ORU PRESS

Fasting Forward

Advancing Your Spiritual Life Through Fasting

Billy Wilson

Fasting is a spiritual discipline that draws us closer to Jesus. It is not easy, but it is worth it. In Fasting Forward, Dr. Billy Wilson shares the importance of fasting and how Christ-followers can advance their spiritual lives through practicing this ancient discipline. New generations are hungry for God and desire to connect with Him in profound ways. Revised and updated, Fasting Forward shares relevant stories and practical insight into one of the most powerful, life-changing endeavors we may attempt in our walk with God. Fasting is a discipline that must be reclaimed by today’s church, perhaps more than ever before. What would happen if we decided to stop simply marching on and waited on the Lord? Fasting positions our hearts to receive God’s directives and revelations. It produces in us a longing for Jesus, a readiness for His return, and a sensitivity to His presence among us now. The Holy Spirit is ready to work through today’s church in fresh, dramatic ways, bringing world harvest and advancing God’s kingdom. By slowing down and seeking God through prayer and fasting, we can accelerate forward into His calling for our lives and increase our impact on the world. Quantum leaps forward in the Spirit are born in quiet moments, but we must slow down usually to go forward. Fasting Forward will help position you to hear God’s voice and experience fresh insight into His word.

The Power of One

Reaching Every Person on Earth

Billy Wilson

How can eight billion people have an authentic encounter with Jesus Christ? Is it possible that every person on Earth will be reached with the good news of the gospel in our generation? Can we mobilize today's church for collaborative results achieved in unprecedented ways? What can one person do to make a difference?

In The Power of One, Dr. Wilson answers these questions by providing a clear path forward through the re-personalization of the Great Commission and a renewed focus on the potential of everyONE.

A new era of global evangelism is dawning in our post-pandemic, fast-moving, 21st-century world. Jesus's method of reaching one person and thus unlocking their capacity to touch the masses is being reclaimed. The most significant days of Great Commission effort in human history are before us.

Reaching every person on Earth will necessitate and demonstrate The Power of ONE!

Generation Z

Born for the Storm

Billy Wilson

GENERATION Z is called and equipped to rise above the global storm we are experiencing and initiate the greatest awakening our world has ever seen. They are ready. They are willing. They are born for the storm.

Generation Z is officially the largest generation in the world today. They are creative, driven, entrepreneurial, and technologically advanced. Generation Z comes of age in an unique time. This generation is surrounded by turbulence: a global pandemic, racial tensions, political upheaval, economic unrest, and social tensions not experienced by previous generations. They live in a tumultuous life-sea where the waves are high, the winds are strong, the intensity is unceasing, and the challenges feel insurmountable.

This new generation, born between 1997 and 2012, has never witnessed a calm sea. Social harmony, economic stability, physical tranquility, and domestic peace have all been very distant during this period. While those from earlier generations are often disturbed by it all, Generation Z considers these storms a part of their existence. They are survivors, and they are being equipped by God for maximum kingdom impact during a time when the world needs them the most.

Generation Z: Born for the Storm is written as a book of hope for this new generation. It examines the environment surrounding Gen Z and tries to understand who they are. It also looks at the unique qualities God is forming in Gen Z believers. The book inspirationally describes qualities already emerging and predicts qualities that will emerge as Gen Zers take their place of leadership in the world. Each chapter focuses on a person or persons from the Bible whose names begin with “Z” and who embody qualities God is forming in this new generation. This is not an exhaustive volume on Gen Z. It is simply a snapshot in time connected to the timeless truths of Scripture that will help us reflect upon, respond to, and empower the most important generation to ever live. Their potential is beyond description.

Gen Z will take the negative circumstances they have been given and, by God’s grace, turn them into positives. Generation Z is ready. God is equipping. The Holy Spirit is moving. The world is waiting. The winds are blowing, and the waves are roaring. Spiritual history is going to be made because Generation Z is born for the storm.

The New Generation & The Holy Spirit

Building a Spirit-Empowered Future

Wonsuk Ma, Barry Saylor, Opoku Onyinah, Rebekah Bled

Why is a focus on the new generation so warranted in this time, and how is Spirit-empowerment shaping the conversation about it? 

