This Week in AG History — July 19, 1913

This week marks the 110th year of the founding of the Pentecostal Evangel.

Over the years, the Pentecostal Evangel witnessed numerous changes. Launched as The Christian Evangel in 1913, the magazine’s title changed five times, and the place of publication changed three times. Publishing the weekly magazine was quite an undertaking. To lessen the cost and workload, the magazine was only published every other week from 1918 to 1923. The magazine ceased print publication at the end of 2014. AG News, the online news source for the Assemblies of God, continues on in the legacy of the Pentecostal Evangel.

J. Roswell and Alice Flower established the Christian Evangel to report on revivals and missions activities and published it out of their home in Plainfield, Indiana. The first issue, dated July 19, 1913, featured interracial content. Three articles were by or about G.T. Haywood, the African American pastor of the largest Pentecostal congregation in Indianapolis.

The Flowers selected a masthead for the magazine, loosely based on Ephesians 4, that remains relevant 110 years later: “The simplicity of the Gospel, In the bonds of peace, The unity of the Spirit, Till we all come to the unity of the faith.” Their call to unity implicitly recognized that their readers did not yet have “unity of the faith” — that disagreement existed on some matters. In the meantime, they affirmed that believers should aim for “unity of the Spirit.”

This language recognizing spiritual unity amidst diversity was included in the preamble of the constitution adopted by the first General Council of the Assemblies of God in April 1914. Flower later believed the aspiration, “Till we all come to the unity of the faith,” was at least in part fulfilled when the Assemblies of God adopted its Statement of Fundamental Truths in 1916.

Also at the April 1914 meeting, J. Roswell Flower was elected to serve as the first general secretary of the Assemblies of God. The Flowers gave their magazine to the newly formed Assemblies of God. E.N. Bell, the first chairman, also gave his magazine, Word and Witness, to the new organization. The two periodicals merged in January 1916. The title changed in 1919 to Pentecostal Evangel, and under that name the periodical became one of the most prominent publications in the Pentecostal movement.

Today, AG News is the official news source of the Assemblies of God and continues to network believers around the world.

Click here to read the first issue of the Christian Evangel.

Click here to read Ken Horn’s engaging history of the Pentecostal Evangel, published in the 2013 edition of Assemblies of God Heritage magazine.

Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.