Research on the Messaging and Events of Christian Ministers

In order of Birth:

• Charles F. Parham
• J. A. Dowie
• Finis Yoakum
• John G. Lake
• Jack Moore
• William Freeman
• O. L. Jaggers
• Jack Coe
• T. L. Osborn
• A. A. Allen
• Velmer Gardner

Gordon Lindsay

birth date: June 18, 1906 death date: April 1, 1973 https://www.hopefaithprayer.com/books/apostlesprophetsandgovernments-GordonLindsay.pdf

Gordon Lindsay employed his unique gifts to bring stability, cohesion and unity to the multi-facetted healing movement. His orderly mind, keen business sense, sharp literary skills and an ecumenical spirit conspired together to maintain the movement’s integrity, coordination and growth. His first-hand experience as an itinerant evangelist in the 1930’s gave him an understanding of both itinerant ministry and local church leadership, providing great wisdom as the movement spread.

Gordon Lindsay's parents were members of J. A. Dowie's Zion City, Illinois when he was born. The city’s financial difficulties forced the family west in 1904, where they temporarily joined another Christian-based community led by Finis Yoakum at Pisgah Grande, California. When similar problems emerged the family moved to Oregon after only a few months. From here the family moved to Portland, Oregon where Lindsay attended high school and was converted during a Charles F. Parham evangelistic campaign. During his youth he came under the influence of John G. Lake, former resident of Zion City, missionary to South Africa, and founder of the Divine Healing missions in Spokane, Washington, and Portland, Oregon in 1920. Lindsay joined the healing and evangelistic campaigns of Lake, traveling throughout California and the southern states. Lindsay began his own ministry in California as pastor of small churches in Avenal and San Fernando and for the next eighteen years, he travelled across the country holding revivals in full gospel churches. This period of travel prepared him as perhaps no other man in the nation to establish communication among a variety of Pentecostals. When World War II began, Lindsay felt compelled to give up his evangelistic ministry because its rigorous lifestyle was taking its toll on his young family. He accepted a call to pastor a church in Ashland, Oregon.

By 1947 he had witnessed the extraordinary ministry of William Branham and responded to the invitation to become Branham’s manager. His managerial skills were soon obvious in the Branham campaigns, and in April 1948, he furthered the cause of the of the revival when he produced the first issue of The Voice of Healing, specifically to promote Branham’s ministry. To Lindsay’s great surprise Branham announced that he "would not continue on the field more than a few weeks more."

One such evangelist was William Freeman who had been holding meetings in small churches. Lindsay visited one of his campaigns and immediately felt it was the will of God to team up with him and organise a series of meetings through 1948. The Voice of Healing featured the miracles of the Freeman campaigns.

Voice of Healing Conventions By March 1949 The Voice of Healing circulation had grown to nearly 30,000 per month and had clearly become the voice of the healing movement. It’s pages successfully spread the message of the Salvation-Deliverance-Healing revival across the world.

In December 1949, Lindsay arranged the first convention of healing revivalists in Dallas, Texas. The assembly was addressed by Branham, Lindsay, Moore, old-timers such as F. F. Bosworth and Raymond T. Richey, and a number of rising revivalists including O. L. Jaggers, Gayle Jackson, Velmer Gardner, and Clifton Erickson. This historic conference symbolized the vitality and cohesion of the revival.

The following year, the convention, now about 1,000 strong, met in Kansas City, with virtually every important revivalist in the nation, with the notable exceptions of William Branham and Oral Roberts. Lindsay exercised great skill and wisdom exposing several points of danger and tension in the movement proposed guidelines for the future. Lindsay understood the fears of the older Pentecostal denominations and leaders and tried his utmost to deal with the offending issues.

In an article announcing "the purpose, plan and policy of the Voice of Healing Convention," he denounced "free-lancers who violently and indiscriminately attack organization in general," and he urged avoidance of "novel prophetic interpretations, dogmatic doctrinal assertions, sectarian predilections, theological hair-splitting."

Many of the new leaders of the early 1950s owed their early success to the literary support of Gordon Lindsay through the Voice of Healing, but by 1958, many of the revivalists believed that Lindsay's work was over.

the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship was designed to provide teaching and wisdom for charismatic leaders, many of whom held Lindsay in high regard.