In 2022, an international panel of scholars and practitioners convened in Seoul to discuss how to prepare the new generation with Spirit-empowered faith and leadership. The book begins with biblical, historical, and theological insights and reflections, and leads readers to a large number of contextual case studies from diverse geographical and socio-cultural contexts. Through the various studies, there emerges a unified commitment to the spiritual advancement of the newer generations. The book also urges a collective intergenerational effort towards a stronger future of Spirit-empowered Christianity and its passion for the evangelization of the world.

The Pandemic & The Holy Spirit

From Lament to Hope and Healing

Wonsuk Ma, Opoku Onyinah, Rebekah Bled

How may the COVID-19 pandemic have influenced Spirit-empowered theology and practice? What are diverse initial responses? Which unique strengths can Spirit-empowered communities offer during times of global crisis?

Academics and reflective practitioners gathered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to discuss these issues at the 2021 Scholars Consultation of Empowered21. This book is the outcome of those conversations, combining the nine original studies with eleven subsequently commissioned chapters.

The book is organized thematically, beginning with two chapters examining a biblical perspective of pandemics and offering an applied Lukan Pneumatology to post-pandemic life. The book then gives three historical studies before moving to themes of pain, suffering, and depression, justice and oppression, theologizing during the pandemic, and institutional responses, respectively. Among other examples, these chapters share specific case studies of the racialized dimension of the pandemic, as well as how Spirit-empowered communities ministered hope.

Through current and historical case studies and theological examination, this book offers unique insight into Spirit-empowered responses to the pandemic.

The Remaining Task of the Great Commission

& the Spirit-empowered Movement

Wonsuk Ma, Opoku Onyinah, editors

This book presents a unique invitation to enter the conversation on the role and contribution of each individual and faith community in fulfilling the remaining tasks of the Great Commission.

Scholars and practitioners from around the globe gathered online at the 2021 Scholars Consultation of Empowered21 to reflect and strategize on these questions in light of the audacious goals set by Empowered21: "That every person on earth would have an authentic encounter with Jesus Christ through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit...by Pentecost 2033." This book is a curated collection of the resulting conversations, with both original and subsequently commissioned studies.

This book is organized into sections of "Foundational," "Geographic," and "Strategic." In this way, the reader may grapple with the biblical, theological, and historical impetus for Spirit-empowered witness in part one, read engaging summaries of the Spirit-empowered movement in specific regions of the world in part two, and join the authors in actively strategizing context-specific approaches in part three.

Human Sexuality and the Holy Spirit

Spirit-Empowered Perspectives

Wonsuk Ma, Kathaleen Reid-Martinez

The God Who Is Love created man male and female for love. Human sexuality is a gift of Creation. Through this gift, we may love and be loved deeply, may enjoy a profound oneness in marriage, and, from loveʼs natural self-giving, may give life to children, the greatest ongoing fruit of such love.

Human sexuality is a gift of Creation. The image of our God who is love is borne by "man" as "male and female," with no hint of either sexʼs imaging the divine more fully than--or apart from--the other. Through this gift, we may love and be loved deeply, may enjoy a profound oneness in marriage, and, from loveʼs natural self-giving, may give life to children, the greatest ongoing fruit of such love.

Despite all its goodness, many on this planet experience sexuality in brokenness and pain. We know sin and evil spoil and steal from Godʼs good creation, but we do not despair. The Good News of Jesus Christ reckons seriously with every enemy of human fl ourishing. His victory has won healing the Holy Spirit applies to the broken, through loving ministry.

These truths of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration unify the essays in this book. Most began at the Scholarsʼ Consultation of the Empowered21 Asia Global Congress in Singapore in 2017. Here they explore Godʼs intention for our sexuality, ways we misuse and abuse this gift, and ways Spirit-empowered communities help heal brokenness and restore the divine image. Expressing theological and socialscience scholarship and front-lines ministry experience from the First and Majority Worlds, these essays probe gender theory, inequality, and fl uidity and dysphoria; sexual exploitation of children and women and their resilience; homosexuality; fighting HIV/AIDS; promoting sexual wholeness; and more. Readers will deepen their biblical, theoretical, and practical understanding so they may minister healing and restoration with wisdom and compassion in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Proclaiming Christ in the Power of the Holy Spirit

Opportunities & Challenges

Wonsuk Ma, Emmanuel Anim, editors

How may the church claim that Christ is the only Savior in a world in which tolerance and relativism are prized and societies are increasingly religiously plural? How does the Spirit empower believers and communities in their daily life and work as they face formidable cultural and ideological challenges?

