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African Pentecostalism has always occupied a prominent place in World Christianity. We might even say that the history (in the last fifty years) of World Christianity has been disproportionally shaped, if not defined, by African Pentecostalism. The objective of this volume is to investigate and interrogate the critical junctures at which World Christianity invigorates and is invigorated by African Pentecostalism. The essays of the thinkers gathered in this book interrogate the general relationships between World Christianity and Africa, and the specific interplays between World Christianity and African Pentecostalism. Scholars from multiple continents and countries examine how the theological scholarship and missional works of eminent African intellectual Johnson Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu have contributed to the scholarly understanding of how World Christianity has been mediated by its reception in Africa. They also investigate how African Pentecostalism has been shaped by its contact with diverse forms of Christianity in Africa and the rest of the world.

Asamoah-Gyadu is a significant scholar and theologian of African Pentecostalism. His contributions derived not only from scholarly engagements with Pentecostal and Christian practices, but also from a personal involvement through a participant observation as a minister of the Gospel. His entire scholarly outputs have done a lot to redefine the way Pentecostalism in its African incarnation is perceived in the trajectory of World Christianity. And in several other publications on the relationship between African Pentecostalism and the new media technologies, Asamoah-Gyadu has also continued to interpret and reinterpret the multiple ways by which the spread of the Gospel is motivated by the Holy Spirit as well as mass mediation which in turn configures Pentecostal and Christian practices and experience in multiple other ways.

All the contributors to this volume are united not only in their deep and abiding respect for Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu’s influential intellectual impact on the signification of African Pentecostalism. They are also unanimous in their collective enthusiasm in exploring the multidimensional reach of his ideas, arguments and discursive direction, first in the understanding of the extent and limit of African Pentecostalism; and second, in the relationship between African Pentecostalism, global Pentecostalism and world Christianity.

Our gratitude goes first to a friend and colleague, Professor Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, who continues to be a source of inspiration to both the old and new generations of theologians and Pentecostal scholars and ministers all across the world. This volume is a proof that Asamoah-Gyadu has not only generated sufficient ideas and theories to transform our reflection on Pentecostal and Christian practices especially in Africa, but that those very ideas and theories have become the instigation for more reflections. We are also very grateful to all the contributors who responded in record time, and with quality and outstanding essays, to the call for contribution to celebrate this great scholar.

Finally, we appreciate Baker Academic for granting permission to Dr. Craig S. Keener to adapt six thousand words from pages 1550–78 of his 2013 book, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, Vol. 2, in chapter 4 of this volume.