'the Pentecostal movement']) is the largest Protestant free church in Norway with a total membership of 40,725 people in 2020.

The Norwegian Pentecostal movement runs humanitarian work, schools and missions in about 30 countries.

Barratt was a key figure in the establishment of the Pentecostal movement in several European countries, particularly Sweden and England.

The Pentecostal revival of the early 1900s affected many established denominations, focusing on Jesus Christ, the key teachings of the Bible, and the Holy Spirit.

Personal life as a Christian was also central and was expressed in an increased need for evangelism, prayer, and the use of spiritual gifts.

The baptism of the Spirit, as it was called, and Pentecostal revival came to Norway with Methodist priest Thomas Ball Barratt's return from the United States in December 1906.

Barratt had longed for something he called "the purification of the heart" and the baptism of the Spirit, and when he was in the United States he happened upon the magazine The Apostolic Faith which discussed this.

From New York, where he stayed, he made contact with the spiritually baptized in Los Angeles, which changed his life.

When Barratt stood at the podium in the gymnasium in Kristiania on December 23, 1906 and told of his spiritual baptism, he wept.

But many Christians were sceptical of Barratt's baptism in the Spirit, and the new revival faced strong opposition and criticism,[4] in which the spiritually baptized were laughed at as religious fanatics.

The main content was likely to have been song, prayer and messages in the Spirit through speaking in tongues or prophetic speech.

The Pentecostal movement at the beginning was more subjective and impulsive than, and in great contrast to, the more set form of church meeting among the Lutherans.

This affected a number of churches and denominations and was a period of growth for the entire Christian community in Norway.

From 1910, several already-established congregations joined the movement, including Berøa Oslo, Betel Nærsnes, Filadelfia Skiptvet and Betania Kongsberg.

[8] Throughout the 1920s many new congregations were formed in several places in Norway, due to the impression of God's intervention in life and that the spiritual gifts, as described by the first Christian churches, were again in use.

In 1910, the first missionaries were sent to China (Henry and Parley Gulbrandsen), India (Dagmar Engstrøm [no] and Agnes Beckdal [no]), and Argentina.

In 1915, a mission organization by the name of Norges Frie Evangeliske Missionsforbund ('the Free Evangelical Missionary Federation') was founded by T.B.

The Norwegian Pentecostal Church's External Mission (De norske pinsemenigheters ytremisjon, PYM) is an office that coordinates practical things for missionaries, such as an overview of mission projects, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) support, visa applications, airline tickets and more.

In the late 1950s, Aage Samuelsen left the movement and formed the church Maran Ata in Oslo.

A few years later there was a split with Aril Edvardsen and the organization Troens Bevis [no] (Evidence of Faith) in Kvinesdal.

One of the more striking characters is Åge Åleskjær [no], who started his own megachurch, Oslo Kristne Senter [no], outside the Pentecostal movement in 1985.

Speaking in tongues is considered a prayer language that is used when one wants to pray not only with one's own thoughts and words, but also with one's spirit.

Through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross and resurrection, God restores the relationship between himself and the human race.

Communion has a central place in the service life of the movement, in commemoration and proclamation of the atoning death of Christ.

The missionary activity has focused on building schools, health services and taking care of the language and culture of each country.

The members of the Pentecostal movement had little to spare for the hymnals and chorales, which were associated with the church's liturgy and rituals.

The leadership council strengthens the relationship between Pentecostal churches and takes initiatives to make the movement visible in Norway.

IBRA Media is one of the largest TV and radio stations in the world and is owned by the Nordic Pentecostal churches.

Several of the Pentecostal local radio stations are among the oldest in Norway and were started just after the authorities ended the state broadcast monopoly in 1981.

Some profiled modern individuals associated with Pentecostalism include evangelists such as Egil Svartdahl,[16] Jørn Strand,[17] Jan-Aage Torp[18] and Levi Jensen.