Mario G.
Hoover wrote the following article by request. It appeared in the
Assemblies of God Heritage Magazine, Fall l988, twelve years
before his translation of W.C. Hoover's History of the Pentecostal
Revival in Chile...... Ordering information follows the
article.
My grandfather, Willis C. Hoover, was a Methodist Episcopal pastor
in Valparaiso, Chile, with a growing congregation of 800 members
when he first felt the winds of the Pentecostal revival.
Always a devout man, sensitive to
the Spirit, he had been inspired by reports from David Livingstone
to offer himself as a missionary to Africa. When the mission board
countered with an assignment to Chile, he accepted it as God's
will. Although it meant leaving his practice as a homeopathic
physician in the Chicago area, both he and his young wife were
commited to a life of service as the Lord would direct. They
arrived in Chile in 1889.
Word of the Pentecostal outpouring
in 1906 at the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles reached him in
his pastorate in Valparaiso. It fired his interest and he began
studing the Bible in earnest. That year, providentially, the
Sunday school lessons were in the Book of Acts. He called his
family together for special times of prayer for
revival.
About that time my grandmother,
Mae (Hilton) Hoover, received a letter from Minnie Abrams, who had
been her roomate at Moody Bible Institute. Minnie had received the
Pentecostal Experience at Azusa Street Mission and had gone to
India as a missionary. There she worked with Pandita Ramabai, an
Indian woman who had also received the Baptism. All this changed
the congregational prayer pattern. I recall my grandfather telling
while kneeling on the platform one evening, he became aware of
united prayer instead of one at a time as the Methodist custom
was. Curious, he opened his eyes to observe his congregation when
it was in spontaneous prayer as "the sound of many
waters."
Evangelism, both in the church and
by personal witnessing took on fresh meaning and thrust. It was at
this point that practice of street preaching began. I participated
in many such meetings in Valparaiso while growing up. And even
though my grandfather has been gone more than 50 years, street
meetings are still a trademark and a major contributing factor to
the phenomenal growth of the Chilean Pentecostal
Church.
During the annual Conference of
the Methodist Episcopal Church of Chile, held at Temuco in 1909,
Bishop F.M. Bristol came face to face with the "problem" of
Pentecost. He had been directed to conduct an investigation and to
try to persuade my grandfather to abandon what the church leaders
saw as intolerable error in doctrine and practice.
Doctor Hoover received his
superior courteously, but he could neither deny the Pentecostal
experience nor stop the flow of the Spirit. The church then
receive an ultimatum: either he would cease from Pentecostal
activities and stop teaching the doctrin, or he would be dismissed
from the Methodist Episcopal Church.
But while he left the Methodist
Church, my grandfather made it plane that he was still a follower
of John Wesley. Accordingly, the Pentecostal church retained and
still holds to the Methodist Disipline, form of church government,
and major doctrines, along with the Pentecostal
experience.
The new Pentecostal Methodist
church grew rapidly from the beginning, drawing both on the
Methodist community and from the population at large.
The Pentecostal movenment grew
rapidly in Chile, but the young indigenous church was not without
problems. In fact, the last four years of his life were very
painful for my grandfather. He saw the church split mainly over
his insistence on a concecrated, Spirit-filled life, separated
from what he saw as worldly tendencies. His Methodist discipline
showed. He saw things in black or white, right or wrong. On
spiritual matters he could not compromise. When sin appeared among
members or fellow ministers, it had to be dealt with summarily.
The offenders were cut off from the church for a season until
repentance was manifest.
When the church split in 1933 -
34, the group that left, being more knowledgeable about such
things, managed to take the name "Iglesia Metodista Pentecostal"
as well as the name of the church's periodical, Chile Pentecostal
. So my grandfather had to come up with new names. He called the
church the "Iglesia Evangelica Pentecostal," and the new
periodical, Fuego de Pentecostes (Fire of Pentecost). It is still
published monthly. Both branches of the church, along with many
smaller groups, have spread throughout Chile.
Mario G. Hoover is a grandson of Dr. Willis G. Hoover. He came to
the United States in 1944 to attend Central Bible College. He
later taught school in Springfield, Missouri. His wife Elva was
A/G national secretary for Women's Ministries (1975 - 85). They
live in Lakeland, Florida.
History
of the Pentecostal Revival in
Chile
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