Aimee Semple McPherson
Aimee Semple McPherson was born on Oct. 9, 1890, on a farm in Salford Ontario, Canada. Her father, James Kennedy, was a farmer and came from a Methodist background. Her mother, Mildred, known as âMillie,â came from a Salvation Army background.
Although she was raised in a Christian home, she began to question the Bible during her teen years.
When she was 17, she attended a revival Pentecostal meeting presented by evangelist Robert Semple, where she heard the message of repentance. He also spoke of baptism in the Holy Spirit, an experience for which she hungered. After receiving the infilling of the Holy Spirit, she also was filled with a great love and compassion for souls and a fervent passion to serve the Lord throughout her whole life.
The meeting Aimee attended changed her life not only spiritually but also romantically. The evangelist Robert Semple later become Aimeeâs husband. They were married when she was 18. Their ministry desires were compatible. After their ministry trips in Chicago and the Ingersoll area, they headed to China as missionaries.
In 1910 while in China, Robert and Aimee contracted Malaria within months of arriving in Hong Kong. Robert didnât survive, leaving Aimee pregnant and a widow at 19. When her daughter, Roberta Star, was a month old, Aimee returned to United States to raise her. Aimee and Roberta lived in New York with Aimeeâs mother.
She assisted her mother raising money for the Salvation Army. It was there she met and married a Christian businessman named Harold McPherson. They had a son, Rolf Kennedy McPherson. After a decline in health, two major surgeries and a near-death experience, God asked her one last time, âNow, will you go?â She answered yes to Godâs call and almost immediately was healed. She never again questioned the call to preach the gospel.
Aimee is known for founding the Foursquare Gospel Church in 1918. She also was a woman ahead of her time, possessing boldness in her speaking ability and creative ways to communicate the gospel.
The name Foursquare Gospel originated from the Book of Ezekiel. It represents the four phases of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the face of the Man, she saw Jesus our Saviour. In the face of the lion, she saw Jesus the mighty Baptiser with the Holy Spirit and fire. In the face of the ox, she saw Jesus the Great Burden Bearer. In the face of an eagle, she saw Jesus the coming King, who will return in power and glory. It was, in Aimeeâs opinion, âa perfect gospel. A complete gospel for body, for spirit and for eternity.â
Her ministry was dynamic. She witnessed thousands saved and healed during her evangelistic meetings. Being creative and theatrical, Aimee used drama, music and opera to appeal to the audience. Bands, choirs and other crowd-pleasing touches enhanced her dynamic preaching. Though she was well-versed in the Bible, Aimeeâs success wasnât based on her knowledge, but rather the delivery of her messages.
She also was known as a faith healer, with claims of physical healing occurring during her meetings. Her faith healing demonstrations were written about extensively in the media, as they were a large focus of her early ministry. Aimee was an evangelistic pioneer, determined to spread the message of the Pentecostal faith, and used her fervour and flamboyance to win a huge following.
She had achieved what no one had yet done in ministry, which was to build a 5,000-seat auditorium in an influential area of Los Angeles. This paved the way for other female evangelists during a time when women were not accepted in the pulpit. She also launched the first Christian radio station and established a Bible college. By 1917, she had started her own magazine The Bridal Call, for which she wrote many articles about womenâs roles in religion; she portrayed the link between Christians and Jesus as a marriage bond.
Jan. 1, 1923, the new Angelus Temple was opened in a flamboyant style. Aimee was seated on a red velvet throne dressed in a nurseâs uniform and cape. Accompanying her were 200 singers, three bands, two orchestras and six quartets. The Angelus Temple was featured on a float in Pasadenaâs Tournament of Roses parade, while the extravagant dedication service was given full coverage in The New York Times. What became the home of The Church of the Foursquare Gospel filled four times each Sunday and twice weekly. Aimee also ministered at highly sought-after healing services during the week.
Reporters marveled at her oral skills, saying, âNever did I hear such language from a human being. Without one momentâs intermission, she would talk from an hour to an hour and a half, holding her audience spellbound.â Rather than using fire-and-brimstone preaching, Aimee resorted to a style of joyous celebration, representing the loving face of God.
She also brought old-time religion into the modern age, using illustrated sermons to help people understand the gospel better. Also, stage productions were incorporated, drawing people who usual didnât attend church. In an era prior to television, these services proved entertaining, and she used this method to present the message of salvation through faith in Jesus.
Aimee welcomed all walks of life. She preached to the high class of society, as well as the poor and disadvantaged. She treated everyone equally regardless of race, gender or status.
In the 1920s, Aimee became a well-known voice among civic leaders, politicians, actors and actresses, and pastors from various denominations. Her sermons were reprinted in hundreds of newspapers in Canada, the United States and Mexico and were read by millions. In 1927, she opened a commissary to feed the marginalized and supply them with clothing and other necessities. Aimee set up a 24/7 soup kitchen at her temple in 1936 to help families through the Great Depression .She also became involved with war bond rallies and linked religion to patriotism in her sermons when America joined the Second World War in 1941.
Aimeeâs legacy is threefold. Using the dramatic arts to reach the lost (an innovative tool) and the latest technology to spread the gospel. She reached out to the poor, helping thousands in the Los Angeles area who were starving. She taught a full-gospel message and regularly saw thousands of healings and miracles in her meetings.
Aimee passed away due to an accidental overdose in 1944 and was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in California. Her son, Rolf, has kept her memory and ministry alive by carrying the ministry for 40 four years. The Foursquare church is still standing strong with 8 million members worldwide.
