| Main Performers | Pastor George Jeffreys - speaker |
| Performance Notes | "'GOSPEL' MEETING AT ALBERT HALL.
10,000 WORSHIPPERS.
About 10,000 people attended the fourth annual demonstration of the Four-Square Gospel movement at the Albert Hall yesterday. Some waited from seven a.m. until the doors opened in the early afternoon.
There were scenes of religious fervour, and when Pastor George Jeffreys asked for converts twenty persons held up their hands. Sixty-six testified that they had been cured of cancer and other crippling diseases."
(The Daily Telegraph, 2 April 1928)
The Elim Pentecostal Church is a movement of Christian congregations in the UK and Ireland, founded in 1915 by George Jeffreys (1889-1962). From 1915-1934, Jeffreys was extremely active as a revivalist, and preached to large crowds throughout the United Kingdom. His church was brought together, first as the Elim Evangelistic Band, but this was changed to Elim Foursquare Gospel Alliance when the Deed Poll was registered in April 1934. The name 'Elim' was taken from the account in the Book of Exodus, chapter 15, verse 27, where the Israelites, leaving the bondage of Egypt under the leadership of Moses, found an oasis called Elim: "Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees; so they camped there by the waters." This represented a place of refreshing and it was thought appropriate for a revival movement at that time.
Differences of opinion over Jeffreys' open espousal of British Israelism and disputes on church governance led Jeffreys to withdraw from the Elim Pentecostal Church in 1939 and to form the Bible-Pattern Church Fellowship. The presidency of Elim then passed to George Kingston, a wealthy businessman who had founded many of the Elim congregations in Essex.
The baptism of believers by immersion and Communion are held to be ordinances by the Church. Kensington Temple in London is the largest church in the denomination. Elim missions exist in 35 countries with hospitals, orphanages, and schools. The church operates Regents Theological College in Malvern, Worcestershire, where the movement's headquarters are also based. |