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2.1 How Did the Pentecostal Movement Come to Canada?
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The unorganized spread does not surprise me. The Holy Spirit was poured out on those who prayed in earnest and sought deep relationship with Jesus. This was the invitation the Holy Spirit waited for. The Holy Spirit did not choose based on race, gender, age or status instead it was all about the heart. People have prejudices, preconceptions and presumptions of how things should be done, and this could have made it difficult to keep the focus on Jesus and off all of these other concerns. There are a few reasons they would begin to organize, one would be to keep it going. When you are excited about something, if you have another person that is excited about it too then it is easy to stay excited, but when you are excited and no one else is it dwindles. Others who experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit understood the experience and could encourage one another on. Another reason is we learn so much from each other organically without even realizing it, when we close ourselves off, we lose that. These connections strengthen us and build us up.
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I'm not really surprised by the unorganized spread of Pentecostalism in its early days in Canada, as the people involved had legitimate concerns about how organizing could actually stifle the work of the Holy Spirit that they were trying to spread. I would imagine that the resistance hindered the spread of Pentecostalism in Canada, but at the same time, it likely provided more freedom and depth in the things of the Spirit. My guess is that Pentecostals eventually began to organize themselves out of a "strength in numbers" concept. Perhaps they felt they could achieve greater impact by becoming united.
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As I’ve known much already about the unorganized origins of the pentecostal movement in Canada, it didn’t surprise me. I imagine that it helped the spread of pentecostalism as there was a little less “red tape” involved as well as more people being activated as ministers. I imagine that they became organized eventually for the same reasons that most movements do. A movement that gets bigger and bigger without any organization will come to a point where it can’t sustain itself–issues come up that need oversight and order. For instance, accountability among ministers is very difficult when there’s no level of organization or oversight. My guess is that as the movement became bigger and bigger, issues requiring order would become harder to ignore and more in need of structure.
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The unorganized spread of Pentecostalism does not surprise me, because of the hinderances and control that many of the church organizations placed over individuals in relation to the hunger people had, it was inevitable for the old wineskins to burst.
I think for a time it helped the growth but also hindered. With the feeling of being alienated from traditional church organizations, I feel people would distance themselves from those that were still loyal to traditional churches, creating barriers to reaching loyalists. As well, focusing so much on what God was doing in their own circle would hinder further sharpening, accountability and greater blessing.
In the end I believe Pentecostals recognized that having a larger united voice caries a greater ability to have an authoritative voice and be taken more seriously by other organizations as well as many other benefits.
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