Do You Exercise for the Wrong Reasons
âWhen I run, I feel Godâs pleasure.â Such were the memorable words of Olympic sprinter and Christian missionary Eric Liddell (1902â1945), at least through the lens of Chariots of Fire , the 1981 Oscar-winning film that told his story. Perhaps youâve heard his inspiring line in terms of life calling. In what vocation  do you feel Godâs pleasure? What role or occupation does it seem he made you to fulfill? However, with the last generation of research in view, it might be interesting to introduce Liddell to the fairly recent discovery of endorphins, and ask how much they played a part in his feeling Godâs pleasure as a runner. My experience as a very amateur runner is that you donât have to be a pro to âfeel Godâs pleasureâ in, and because of, intense bodily exertion. God made endorphins to help us feel his joy. Godâs Grace in Exercise God made us to move, and to do so vigorously. And he wired our brains to reward and reinforce it. Regular human movement has been assumed throughout history, but the innovations and seeming progress of modern life have made a sedentary lifestyle more typical than ever before. Weâve never needed to state the obvious about exercise as much as we do today â not just for earthly health, but for the sake of spiritual soundness and strength. âEndorphins are a gift from God, put there by him to lead us to himself.â The word endorphins  is simply a shortened form of the phrase âendogenous morphine.â In other words, these are morphine-like chemicals that originate within our bodies. They âinhibit the transmission of pain signals; they may also produce a feeling of euphoria.â And they are a gift from God, put there by him to lead us to himself. It wasnât until as recently as 1974 that two independent groups first discovered and documented this long-undiscovered divine kindness tucked quietly inside the human brain. Endorphins, and their effect of bodily pleasure, subconsciously incline humans toward certain activities, like raucous laughter or spicy foods. But in particular, the most notable and discussed is âvigorous aerobic exercise.â As John Piper cites in When I Donât Desire God , Either brief periods of intense training or prolonged aerobic workouts raise levels of chemicals in the brain, such as endorphins, adrenaline, serotonin, and dopamine, that produce feelings of pleasure. (203) And the holy pursuit of pleasure is an unblushing Christian concern throughout the pages of Scripture, and most pointedly so in the words of Christ himself. For Joy in God Have you seriously considered how physical  exertion can be a means, among others, of your spiritual  health and joy? God made our bodies with an enigmatic connection to our souls. How God stirs our souls in worship and Bible meditation often has tangible and unpredictable effects in our bodies. And what we eat and drink, and how we sleep, in our physical bodies affects our level of contentment in the soul. According to professor David Murray, âExercise and proper rest patterns generate about a 20 percent energy increase in an average day, while exercising three to five times a week is about as effective as anti-depressants for mild to moderate depressionâ ( Reset , 79). âGlorifying God with our bodies is not mainly about what we donât do.â God not only means for us to enjoy the long-term benefits of regular bodily exertion, but also the immediate effects that bolster and energize our emotions that day. And having our souls happy in God (with whatever little supplement we can get from exercise) is the premier way to fight and defeat the alluring lies of sin. Author and pastor Gary Thomas testifies, âUnderstanding my body as an instrument of service to God is giving me renewed motivation to take better care of it in the face of my cravings and lazinessâ ( Every Body Matters , 20). For Love of Others But regular bodily exertion not only can assist our personal pursuit of joy in God, and fight against joy-destroying sin, but also ready us to move beyond self-focus and have our hearts primed to meet the needs of others. The beneficiary of exercise that is truly Christian is not just me, but my family, my neighbors, my church, my coworkers, and anyone else God puts in my life to bless in word and deed. As Piper explains elsewhere, Today, my main motive for exercise is purity and productivity. By purity, I mean being a more loving person (as Jesus said, âlove your neighbor,â Matthew 22:39). By productivity, I mean getting a lot done (as Paul said, âabounding in the work of the Lord,â 1 Corinthians 15:58). . . . In short, I have one life to live for Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:15). I donât want to waste it. My approach is not mainly to lengthen it, but to maximize purity and productivity now. Precisely because âwe are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in themâ (Ephesians 2:10), we want to cultivate our bodies so that they are a help, rather than a hindrance, in the cause of love. We want our bodies to be an aid, not a net neutral, in readying us to sacrifice our own comforts to do good for others, at home and around the world. For Godâs Own Joy Yet exercise not only can contribute to the matrix of our joy, and in doing so help ready us to meet the needs of others, but what goes unsaid far too often is that glorifying God with our bodies is not mainly about what we donât do . Itâs easy to focus on the many unrighteous acts from which we should abstain, but glorifying him in our bodies is first and foremost a positive pursuit and opportunity. And, as in the parable of the talents, our bodies are gifts from him to grow and develop, not bury and let languish. âThe biblical take on exercise is not âLife is short; let your body go,â but, âHarness the body God gave you.ââ God is not opposed to our bodily existence; neither is he uninterested. He is for the body.  âThe body is . . . for the Lord, and the Lord for the bodyâ (1 Corinthians 6:13). And not only is he for the body  in this age, but also in the age to come. The very next verse reads, âGod raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his powerâ (1 Corinthians 6:14). The creative brilliance and glory of Godâs design in the human body will not be discarded at Christâs second coming. Our future is embodied. Faithful Christian theology does not diminish the importance of our bodies, but heightens it â from Godâs creative design, to his ongoing affirmation, to his promise to raise them, to his calling to use them. Feel His Pleasure The biblical take on exercise is not âLife is short; let your body go.â Rather, with Godâs revealed truth ringing in our ears, we say, âLife is too short to not harness the body God gave me.â Our assignment in this age is a vapor. We are âa mist that appears for a little time and then vanishesâ (James 4:14). Too much is at stake, and our days are too few, to limp our way through by not leveraging our bodies (as weâre able) as the gifts from God they are. Join me in learning what itâs like to feel the pleasure of God.
