategic outreach events such as hot dog roasts to help them meet new people and make friends, and partners with the community for Fun Days in the Park.

“Our prayer and passion,” states Dan, “is that through Steel City Church, God will reach the unchurched and the done-churched — those that have never been exposed to the gospel and those that are out of the church, isolated, and not in relationship with a church family due to a Christless and hurtful experience.”

About 60-75 people now attend Steel City Church. “The focus of Steel City Church is to preach the gospel,” Dan says, “for it’s the power of God that transforms lives.”

MISSIONS SUMMITBY DAN VAN VEEN

Chi Alpha, AG World Missions, and AG U.S. Missions have high expectations for the upcoming World Missions Summit that will bring at least 5,000 college students, missionaries, and leaders together to focus on reaching the lost around the world, Jan. 4-7, in Houston.

Already there’s anticipation that God is going to do something powerful during The World Missions Summit (TWMS).

E. Scott Martin, senior director of National Chi Alpha Campus Ministries, says local and national Chi Alpha Campus Ministries, U.S.A., staff are stunned by what God is doing on campuses as record-shattering numbers are being reported.

“I don’t have the full numbers yet,” Martin says, “but the reports coming in are like nothing ever seen before!”

But that’s not all, Martin says earlier this year, he felt God telling him he was about to witness the greatest spiritual awakening in history.

Jeff Hartensveld, mobilization director for AGWM, shares, “I personally had a vision that there will be an open heaven over Houston on those three days and God will pour out His Spirit,” he says.

The Assemblies of God is invited to pray for TWMS for the next 10 weeks. Visit twms4.com/prayer for details.

THE WORLDSUPERNATURAL:SOMETHING

NEW LIFE HELPING FORGE

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“The Holy Spirit began weaving together a team of just the right people to be here,” Stewart says. “Everybody on the team has had some sort of supernatural confirmation or directive.”

While currently the entire staff focus is primarily Chi Alpha, eventually half the team members will focus 70 percent on the campus ministry and the rest on the church. The other half will focus 70 percent on the church.

Church Multiplication Network Director Chris Railey describes the

College Station plan as a new model. It involves launching churches as a collaboration between local churches, the district, and AG U.S. Missions, while using the untapped market of Chi Alpha students in a church plant.

“I don’t know if I’ve seen a sharper team, hungry to plant something strong in College Station, both at the college level and the city, to reach communities in a new entrepreneurial way,” says Railey, who has been director for three years.

IMPROMPTU GIFT COMES FULL CIRCLEBY JENNIFER NELSON

A contribution that a Nebraska District Assemblies of God leader and his wife donated to a stranger’s scholarship fund five years ago has turned out to be a Kingdom investment in their own children as well.

Gerardo Macias is no longer a stranger to Toby Schneckloth, Nebraska District youth director, and wife, Kim. Macias is the new Next Generations pastor at the church the Schneckloths attend in Grand Island — Northridge Assemblies of God — and a mentor to their three children in youth group.

The Schneckloths and their three children sat in a crowd of more than 10,000 people during the 2011 General Council in Phoenix. AG General Treasurer Doug E. Clay shared a story about Macias of Sachse, Texas, being called by God to be a youth pastor, but he didn’t have funds needed to attend an AG college.

Gerardo’s father, Esequiel, couldn’t work because of health reasons that left him disabled. Gerardo’s mother, Irma, focused on caring for his sister, Gladas, in a wheelchair because of medical conditions.

Clay pulled Macias on stage during

his talk and told him he would receive a full ride scholarship to Southwestern Assemblies of God University. In faith, Clay encouraged those in the audience to either text a donation or put a contribution in an offering bucket to make the scholarship possible.

The Schneckloths, who had struggled with financial constraints during college themselves, were among those who made a contribution.

In December 2015, Macias graduated from SAGU and received an offer to work with middle school youth through those in their early 30s at Northridge AG. Initially the Schneckloths didn’t recognize the new pastor as the one they had helped five years earlier. But when Macias began to share his testimony, Kim quickly remembered that night.

Macias is grateful for the opportunity to mentor the three Schneckloth children and their peers in the youth group.

“It is an honor that some of these young people see me as somebody they can trust with questions and guidance, just like I used to look up to leaders that helped me along the way,” Macias says.

Life360 Park Crest in Springfield, Missouri, recently hosted a special Sunday service and banquet for all 15 missionary candidate families who took part in the Assemblies of God U.S. Missions fall 2016 candidate orientation. The church has been honoring U.S. missionary candidates with special gifts during both the spring and fall orientation sessions for the past three years.

“We know that these candidates face challenges when raising their budget,” says Ted Cederblom, lead pastor of Life360 Park Crest.

During the service, missionaries stand on stage and receive a standing ovation from the congregation, with applause extending for several minutes.

“Even the missionaries with the most composed stage presence become overwhelmed with emotion after a while,” Cederblom says.

Following services, the candidates receive personalized banners to be used for fundraising purposes. During the banquet that follows, the church lavishes the new missionaries with a number of other presents, from Amazon gift cards to laptop computers.

Airika Blankenship, a candidate missionary in orphan care chaplaincy, planned to include a laptop and a tablet in her itineration budget, but received both items as presents at the banquet.

“This was a divine moment for me, and I was so much more confident as I began itinerating,” Blankenship says.

BY AUSTIN JACOBSCHURCH REWARDS NEW MISSIONARIES