Our Story: Past and Present.
First Assembly of God of Elizabeth, New Jersey was established in 1914 as a "House of prayer for all nations."
Throughout the years this vision has guided the ministries of the church, which today include five congregations: three in Spanish, one in West African, and one in English. Among the nations represented at First Assembly are: Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Batswana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ghana, West Africa, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Columbia, Ecuador, Argentina, Philippines, and the United States. Since the church is eight minutes away from the Newark Liberty International Airport, we frequently host visitors from all over the world. And we receive letters and emails from those who have visited expressing their appreciation for having received a warm welcome.
First Assembly of God, originally named First Pentecostal Church, was started by German Lutherans who had experienced an outpouring of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, with the evidence of speaking in other tongues. All the original records of the church are in German. Later, the church welcomed newcomers from Poland and it became a bilingual German-Polish church. Still later, the church brought in a Norwegian pastor who did not speak either German or Polish, and the church became an English-speaking congregation.
First Assembly of God of Elizabeth has a team of dedicated pastors and Christian workers who are committed to nurturing and training believers for effective Christian service. Most of our ministry happens where members live, work, study, shop, and recreate. We attend church to pray, worship, learn, serve, and to edify and to be edified. Our morning worship music is contemporary, with a mix of lively choruses and freshly arranged traditional hymns. Since our pastor is a teacher, most sermons are designed to helps us grow in our knowledge of God's Word and to helps us fulfill our calling through the application of godly principles.
The doors and ministries of First Assembly of God of Elizabeth, New Jersey are open to you, your family and friends. We've been waiting for you since 1914! Come by to pray and stay -- or to say hello and go.
We are your brothers and sisters in Christ.
Your friends at First Assembly of God.
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The Assemblies of God grew out of the Pentecostal revival, which began in the early 1900s in places such as Topeka, Kansas, and the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles. During times of prayer and Bible study, believers received spiritual experiences like those described in the book of Acts. Accompanied by “speaking in tongues,” their religious experiences were associated with the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Jewish feast of Pentecost (Acts 2), and participants in the movement were dubbed “Pentecostals.” The Pentecostal movement has grown from a handful of Bible school students in Topeka, Kansas, to an estimated 600 million in the world today.
Many participants who were baptized in the Holy Spirit during revivals and camp meetings in the early 1900s were not welcomed back to their former churches. These believers started many small churches throughout the country and communicated through publications that reported on the revivals. In 1913, a Pentecostal publication, the Word and Witness, called for the independent churches to band together for the purpose of fellowship and doctrinal unity. Other concerns for facilitating missionaries, chartering churches and forming a Bible training school were also on the agenda.
Some 300 Pentecostals met at an opera house in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1914, and agreed to form a new fellowship of loosely knit independent churches. These churches were left with the needed autonomy to develop and govern their own local ministries, yet they were united in their message and efforts to reach the world for Christ. So began the General Council of the Assemblies of God.
Assemblies of God churches form a cooperative fellowship. As a result, the organization operates from the grass roots, allowing the local church to choose and develop ministries and facilities best suited for its local needs.
