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Welcome to the Influence Podcast! I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host.

“The founders of the Assemblies of God believed they were experiencing a significant historical moment,” writes Daniel Isgrigg. “They recognized God was moving by His Spirit to enable them to evangelize the world. Leaders were set apart by their understanding that this mission could not be accomplished without the Spirit and without each other.”

In this episode, I talk to Daniel Isgrigg about his new book, The Assemblies of God: Our Story, from which this quotation comes.

Isgrigg is associate professor of the History of Spirit-empowered Christianity at Oral Roberts University and an ordained Assemblies of God minister. He is also author of Imagining the Future: The Origin, Development, and Future of Assemblies of God Eschatology and Aspects of Assemblies of God Origins. I interviewed him about these books in Episodes 277 and 359, respectively.

Show Notes

P.S. This podcast is cross-posted from InfluenceMagazine.com by permission.

Welcome to the Influence Podcast!

I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host. In this episode, I talk to Mark Hausfeld about how ministers can move toward physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health — and why they should.

Hausfeld is executive director of the Institute for Ministerial Wholeness and an ordained Assemblies of God minister,

Ministry is demanding, even for Jesus. Matthew 8 tells us “large crowds followed him.” Jesus goes on to heal a leper, resurrect a servant, cure Peter’s mother-in-law, exorcize demonized persons, and calm a storm on the Sea of Galilee.

The detail that strikes me is Jesus falling asleep during a storm (8:24). No wonder! He was tired.

If ministry wore out Jesus, it will wear out us too. We need to be rested and ready to do God’s work.

SHOW NOTES

Welcome to the Influence Podcast!

I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host. In this episode, I talk to Doug Clay about the state of the Assemblies of God as the New Year begins. Clay is AG general superintendent and author of Conversations with My Younger Self and 13: Leadership Is More Than Luck, both published by Gospel Publishing House.

This past year, the Assemblies of God received favorable notice in political scientist Ryan Burge’s popular religious data Substack, Graphs About Religion. One post, titled “The Assemblies of God: A Denomination That May Be Growing,” reported that the AG is bucking the trend of denominational decline.

“Almost every major denomination is losing members at an incredibly rapid pace,” he writes, with the exception of two small denominations. “But there is a major denomination that was on an upward trajectory for a very long time and stood as an aberration in the larger Protestant landscape: The Assemblies of God. They experienced very consistent growth over the last couple of decades.”

Burge focused on steady AG growth over several decades, but in his editorial for the Winter 2026 issue of Influence, Doug Clay notes that the AG experienced growth between 2023–24, the last year for which there is a complete statistical report.

“From 2023–24, adherence rose 2.5%, Spirit baptisms 3.9%, membership 4.1%, in-person attendance 6.2%, conversions 10%, water baptisms 12.1%, and new church charters 33.6%,” he writes.

Every year, the President gives a State of the Union Address to Congress. Think of this podcast as an AG State of the Union for 2026.

P.S. This podcast is cross-posted from InfluenceMagazine.com by permission.

SHOW NOTES

Welcome to the Influence Podcast!

I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host. In this episode, I talk to Allen Tennison about what Pentecostal ministers should read in 2026. Tennison serves as theological counsel to The General Counsel of the Assemblies of God.

Reading may not be at or even near the top of many ministers’ new year’s resolutions, but it should be. In an August 1760 letter to John Premboth, John Wesley wrote:

What has exceedingly hurt you in time past, nay, and I fear to this day, is want of reading.

I scarce ever knew a preacher read so little. And perhaps, by neglecting it, you have lost the taste for it. Hence your talent in preaching does not increase. It is just the same as it was seven years ago. It is lively, but not deep; there is little variety, there is no compass of thought. Reading only can supply this, with meditation and daily prayer. You wrong yourself greatly by omitting this. You can never be a deep preacher without it, any more than a thorough Christian.

Even if you agree with Wesley, questions remain: How long should I read every day? What should I read? How do I balance reading with my other pastoral responsibilities? Those are the questions Tennison and I discuss in this episode.

IN THIS PODCAST

P.S. This episode is cross-posted from InfluenceMagazine.com by permission.

“Jesus is up front with us that there is a cost to following him,” writes Craig Keener.

“From God’s side, the gift of him in him is free—or rather, already paid for by what Christ suffered for us. But we live in a world that challenges our faith, so from the world’s side our faith is bound to cost us hardships. Yet God empowers us by his Spirit to maintain our witness for Christ in this world no matter what.”

In this episode of the podcast, I talk to Keener about how Pentecostal Christians should think about suffering. I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host.

