You may never have heard of E. A. Adeboye, but the pastor of The Redeemed Christian Church of God is one of the most successful preachers in the world. He boasts that his church has outposts in 110 countries. He has 14,000 branches—claiming 5 million members—in his home country of Nigeria alone. There are 360 RCCG churches in Britain, and about the same number in U.S. cities like Chicago, Dallas, and Tallahassee, Fla. Adeboye says he has sent missionaries to China and such Islamic countries as Pakistan and Malaysia. His aspirations are outsize. He wants to save souls, and he wants to do so by planting churches the way Starbucks used to build coffee shops: everywhere.

"In the developing world we say we want churches to be within five minutes' walk of every person," he tells NEWSWEEK. "In the developed world, we say five minutes of driving." Such a goal may seem outlandish, but Adeboye is a Pentecostal preacher: he believes in miracles. And Pentecostalism is the biggest, fastest-growing Christian movement since the Reformation.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Nigeria • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Pentecostal

1. SQ wrote: This article is refreshingly positive. As a regular reader of Newsweek I find their coverage to be very slanted, as described in this post: http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/19177/. January 5, 11:48 am | [comment link]

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