"Whom Shall We Send and Who Will Go for Us?" The Empowerment of the Holy Spirit for Early Pentecostal Female Missionaries

Abstract

The first generation of female Pentecostals (approximately 1906-1925) helped spread the gospel and the baptism of the Holy Spirit around the world. This dissertation examines the culture, theology, and praxis of late nineteenth-century Evangelicalism and early twentieth-century American Pentecostalism, especially the Assemblies of God, to study these early Pentecostal women and their missionary service.

Early Pentecostal female career missionaries considered their empowerment through the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a significant factor in their missionary calling, commissioning, and conduct. These women seized opportunities to evangelize, disciple converts, and provide humanitarian care. They persevered on the foreign fields to overcome spiritual opposition, physical dangers, emotional hardships, and cultures resistant to women’s ministry at home and abroad.

Qualitative theological and historical research methodologies were employed through comparison of primary documents, existing historiographies, and historical scholarship. Findings and implications of this dissertation will inform future scholarship of early Pentecostalism and provide patterns of empowerment by the Spirit that may encourage current missionaries.