The Philippines General Council of the Assemblies of God, or Philippines AG, is a pentecostal church denomination based in the Philippines.
History
Early beginnings
The first missionary of the
Assemblies of God in the United States of America to work in the Philippines was Benjamin H. Caudle and his wife, who arrived in 1926. However, due to his wife's illness, Caudle was forced to return to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
.
In the 1930s,
Filipinos
Filipinos ( tl, Mga Pilipino) are the people who are citizens of or native to the Philippines. The majority of Filipinos today come from various Austronesian ethnolinguistic groups, all typically speaking either Filipino, English and/or othe ...
who had graduated from
Assemblies of God Bible schools began requesting that the denomination send an appointed missionary to organize the church there. At the time, the Philippines was an
American protectorate. Therefore, legally, the AG needed a missionary appointed by the U.S. body to be registered as a religious organization.
Mission planted
In December 1939, the Assemblies of God USA responded by sending a missionary, Leland E. Johnson, to organize and superintend the Philippines District Council of the Assemblies of God.
The first convention was held in March 1940 at Villasis, Pangasinan, and the Council was incorporated on June 19 that same year.
[Seleky, 273.] Other missionaries would arrive, especially from
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, as conflict with
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
escalated. In 1941, the Bethel Bible Institute was opened in
Baguio
Baguio ( ,
), officially the City of Baguio ( ilo, Siudad ti Baguio; fil, Lungsod ng Baguio), is a 1st class highly urbanized city in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Philippines. It is known as the "Summer Capital of the Philippines", ...
to train pastors and evangelists.
[Seleky, 275.]
World War II
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Japanese military forces
occupied the Philippines. The Bible institute, like all schools, was closed, and the missionaries were interned. During these years, the district was led entirely by Filipinos.
After the war
After the war, the missionary presence was revived and the Bethel Bible Institute was reopened. Immanuel Bible Institute in
Cebu City
Cebu City, officially the City of Cebu ( ceb, Dakbayan sa Sugbo; fil, Lungsod ng Cebu; hil, Dakbanwa sang Sugbo), is a 1st class Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, highly urbanized city in the Central Visayas Regions of the P ...
was founded in 1951, and in 1953, Bethesda Children's Home was founded by Elva Vanderbout, a missionary to the
Igorots
The indigenous peoples of the Cordillera Mountain Range of northern Luzon, Philippines are often referred to using the exonym Igorot people, or more recently, as the Cordilleran peoples. There are nine main ethnolinguistic groups whose domains ar ...
of the
Mountain Province
Mountain Province is a landlocked province of the Philippines in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon. Its capital is Bontoc. Mountain Province was formerly referred to as ''Mountain'' in some foreign references. The name is usually short ...
in Northern
Luzon
Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as ...
.
[Seleky, 279-280.] In 1958, it had 12,022 members.
[ Denise A. Austin, Jacqueline Grey, and Paul W. Lewis, ''Asia Pacific Pentecostalism'', Brill, Netherlands, 2019, p. 231]
References
External links
Official website*
*
{{AOG
Assemblies of God National Fellowships
Evangelicalism in the Philippines
Religious organizations established in 1940
Pentecostal denominations in Asia