As we come to Pentecost Sunday 2025 it is time to return Pentecost to the people

If you have any interest in the well being of the World Christian movement, then it's hard not to care about the 600 million-strong Pentecostal-Charismatic movement. Not only does it constitute a quarter of global Christianity, but in the Global South in particular, mainstream evangelicalism is increasingly adopting a Pentecostal flavor—taking on its practices and ministry ethos. Pentecostals are not simply a part of the story; they are shaping the direction of much of it.

My journey into the Pentecostal movement

My personal story of faith is intertwined with the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement in Africa. I came to Christ at college through the ministry of the Student Christian Organization of Malawi (SCOM), an affiliate of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, which was characterized by fervent spirituality the palpable presence of the Holy Spirit and the manifestation of His gifts.  

I felt an inexplicable desire to experience this God.

As an unbeliever walking past their meetings, I sensed the presence of God in their singing and worship, and I felt an inexplicable desire to experience this God that seemed to be inhabiting the praises of these people. Thus, when the gospel was explained to me and I came to know Christ, I immediately went to find “my people” and SCOM became the charismatic faith community in which I was nurtured.

After college, I officially joined a Pentecostal church and sensing a call to ministry, also enrolled in a Pentecostal Bible school. Over the years, my involvement in Pentecostalism grew beyond Malawi to include teaching and mentoring students in Pentecostal universities and seminaries in multiple countries.

Today, I serve as Chairperson of the Association for Pentecostal Theological Education in Africa (APTEA)—a quality assurance focused, multi-denominational network of over 120 Bible schools and seminaries from every region of the continent, including North Africa.

This experience in leadership development has enabled me to have a window into Pentecostalism across Africa, and from my vantage point, I see reason for optimism. 

The vibrancy of the African church, the thousands of students enrolling every year in our Bible schools-eager to be properly equipped to fulfill their ministry-and the Pentecostal churches of all descriptions making a major positive impact for the gospel in their communities, cities, and nations are all reasons for hope. In short, I am greatly encouraged.

Challenges facing the movement

And yet, in every great move of God there are tares among the wheat. It is therefore no surprise that in the current movement there are serious challenges that must be acknowledged.

As a committed African Pentecostal, I hesitate to publicly critique the movement that I love, in part because of the tendency some have to dismiss the church in Africa as being “an inch deep and a mile wide,” or to caricature Pentecostalism in general as a heretical prosperity movement.

See www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/african-pastors-saying-no-to-prosperity-theology/ for an example of wholesale caricature of the Pentecostal movement in the context of Nairobi.

It cannot be denied that there are internal problems in African Pentecostalism.

I don’t want to in any way validate such claims, which are often not based on exegetical critique but rather evaluation against particular theological-cultural traditions. However, it cannot be denied that there are internal problems in African Pentecostalism that threaten its spiritual well-being and missional faithfulness.

Perhaps, chief among my concerns, is the trend toward increasing centralization of power in church hierarchies—or worse, in individual men and women of God.

While it may be too much to say this characterizes the entire movement, it is not too much to say it has become commonplace. Too often, the leader is not just a minister—he or she is the minister, defining the culture of the ministry and embodying its identity. This is an identity that has been entrusted to the entirety of the body of Christ to carry, not to select individuals.

While most leaders exercise their duties diligently and humbly, there are far too many examples of those who have taken advantage of this centralization of power—or perhaps even encouraged it and fostered leadership cults. We have allowed for a new category of “super Apostles” such as Paul battled in Corinth to become the focus of attention and to carry the privilege of doing the work of the ministry. Our Pentecostal distinctives are in danger of being choked.

Renewing the spirit of Pentecost

The Pentecost event broke from the Old Testament model of centralized anointing on a single leader.

At Pentecost, the Spirit was poured out not on one person, but on all believers. As Peter proclaimed, it is an experience for everyone—young or old, male or female (Acts 2:14-21). The Pentecost event broke from the Old Testament model of centralized anointing on a single leader or category of leaders and inaugurated a new era of Spirit-empowerment for the whole community of God's people, just as Moses had once longed for (Numbers 11:29).

In classical Pentecostal understanding, what happened on the day of Pentecost was not merely symbolic—it was the inauguration of a paradigm meant to endure in every generation.

Yet too many have forgotten the vibrancy of our Pentecostal forebears: laypeople reading and interpreting Scripture, engaging in Spirit-filled ministry, and boldly being witnesses for Christ. In many cases, we have replaced this with a clerical elite that more closely resembles pre-reformation Europe than the Acts 2 community that we have always held up as being the ideal. We need to take a step back and reflect on how far we have come-and where we are in danger.

We need a Pentecostal reformation.

In the run-up to Pentecost Sunday therefore, I call on my fellow African Pentecostals to acknowledge that we need a Pentecostal reformation.

We need a renewed vision of ministry in the spirit of Ephesians 4, in which the leaders of the church view their primary role being the equipping of the saints for the ministry, not the centralization of ministry around themselves.

We need a fresh commitment to the truth that all of God’s people are called to be his witnesses. We need to return the power of the Spirit to where it belongs-to the people.

Our first loyalty must be to Christ—and only secondarily to the systems we serve in, or to leaders we serve under.

If we return to our biblical and historical roots, the future of the movement is even more promising than our past. Can you imagine the future of the Pentecostal movement in Africa if it returns to this kind of fidelity? Already, the church is vibrant and rich in human resources.

What if that resource were deliberately empowered in the true spirit of Pentecost? It would unleash movement of tens of millions of marketplace ministers, lay church planters, missionaries, evangelists, pastors—all kinds of workers for the mission of God across the globe.

Realizing this vision requires a spiritual and practical shift. Making this kind of shift also requires being counter-cultural, resisting both popular modes of ministry in the church and templates of ministry from the world. It therefore requires being courageous, but boldness in the face of daunting challenges to witness is what the anointing of the Spirit brings (Acts 4:31).

This Pentecost, let us begin a Pentecostal reformation—renewing the movement and becoming in practice what we have long claimed in name.

Andrew Mkwaila is a cross-cultural church planter, a theological educator, and an ordained minister under the Malawi Assemblies of God. He is a reflective-practitioner of missions, a specialist in missions leadership, pastoral ministry & missions scholarship. Andrew has a Doctorate of Intercultural Studies from Fuller Seminary.