Page 90 - tesis

4. The Rains of Grace\u000AThe Rains of Grace mission [LDG] emerged out of the heart of historic Protestantism. The founding members belonged to the national Presbyterian Church. LDG was the result of the fusion of five churches that left the Presbyterian Central Church. These churches experienced a Holy Spirit revival under the leadership of the senior pastor and his church. The baptism of the Spirit, healing and prophecy were the elements which created discord. The church board was accused of heresy according to the norms of the Westminster Confession and so the senior pastor and the rest of the leadership were asked to leave the National Presbyterian Church. In contrast to the rest of the NPCs, this mission was founded with five churches and their thirty six established leaders\u000AIn November 1984 they founded the LDG (Guill\u00E9n 1997: 3-5).32 The senior pastor affirms that from the beginning they decided to be a part of the Evangelical church: \u2018We wanted to be fully identified with the Evangelical community and with their governing bodies. We never pretended to have a new revelation or a novel doctrine because we wanted from the outset to be identified fully with the Evangelical churches\u2019 (Madrid n.da.:100). At least four members of the pastoral team studied at the Faculty of Theology of Mariano Galvez University.\u000AUnder the leadership of the senior pastor this mission grew much faster than the other Neo-Pentecostals. At the present time they have 130 churches in all the country and various churches in other countries with a population of 30.000 members. According to the pastors, LDG conserves the doctrine of salvation from its Presbyterian heritage,33 although the key doctrine for them is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They also changed their form of government. They did not follow the typical model of the consistory. The pastor is the maximum authority of the church. With regard to the sociological composition, the majority of the members belong to the working classes and to poor families. The LDG\u000A32 The senior pastor underlines that before the Presbyterian leaders had taken away from him the installations of his church in Central America in zone 7 of Guatemala City, they had already decided to start the LDG on the 3 of November 1984.\u000A33 According to the senior pastor they conserve the Calvinist heritage with regard to soteriology (P4LDG).\u000A 77\u000A