Service for the King

The power of service is one of the many gifts from the Holy Spirit. Different from any human power, service isn't power at all, but a partnership with Christ, who is doing His work through us. This power, Simpson says, is necessary in any type of service we are doing for the Lord, and must be in the Holy Spirit and in the strength of Jesus to be acceptable by God. In Service for the King, Simpson teaches us how we can obtain this gift, and let the Lord work through us for His glory. About the Author Albert Benjamin Simpson was born in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, Canada in 1843. The young Albert was raised in a strict Calvinistic Scottish Presbyterian and Puritan tradition. His conversion of faith began under the ministry of Henry Grattan Guinness, a visiting evangelist from Ireland during the revival of 1859. Simpson spent some time in the Chatham, Ontario area, and received his theological training in Toronto at Knox College, University of Toronto. After graduating in 1865, Simpson was subsequently ordained in the Canada Presbyterian Church. At age 21, he accepted a call to the large Knox Presbyterian Church in nearby Hamilton, Ontario. In December 1873, at age 30, Simpson left Canada and assumed the pulpit of the largest Presbyterian church in Louisville, Kentucky, the Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church. In 1880, Simpson was called to the Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church in New York City where he immediately began reaching out to the world with the gospel. Beside active evangelistic work in the church, he published a missionary journal, The Gospel in All Lands, the first missionary journal with pictures. Simpson also founded and began publishing an illustrated magazine entitled The Word, Work, and World. This magazine became known as a.life and is the official publication of The Christian and Missionary Alliance, in the USA and Canada. But by 1881, after only two fruitful years at Thirteenth Presbyterian, he resigned in order to begin an independent gospel ministry to the many new immigrants and the neglected masses of New York City. Simpson began informal training classes in 1882 in order to reach "the neglected peoples of the world with the neglected resources of the church." By 1883 a formal program was in place and ministers and missionaries were being trained in a multi-cultural context. (This school was the beginning of Nyack College and Alliance Theological Seminary). In 1889, Simpson and his church family moved into their new home called the New York Tabernacle. Simpson’s heart for evangelism was to become the driving force behind the creation of the C&MA. Initially, the Christian and Missionary Alliance was not founded as a denomination, but as an organized movement of world evangelism. Simpson's unique gospel of Jesus became known as the FourFold Gospel: "Jesus our Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King". The Four Fold Gospel is symbolized in the logo of the C&MA : the Cross, the Laver, the Pitcher & the Crown. Plagued by illness for much of his life since childhood, Simpson experienced divine healing after understanding it to be part of the blessing of abiding in Christ as Life and healing. He emphasized healing in his Four Fold Gospel and usually devoted one meeting a week for teaching, testimonies and prayer on these lines. During the beginning of the twentieth century, Simpson became closely involved with the growing Pentecostal movement, an offshoot of the Holiness movement. It was common for Pentecostal pastors and missionaries to receive their training at the Missionary Training Institute--now Nyack College, Nyack New York--that Simpson founded. Because of this, Simpson and the C&MA had a great influence on Pentecostalism, in particular the Assemblies of God and the FourSquare Church. This influence included evangelistic emphasis, C&MA doctrine, Simpson's hymns, and books, and the use of the term 'Gospel Tabernacle,' which evolved into Pentecostal churches being known as 'Full Gospel Tabernacles.' A.B. Simpson passed away on October 29, 1919 and is buried on the Rockland County Campus of Nyack College in Nyack, New York. A number of C&MA churches bear Simpson's name, as does Simpson University in Redding, California, and the Albert B. Simpson school in Lima, Peru.