Elim’s
birth was extraordinary. The year was 1915. It could hardly have been a less
promising time as the nation was feeling the full horrors of the First World
War. In Monaghan, Ireland, a small group of young men had invited welsh
evangelist George Jeffreys to hold some meetings. Their fervour and faith drew
him and, on 7 January 1915, in the Temperance Hall the Elim Evangelistic Band
was formed to spread the Christian gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit to Ireland
and beyond.
George
Jeffreys hailed from Maesteg in South Wales. He had been converted in the 1904
Welsh revival and baptised in the Spirit some three years later. With his older
brother Stephen he had begun to preach a “full gospel” message with significant
results. God blessed his ministry with many converts and a growing number of
people were filled with the Holy Spirit and many were miraculously healed in
the meetings. This resulted in George being invited to the popular Sunderland
Convention in 1913 where he received the invitation to Ireland.
Quickly
other men and women gathered to Jeffreys and the emerging Elim work. Many of
them were young, some barely out of their teens. Yet they were caught up in what
they believed to be a fresh wave of the Holy Spirit which so many had been
praying and believing for. With no plan to start a denomination, the Elim Team
planned campaigns and outreaches in town after town and city after city. This
growing group of Pentecostal believers found fresh identity not just in the
exciting brand of meetings and methods with which they had been reached for
Christ but in their experience of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, attested to
by speaking in tongues and in the miracles and healings which were a regular
feature of so many of their meetings.
George
Jeffreys chose the name Elim for the new movement following the practice in his
home of Wales of giving churches biblical names and also after the Elim Mission
he had visited in Lytham, Lancashire.
The
many Elim converts were often not welcome in other churches. The first Elim
Church was opened in 1916 in Hunter Street, Belfast in a former laundry. Soon
afterwards a more suitable building was found in Melbourne Street, Belfast. This
would be the hub of the growing Elim work in Ireland for the next few years.
They purchased a large tent to hold evangelistic campaigns, they looked for
suitable buildings to gather the new converts and they sought every opportunity
to reach people for Christ and pioneer new churches. By 1920 there were 15 Elim
Churches in Ireland and 21 recognised Elim ministers. The Elim Evangel, first
published in 1919, began to tell the larger story of what God was doing through
these Elim pioneers as well as sharing personal testimonies from many who were
converted and healed.
During
these years Jeffreys regularly preached all over Britain but he did not
establish his first church outside Ireland until 1921, at Leigh on Sea, Essex.
A number of other churches began to join the Elim movement including
independent Pentecostal fellowships in Dowlais, Wales and Vazon, Guernsey. In
1922 George moved to Clapham, London where the Elim Team began to establish a
new church and a ministry base. They opened administrative offices and began to
look at the growing needs of the increasing numbers of churches and ministers
as well as the challenge of evangelising a nation.
By
1924 they had opened the first Elim Bible School at Clapham to train young men
and women for the ministry. They had also launched a Publishing House, a
correspondence course to train up church workers and an overseas missions
department which had begun sending Pentecostal missionaries across the world.
From
1926, Jeffreys and his evangelistic team accelerated their efforts to reach the
towns and cities of Britain. Typically they went into a city with little or no
advertising and met in a church building or hired public hall. As the meetings
progressed people would begin to accept Christ and there would often be a
dramatic healing, news would spread fast around the area, numbers would
increase and they would move from hall to hall to accommodate the huge crowds.
Often the meetings would make the local and even the national papers. In
Plymouth, Hull, Southampton, Carlisle, Glasgow, Dundee, Leeds and scores of
other centres, thousands upon thousands turned to Christ and strong Elim
churches were left behind.
In
1929 Jeffreys returned to his native Wales. In Cardiff from 22 September 22 he
began what became 51 nights of meetings attracting a total 150,000 people with
over 3,000 converts. In Swansea the very next night he started a further 6 week
campaign which would see over 2,000 decisions. One man, Glyn Thomas, was
remarkably healed in one of the meetings. Glyn was a hunchback who sold
newspapers in the city centre. His healing had a profound effect on the whole
city.
In
Birmingham in 1930 the Elim team opened meetings in a church off the city
centre with just a handful of people. Yet within weeks they were filling the
celebrated Town Hall. Eventually, they would pack the vast Bingley Halls and
leave over 10,000 converts.
Whilst
George Jeffreys was the founding leader and evangelist, Elim was no one man
band. There was gathered “to Elim” an exceptional group of men and women who
lived radical and sacrificial lives to spread the flame of Pentecost. One such
man was James Goreham. Impacted by the Southampton campaign in 1928, James
returned to his home town of Romsey in Hampshire and started an Elim church. He
went on to open four others including churches in Andover and Salisbury. James
Goreham died at the age of 26 from tuberculosis. His Elim collegaues mourned
his loss but rejoiced in all that he had accomplished for Christ in such a
short time.
From
1926, the Elim movement had gathered every Easter at the Royal Albert Hall and
held large scale Celebration meetings which they called “Demonstrations”. This
showed their fervent expectancy that God was demonstrating His grace and His
love and that Elim people were caught up in something of great relevance for
every man woman and child. By 1936, the 21 year old Elim family gathered at the
Crystal Palace to give thanks for all that God had done in birthing and
establishing the Elim Movement. They came in their thousands, testifying to
lives changed and communities impacted by the life changing gospel. With
choirs, orchestras, brass bands and a mighty congregation they sang, they
praised, they testified and they prayed that what had been established would
not simply be maintained but would mature and grow.
It
had not been easy for these early Elim pioneers. At first they had been moved
by their experience of the gospel message and the power of the Holy Spirit.
They had launched out with confidence that God would equip them at every stage.
Yet they had faced much opposition, not least from liberal churches and fellow
Christians who were hostile to the Pentecostal message and experience. Yet,
they had see God move in them and through them to the point where there were
new Elim churches across the nation.
As
well as practical and organisational challenges within the Elim movement, the
coming years would see the ravages of another World War and a dramatically
altered social and spiritual climate which would change the landscape for
Christian outreach and evangelism as they had known it.
Yet
the Elim movement would move, season by season, with a deep conviction that God
had birthed Elim for a purpose. So, they would return again and again to the
pioneering values and practices – the DNA – which had characterised those very
small beginnings
.
I have become an avid reader (well I’ve always been an avid reader) of
our Direction Magazine, and one of our retired Pastors, Pastor John
Lancaster writes a regular article called “And Finally” and in the
January 2015 copy of Direction. Pastor Lancaster writes these inspiring,
challenging and encouraging words.
“ Where do we go from here…. Elim must continue to be
Christ-centred, preaching and practising the Foursquare Gospel of Jesus
Christ as Saviour, Healer, Baptiser and Coming King, She must continue to
be unashamedly Pentecostal, in practice as well as doctrine…. At a time
when evangelicals are ambivalent about some doctrines of the faith, she must
continue to submit to the authority of the Scriptures. She must be moved
increasingly with compassion for a broken world and seek to minister to those
deep needs in whatever form it takes. Above all, Elim must seek to glorify the
Lord Jesus. Her supreme task is not to be ‘successful’ in human terms,
but to be a community of humble men and women who walk with God and respond to
the promptings of the Word and the Holy Spirit wherever that may take them.”
Jesus the Saviour, Jesus the Healer, Jesus the baptiser in the Holy Spirit, and Jesus the Coming King : The Four Square Gospel.
