“Make Way for the Holy Ghost”

James Menzie (1899-1986) served to establish the framework for the Gatherings of God in the Upper Midwest in the 1920s. In a 1943 Pentecostal Evangel article, he related his initial days as a Pentecostal pioneer furthermore offered a cautioning of what he called “an emergency in Pentecost.”

The Pentecostal development, as per Menzie, “was conceived of the Sacred Soul.” He portrayed the Pentecostal restoration at the turn of the twentieth century as a sovereign move of God and not coordinated by any one author. Right away, little gatherings of individuals would assemble in homes to beg. God’s energy was showed and individuals acknowledged Christ, were recuperated, and were absolved in the Heavenly Soul. Adherents composed houses of worship that, notwithstanding restriction, developed to constitute one of the quickest developing fragments inside American Christianity.

Menzie communicated concern over what he saw to be a decrease in profound enthusiasm in a few quarters of the Pentecostal development. He reviewed in prior years that individuals went to chapel with extraordinary desire, pondering what God would do in the administration. He deplored that a few chapels had ended up as well “formal” and no more appeared to have space for unforeseen signs of the Heavenly Soul.

This profound decay, in Menzie’s estimation, was the appalling consequence of “enthusiasm.” Fan, he composed, are frequently overall genuine individuals who permit their energy to legitimize “absurd things that damage instead of further the reason for Jesus Christ.” A few Pentecostals, in dismissing silly conduct, additionally dismisses veritable moves of the Heavenly Soul.

Menzie finished up his article with this rebuke: “Let the Sacred Apparition be unrestricted in our lives and our gatherings. I don’t mean, for a minute, to give any breathing space to enthusiasm… I accept that God needs to show Himself in our middle and in our lives, and in the event that we have ears to listen, we will hear His voice…