Appeal in the developing world
The appeal of Pentecostalism
Pentecostalism offers attractive spiritual certainties in a world where religious truths are under attack, because a direct experience of God is unarguable to those who receive it: "if it happens to you, you know it's true".
Appeal to the poor
Pentecostalism began among the poor and disadvantaged in North America. This tradition of being both of the poor and for the poor has given the movement particular appeal among the poor in South America and Africa, where its growth is partly rooted in continuing anger at widespread poverty and inequality.
Adaptability
Pentecostalism adapts easily to local traditions and incorporates local music and other cultural elements in worship, enabling people to retain elements of their own spirituality when they move to a Pentecostal church. This adaptability has made it easy for non-Pentecostal churches to include Pentecostal elements.
Non-literary
Walter Hollenweger has pointed out that Pentecostalism offers 'oral' people the same chance to take part in the life of faith as it does to 'literary' people.
Pentecostalism is revolutionary because it offers alternatives to 'literary' theology and defrosts the 'frozen thinking' within literary forms of worship and committee-debate. It gives the same chance to all, including the 'oral' people.Walter J. Hollenweger, Pentecostalism and Black Power, Theology Today, Oct 1973
Developing world Pentecostalism
Pentecostalism is particularly strong in South America, Africa, and Asia. It has a unique character on each continent - which is one reason why it's so successful.
Developing-world Pentecostalism has been particularly successful among the poor (like its success in the USA which has also mostly been among the less well off).
Pentecostal denominations have been particularly successful in Latin America among largely unchurched and nominal Roman Catholics, particularly those at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy. In this sense Pentecostalism is a Christianity for the underclasses of the world.Paul K. Conkin, American Originals: Homemade Varieties of Christianity
Pentecostalism's success in the developing world is partly due to energetic missionary work by Pentecostal churches and partly due to history, politics, flexibility and empowerment.
History
Historically Pentecostalism grew out of African-American churches which retained many stylistic elements that still resonate with the developing world (and with the contemporary West too).
These were things such as an emphasis on the interconnection of body, mind and spirit, which it displayed in its highly physical worship, and in healing, speaking in tongues, and the acceptance of dreams and visions as valuable tools of spiritual insight.
Politics
Politically and socially, Pentecostalism originated in churches filled with people who were poor and oppressed and it has never forgotten those roots. Its early leaders were working class Christians with a very similar life experience to the people they led. These factors give Pentecostalism great appeal in parts of the world where people continue to suffer from poverty and injustice.
Pentecostalism approaches the predicaments of the poor very practically; churches work as 'mutual aid communities' to deal with poverty and sickness, and provide alternative solutions to problems that might otherwise be 'solved' with witchcraft or other superstitious practices.
Flexibility
Pentecostalism, more than any other form of Christianity, is willing to fit in with local cultures and use local music and other cultural elements in worship, and sees the value of teaching the Christian message through religious ways of thinking and talking that are already familiar to local people.
... the great strength of the Pentecostal impulse [lies in] its power to combine, its aptitude for the language, the music, the cultural artefacts, the religious tropes... of the setting in which it lives.Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-First Century
Because Pentecostal worship is spontaneous and oral, rather than anchored in a liturgical text, it allows all members of the congregation to play their part without any fear of doing the wrong thing, and enables each one to share their particular experience of God and have it valued by the whole community.
Secondly, the Pentecostal acceptance of the value of the body/mind/spirit connections fits well with the non-Christian spiritual background of many developing cultures, and allows Pentecostal churches to incorporate without difficulty the elements of those cultures that are compatible with Christianity. The result is that Pentecostalism can take on a completely local costume:
It may be appropriate to consider Korean Pentecostalism as a culturally indigenous form of Korean Christianity interacting with shamanism, just as African Pentecostalism is in constant interaction with the African spirit world, and as Latin American Pentecostalism encounters folk Catholicism and Brazilian spiritism.Dr Allan H Anderson, The Pentecostal Gospel and Third World Cultures
But flexibility is valuable to a church in other ways too: since developing countries are now changing far faster than Europe or America ever did, Pentecostalism's ability to change, and its devolution of power to individual church communities allow it to adapt to the needs and desires of the people better than more rigidly hierarchical churches.
Empowerment
Pentecostal churches have flat power structures, and allow a very great amount of participation by the laity, both in worship and in the organisation of their institutions.
This has an obvious appeal to groups of people who are largely deprived of any power or influence in their working or political lives. It is a great contrast to the early missionary churches which had come to bring a Western version of Christianity, or to the hierarchical established churches which in some countries were seen as too closely allied to government or to employers.