CARRICK ON SHANNON

During these years, Jeffreys regularly preached all over Britain but he did not establish his first church outside Ireland until 1921, at Leigh on Sea, Essex. A number of other churches began to join the Elim movement including independent Pentecostal fellowships in Dowlais, Wales and Vazon, Guernsey. In 1922, George moved to Clapham, London where the Elim Team began to establish a new church and a ministry base. They opened administrative offices and began to look at the growing needs of the increasing numbers of churches and ministers as well as the challenge of evangelising a nation.

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By 1924, they had opened the first Elim Bible School at Clapham to train young men and women for the ministry. They had also launched a Publishing House, a correspondence course to train up church workers and an overseas missions department which had begun sending Pentecostal missionaries across the world.

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From 1926, Jeffreys and his evangelistic team accelerated their efforts to reach the towns and cities of Britain. Typically they went into a city with little or no advertising and met in a church building or hired a public hall. As the meetings progressed people would begin to accept Christ and there would often be a dramatic healing, news would spread fast around the area, numbers would increase and they would move from hall to hall to accommodate the huge crowds. Often the meetings would make the local and even the national papers. In Plymouth, Hull, Southampton, Carlisle, Glasgow, Dundee, Leeds and scores of other centres, thousands upon thousands turned to Christ and strong Elim churches were left behind.

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In 1929, Jeffreys returned to his native Wales. In Cardiff from 22 September, he began what became 51 nights of meetings attracting a total 150,000 people with over 3,000 converts. In Swansea the very next night he started a further 6-week campaign which would see over 2,000 decisions. One man, Glyn Thomas, was remarkably healed in one of the meetings. Glyn was a hunchback who sold newspapers in the city centre. His healing had a profound effect on the whole city.

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In Birmingham in 1930 the Elim team opened meetings in a church in the city centre with just a handful of people. Yet within weeks they were filling the celebrated Town Hall. Eventually, they would pack the vast Bingley Halls and leave over 10,000 converts.

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Whilst George Jeffreys was the founding leader and evangelist, Elim was no one man band. There was gathered “to Elim” an exceptional group of men and women who lived radical and sacrificial lives to spread the flame of Pentecost. One such man was James Goreham. Impacted by the Southampton campaign in 1928, James returned to his hometown of Romsey in Hampshire and started an Elim church. He went on to open four others including churches in Andover and Salisbury. James Goreham died at the age of 26 from tuberculosis. His Elim colleagues mourned his loss but rejoiced in all that he had accomplished for Christ in such a short time.

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From 1926, the Elim movement had gathered every Easter at the Royal Albert Hall and held large-scale Celebration meetings which they called “Demonstrations”. This showed their fervent expectancy that God was demonstrating His grace and His love and that Elim people were caught up in something of great relevance for every man woman and child. By 1936, the 21-year-old Elim family gathered at the Crystal Palace to give thanks for all that God had done in birthing and establishing the Elim Movement. They came in their thousands, testifying to lives changed and communities impacted by the life changing gospel. With choirs, orchestras, brass bands and a mighty congregation they sang, they praised, they testified and they prayed that what had been established would not simply be maintained but would mature and grow.