ABSTRACT
This chapter argues instead that the Latter Rain Movement (LRM) has been formative for global, Spirit-filled Christianity since the 1970s, that aspects of global Pentecostalism today have their roots in the LRM, and that the LRM raises methodological and historiographic issues regarding the study of global Pentecostalism. The LRM reimagined the structure and governance of the church. Leaders directed attention to the biblical mention of five church offices conferred in the aftermath of Christ's ascension, viz., apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. From the outset, LRM teachers held that Christian denominationalism was contrary to God's will and that the earlier Pentecostal movement had failed in its God-given mandate to renew the whole of Christendom when it chose to organize itself into denominations. Lasting divisions in congregations or denominations may be mostly about personality and property rather than theology and ideology.