Craig Keener is F.M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, an ordained Assemblies of God minister, and author of Suffering: Its Meaning for the Spirit-Filled Life, published by Baker Academic.

NOTE: This will be the final Influence Podcast of 2025. Episode 411 — the first podcast of 2026 — will drop on Thursday, January 8.

P.S. This podcast is cross-posted from InfluenceMagazine.com by permission.

Donna Barrett is retiring at the end of this year from her position as general secretary of the Assemblies of God.

Elected unanimously by the executive presbytery in 2018 to fill the unexpired term of her predecessor, Jim Bradford, then elected twice by the General Council in 2019 and 2023, she is the first woman to hold executive office at the national level in the history of the AG.

Full disclosure: I am one of Barrett’s direct reports. But I can honestly say that she is universally regarded by her employees, fellow executives, district officials, and ministry peers as a woman of God, conscientious leader, good friend, and great boss.

In this episode of the podcast, I talk to Barrett about her unique perspective on topics such as women’s leadership, the grind of ministry, and the necessity of prayer. I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host.

Barrett is the 11th general secretary of The General Council of the Assemblies of God. Her final day in office is December 31, 2025.

P.S. This post is cross-posted from InfluenceMagazine.com by permission.

“Young men are leading a religious resurgence,” wrote Erica Pandey in a May 10, 2025 report on Axios.com.

“Within older generations, there’s a consistent gender gap among Christians, with women more likely to be religious than men,” she explained.

“Within Gen Z, the gap has closed, as young men join the church and young women leave it. If the current trajectory sticks, the gender gap will flip.”

Are churches ready to minister to the young men returning to church? Are they ready to minister to men at all? And if they are, what are the best ways to do so?

Those are the kinds of question I discuss with Rick Allen in this episode of the Influence Podcast. I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host.

Rick Allen is an ordained Assemblies of God minister and national director of Men’s Ministries and Light for the Lost.

P.S. This podcast is cross-posted from InfluenceMagazine.com by permission.

The season of Advent begins this Sunday, November 30, and ends, appropriately enough, on Christmas Eve — Sunday, December 24.

No doubt many churches will sing Isaac Watts’ “Joy to the World” throughout this season, especially on Christmas Eve. But did you know that Watts wrote that song to celebrate the Second Coming, not the birth of Jesus Christ?

Advent celebrates both in the Christian tradition. It looks backward to the First Coming and forward to the Second Coming. It is a thoroughly historical and end-times holiday season.

In this episode of the podcast, I talk to Allen Tennison about the relationship between Advent and eschatology. I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host.

Tennison is theological counsel of The General Council of the Assemblies of God.

P.S. This podcast is cross-posted from InfluenceMagazine.com by permission.

This past Tuesday, the Executive Presbytery of the Assemblies of God announced that Brad Kesler will succeed Donna Barrett as general secretary of the Fellowship. Kesler’s first day in office is January 1, 2026. He will serve the remainder of Barrett’s unexpired term.

Kesler has been an ordained AG minister since 2000. He has served as a youth pastor in Sitka, Alaska, and a senior pastor in Juneau. For 15 years, he worked as business administrator in the Alaska Ministry Network and nine years as district secretary.

Since 2024, he has served as assistant to the general secretary, providing that office with administrative and technical support.

In Episode 406 of the Influence Podcast, I talk to Kesler about his life, ministry, and the duties of his new office, as well as his forthcoming book on ministerial ethics, Trusted with Treasure, published by Gospel Publishing House early next year.

I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host.

P.S. This podcast is cross-posted from InfluenceMagazine.com by permission.

“In many Christian theological circles, especially in Pentecostal circles, the person who has the role of pastor is the one who is supposed to have the spiritual answers, and so this [spiritual and social] shutdown [due to trauma] is counterintuitive to the position they hold,” writes Dale Sanger.

“The challenge for Pentecostal pastors is that they have an underlying theology of glory which does not appropriately consider personal trauma.”

In this episode of the Influence Podcast, I talk to Dale Sanger about the reality of clergy trauma, and what Pentecostal ministers should do in response. I’m George P. Wood, executive editor of Influence magazine and your host.

Dale Sanger is adjunct professor at Bridges Christian College in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Vanguard College in Edmonton, Alberta, as well as chaplain at a homeless men’s shelter. He is author of When Ministry Hurts: Triumphalism and the Crisis of Trauma among Clergy, published by Wipf & Stock.

P.S. This podcast is crossposted from InfluenceMagazine.com by permission.