Such questions these essays answer. Half originated at "Proclaiming Christ in the Face of Challenges," the 2018 Scholarsʼ Consultation of Empowered21, a global network of Spirit-empowered churches and communities. This Consultationʼs location in Johannesburg accounts for eight essaysʼ focusing on distinctively African concerns; another four center on Asia and the Global South and three on Europe. Others address Western concerns of modernism, postmodernism, secularism, and pluralism, while several probe biblical and historical-theological foundations of Christian faith and its Spirit-empowered proclamation.

Readers will benefit from exploring the universality of the Christian gospel from its first proclamation and its proven adaptability to the cultural pluralism that is todayʼs global reality, a flexibility that is faithful to Godʼs revelation and effective in imparting divine life where proclaimed and believed.

Good News to the Poor

Spirit-Empowered Responses To Poverty

Wonsuk Ma, Opoku Onyinah, editors

What is a Christian response to the immense and crushing demands of poverty? How may the poor be empowered within their own context? What answers can be found in Liberation Theology and the Prosperity Gospel? Scholars and practitioners gathered in Bogota, Colombia, at the 2019 Scholars Consultation of Empowered21 to discuss these questions from a Spirit-empowered perspective. This book is the combination of these deep and engaging conversations at the Consultation and the subsequently commissioned studies.

The book is divided into two sections. The first is “Foundational,” addressing biblical, theological, and historical considerations of wealth and poverty, as well as a definition and overview of the current state of global poverty. The second section is “Cases in Context,” which provides reflections on real-life experiences from Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America.

Through this marriage of foundational and contextual sections, the book presents robust engagement with some of the most pervasive issues faced in the majority world today. Civil unrest, policy issues, indigenous identity, urban slums, migration, globalization, education, and other concerns are considered in light of the Spiritʼs empowerment of individuals, churches, and communities.

Imagining the Future

The Origin, Development, and Future of Assemblies of God Eschatology

Daniel Isgrigg

Since the Assemblies of God began in 1914, a great importance was placed on the belief in the second coming of Christ. However, in recent decades, a segment of AG ministers and educators have begun to re-examine the theological underpinnings of the denomination’s eschatology. Many of the historic expressions of eschatology are losing popularity within Pentecostal circles, particularly the long relationship with dispensational premillennialism. Through doctrinal criticism, this book provides comprehensive analysis of AG eschatological positions over the past century from three distinct voices within the AG community. First, it surveys the field of attitudes about AG eschatological positions within the field of Pentecostal academics by leading AG scholars. Second, it offers a historical analysis of the development of official AG statements on eschatology found in the statements of faith and approved position papers. Third, it provides a reception history of how eschatological doctrines were received and expressed by AG adherents in the Pentecostal Evangel, the official organ of the AG, from 1914–2005. In each of these voices, particular attention is given to how these expressions were shaped by the pneumatological beliefs, historical events, and the influence of dispensationalism. The work concludes by imagining the future of AG eschatology by integrating the various historical expressions of AG eschatology into a contemporary, yet contextual, set of eschatological doctrinal expressions to solidify the importance of the second coming of Christ for a new generation of Pentecostal believers.

As The Waters Cover the Sea

The Story of Empowered21 and the Movement It Serves

Vinson Synan, Billy Wilson

The Spirit-empowered movement is rich in history and hope. Throughout the pages of our past, we find generations of believers deeply affected by the Holy Spirit’s expansion of God’s kingdom, especially through the historic outpouring of the Spirit early in the twentieth century at the Azusa Street Mission of Los Angeles. Now, turning the pages to a new chapter, we see a twenty-first-century generation on the cusp of a new Holy Spirit outpouring. But this time it is occurring not just in one or even a few locations, but around the globe.

In As the Waters Cover the Sea: The Story of Empowered21 and the Movement It Serves, E21 movement leaders and scholars Dr. Billy Wilson and the late Dr. Vinson Synan inform and inspire us about the Holy Spirit’s empowering of generations—past, present, and future, producing a network of Spirit-empowered believers connected across decades and denominations.

This account of the Spirit-empowered movement moves from North American origins to the growth of the Empowered21 network and the cooperative efforts it fuels globally. It is as hope-filled as it is grounded and as theologically sound as it is inspirational. News of spiritual victories around the globe will encourage you and awaken fresh hope, while this book helps you envision God’s glory covering the whole earth—just as the waters cover the sea.