a contextual missiology of the spirit - eTheses Repository ...

Christianity as old as Christianity itself. Although many Pentecostal missionaries
came from the West, they were independent missionaries (mainly North
American), and many of them became Pentecostals in India itself. They played
little part in these indigenous revivals. It was concluded that western Pentecostal
missionaries made two major contributions. First, they identified the Spirit
revivals in India as Pentecostal in nature by assisting local participants to
understand that their Spirit experiences were similar to those of the early Christian
community in Acts as well as of other Pentecostals around the globe. Second, they
played an important role in the institutionalization of the revival movement. As
the movement began to expand rapidly with the increasing involvement of
indigenous people, western missionaries enabled Indian Pentecostals to organize
the movement in a more systematic way.
Chapter three showed that Pentecostalism in Rajasthan was part of existing
Christianity in the state and was closely related to similar Spirit revivals already
occurring across India. As missionary zeal was one of the most remarkable
characteristics of the early Pentecostal movement in India, the missionary ripples
of the Spirit revival took the Pentecostal message to several parts of the nation,
including Rajasthan. This chapter challenged the view that Pentecostalism in
Rajasthan is a religious movement from south India. The Pentecostal message was
introduced and the first Pentecostal church was already established in Rajasthan
by north Indian Pentecostals well before the south Indians began Pentecostal
mission in the state. There was a local Spirit revival in existence, as well as a
rising thirst for spirituality among existing Christians, when Pentecostal
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