the assembly of god church with Gary Wheat (ep 3, 17).

In this episode of the underview, Pastor Gary Wheat of The Assembly in Siloam Springs opens the door to a tradition born on Arkansas soil. The Assemblies of God was founded in Hot Springs in 1914, and the Assembly itself traces directly to the Pentecostal revival in Topeka, Kansas, making it one of the oldest continuously operating AG congregations in the state. Pastor Wheat arrived in 2001 to lead a church that couldn't make payroll and whose elder board had resigned. Over twenty-four years, he chose patience over vision-casting, loved a broken congregation back to health, and built a church whose identity rests on a single word: hope.This conversation explores what it means to lead one church in one place for a quarter century as the community around it changes. Pastor Wheat describes the tension between longtime Siloam Springs residents and newcomers, the realities of pastoring on the Oklahoma border near Cherokee Nation, and the shift from drawing people in to going out and serving, painting fences, cleaning up festivals, partnering with nonprofits. He shares the Monday morning coffee where pastors from different traditions meet as friends first and clergy second, his practice of referring people to other churches when they'd be a better fit, and the Pentecostal conviction that the Holy Spirit falls on everyone without checking credentials. It is a conversation about rootedness, generosity, and what it costs to stay.https://www.theunderview.com/the-assembly-of-god-church-with-gary-wheatAbout the underview:The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.Send us a Voice Message at https://www.theunderview.com/Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewtheHost: @mikerusch