His death on April 1st 1971

David Harrel summarises the life of Gordon Lindsay perfectly: ‘The death of Gordon Lindsay closed a major chapter in the charismatic revival. No single man knew the revival and its leaders so well. No man understood its origins, its changes, and its diversity as did Lindsay. A shrewd manager and financier, Lindsay had been as nearly the coordinator of the healing revival as any man could be. When the revival began to wane, Lindsay was faced with a crisis more severe than those of most of the evangelists themselves. Never a dynamic preacher, he found himself virtually abandoned by his most successful protégés. But Lindsay proved able to adapt. Always a balanced person, Lindsay built a balanced and enduring ministry.’

William Branham

birth date: April 6, 1909 birth place: death date: December 24, 1965 death place:

Branham claimed that he had received an angelic visitation on May 7, 1946 that began his ministry.

Branham died following a car accident in 1965.

David Walker ("Little David")

Birth date: Sept 20, 1934 Birth place: Phoenix, Arizona Official website: https://www.biblemissionsinc.com/

(1940s) His ministry began after a five hour vision of heaven traveling with his family .

William Branham and Little David become a team. Filled auditoriums in Portland, Seattle, Spokane Washington, Florida, West Virginia, Ohio and Georgia. In January 1949 he ministered alongside William Branham in Miami and Dale Hanson in Tacoma, Washington in Nov. 1949.

(1950s) marries Kathleen McDonald in Zion Gospel Temple in 1959 whom he met while preaching at Zion Bible Institute in E. Providence, RI.

Jim Jones

Paul Schäfer

birth date: 4 December 1921 death date: 24 April 2010 birth place: Troisdorf, near Bonn, Germany

Was a Nazi,child rapist, German-Chilean Christian minister and the founder and leader of a sect and agricultural commune of 300 German immigrants called Colonia Dignidad (Dignity Colony) (later renamed Villa Baviera) located in Parral in southern Chile, about 210 miles south of Santiago from 1961 to 2005.

By 1952 Schäfer had gathered a number of followers and in 1953 set up a children's home and orphanage. Schäfer's early followers were predominantly made up of war widows and their children who were refugees from Soviet occupied East Prussia. In 1959, he created the Private Sociale Mission, purportedly a charitable organization. That same year, Schäfer was charged with sexually abusing two young boys. Schäfer was charged and a warrant issued for his arrest by local authorities in Germany. Schäfer fled the children's home in Siegburg, West Germany with some of his followers to the Middle East to relocate his congregation. He came into contact with the Chilean ambassador to Germany, who invited him to Chile.

Schäfer led his followers in the teachings of William Branham. Aside from human rights abuses against members of Colonia Dignidad, including the sexual and physical abuse (including torture) of young children, Schäfer maintained a relationship with Pinochet's military dictatorship (1973–1990) and was involved in weapons smuggling and the torture and extrajudicial killings of political dissidents. After the end of Pinochet's government, increased public awareness of the activities of Colonia Dignidad following testimony by former victims led to the issuing of a warrant for Schäfer's arrest. Living underground for eight years, he spent the last five years of his life in prison in Chile.

Schäfer's family was Lutheran. In an accident with a fork, he lost his right eye. He joined a German YMCA. During World War II he served as a medic in a German field hospital in occupied France, later in life claiming that his glass eye was the result of a war wound.

Following World War II in 1945, Schäfer served as a young people's leader in the Evangelical Free Church. He was removed from his position there after rumors arose that he was molesting young boys.[4] He then set out as an itinerant preacher and singer, traveling around Germany and preaching. During the 1950s, Schäfer became a follower and promoter of the teachings of American preacher, William M. Branham, one of the founders of the post-World War II healing revival who was also an influence on Jim Jones.[7][8] Branham advocated "a strict adherence to the Bible, a woman's duty to obey her husband and apocalyptic visions, such as Los Angeles sinking beneath the ocean."[9] Branham held multiple revival campaigns across Europe and Germany during the early 1950s. Schäfer became a friend of Branham who promoted a return to "a more pristine time" of religious and racial purity.[10]

Robert Martin Gumbura

Leo Mercer

Voice of Healing conventions & The Voice of Healing Association

The conference programs were workshops on the problems of healing evangelists. Typical topics were "prayer and fasting," "preparation for a campaign," "the follow-up work after a campaign," "the system of cards for the prayer tent and the healing line" and the delicate issue of finances. As the association grew in importance in the 1950s, the program was frequently headed by Roberts or Branham.

Criticisms of Christian Ministry

• Gordon Lindsay, in an article announcing "the purpose, plan and policy of the Voice of Healing Convention," he denounced "free-lancers who violently and indiscriminately attack organization in general," and he urged avoidance of "novel prophetic interpretations, dogmatic doctrinal assertions, sectarian predilections, theological hair-splitting."