Charismatic and Pentecostal churches are planting and growing rapidly across the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens while many Reformed congregations report flat or declining attendance. Is this a sign of the Spirit's movement, a reflection of cultural preference, or a warning about depth of doctrine?
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Add your commentGrew up Assemblies of God in Jackson Heights. Left for a Reformed church in my 30s because I wanted more substance. Now in my 50s and I genuinely miss the sense of expectancy we had when we prayed. Miss believing that God might actually DO something in the room. I found doctrine but somewhere along the way I lost wonder. I dont think that trade was entirely worth it and I say that as someone who still holds to the five solas.
Born and raised in the South Bronx, attended Iglesia Pentecostal on Prospect Ave my whole childhood. These churches aren't growing because they're watering down the gospel — they're growing because they SHOW UP. Wednesday nights, Saturday outreach, Sunday morning AND evening. My Reformed friends at that church in Park Slope are doing one 90-minute service and a quarterly potluck and wondering why the pews are empty. Presence matters.
My grandmother planted a small Pentecostal church in the Bronx in 1974. She preached, she visited the sick, she fed people from her own kitchen. That church is still there, still growing, still on the same block. Nobody handed her a church planting grant. Nobody gave her a theology degree. She just believed God and worked. I'm not saying theology doesnt matter but I'm saying maybe we should be a little more humble about what the Spirit can do with an obedient person.
Can we stop pretending Reformed churches in NYC are even trying to grow? I visited three different PCA congregations in Manhattan looking for a church home when I moved here in 2019. All three felt like exclusive clubs for Columbia grads who read Bavinck for fun. Zero warmth, zero follow-up after visitor cards, one guy literally corrected my eschatology during the coffee hour. I found a Spirit-filled church in Astoria and never looked back.
I need to push back on something in this thread. Somebody upstream said charismatic churches dont preach doctrine. The church I attend in Crown Heights does expository preaching through entire books of the Bible, has a robust membership class, AND believes in the continuation of spiritual gifts. Cessationism is a theological position, not a synonym for seriousness. You can have both Word and Spirit.
Theologically it matters enormously and I'm tired of people acting like growth equals validation. The prosperity-adjacent charismatic movement that's exploding in Queens is not the same thing as genuine Spirit-filled revival. Spurgeon's church grew too. So did Whitefield's crowds. Growth is not inherently a mark of the true church. The marks are Word, sacrament, and discipline — not how many people are jumping in the aisles.
The real question nobody is asking: are the people joining these charismatic churches being discipled? Growth that doesn't produce disciples is just addition, not multiplication. I've seen churches in the Bronx triple in size and then watch half those people disappear after the emotional high wears off. What's the retention rate? What's the theological formation happening after Sunday? Show me those numbers.
Hot take nobody wants to hear: a lot of the charismatic growth in the outer boroughs is built on the spiritual hunger of immigrant communities from the Caribbean and West Africa who brought vibrant faith WITH them. This isnt really NYC producing revival, its NYC receiving it from people whose home churches were already on fire. Give credit where its due.
Honestly? As a Reformed guy who's been at the same church in Ridgewood, Queens for eleven years, I think some of this is just demographics and real estate. Reformed churches tend to attract a more educated, higher-income demographic that is getting priced out of the neighborhoods where the church is planted. Our congregation has lost probably 40 families to New Jersey since 2018. Meanwhile charismatic churches in those same neighborhoods are reaching people who are actually still living there. It's partly just sociology.
Does it matter theologically — yes, categorically yes, and here is why. If cessationism is correct, then churches building their entire identity around ongoing apostolic gifts are in serious error and their growth is no more validating than the growth of a Mormon ward. If continuationism is correct, then Reformed churches may be quenching the Spirit systematically. These are not minor secondary issues. The stakes of being wrong in either direction are genuinely high and Christians in this city need to stop treating this like a preference debate.
I want to offer a gentle correction to a claim being made repeatedly here — the idea that Pentecostalism started in the 1960s with the charismatic renewal in mainline churches. Azusa Street was 1906. Pentecostalism is well over a century old with deep theological roots. It is not a new or shallow movement. Read Allan Anderson's work before dismissing it as emotionalism. This matters for having an honest conversation.
just moved here from Atlanta six months ago and honestly the energy at the Pentecostal church my coworker brought me to in Flatbush was unlike anything ive ever experienced. I grew up Presbyterian. very quiet, very orderly. I dont know what I believe about tongues yet but I know those people love Jesus and they love each other and thats not nothing
lol at Reformed folks discovering that preaching in Greek and wearing ties isn't exactly connecting with people in East New York. Not everything is a theological crisis. Sometimes its just that people want to feel something when they go to church. Revolutionary concept.
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