Apostolic Assembly of the Faith in Christ Jesus

Heritage

Mexican and Mexican-American believers touched by the Azusa Street revival began baptizing in the name of Jesus along the border as early as 1909–1914, worshiping in homes, missions and labor camps from Los Angeles to the Imperial Valley. The scattered congregations held their first general convention in 1925 under Francisco Llorente and incorporated in California in 1930; Antonio Castañeda Nava, a young evangelist from Durango, then shaped the body across half a century as presiding bishop. From the beginning it has been bound to a sister church, the Iglesia Apostólica de la Fe en Cristo Jesús in Mexico — two organizations, one people, across an international line.

Theological family

Apostolic (Oneness) Pentecostal: one God without division of persons, fully revealed in Jesus Christ; baptism by immersion in the name of Jesus; baptism in the Holy Spirit evidenced by speaking in tongues; and holiness of life. Trinitarian bodies confess the Godhead differently — a divergence this family regards as a return to the apostles' own baptismal practice, and which this record reports without adjudicating.

Who decides what

Episcopal: a presiding bishop and board of bishops over districts, with pastors serving under episcopal oversight rather than purely congregational call. General conventions gather the whole church, and the tie to the Mexican sister church is kept by formal fraternal agreement.

What a first-time visitor would find

Expect Spanish — with English or bilingual services in many places — fervent congregational singing including coritos, the whole congregation praying aloud at once, testimony, and preaching that calls people forward to the altar. Services run long by design; the congregation is a participant, not an audience.

What it has always cared about

Holding one people together across a border; the Acts 2:38 pattern of repentance, Jesus-name baptism and Spirit baptism; holiness in daily life; and raising pastors from within the barrios and farm towns the church has always served.

Its gift to the wider church

A demonstration, decades before anyone said "immigrant church," that American Pentecostalism speaks Spanish as natively as English: the Apostolic Assembly built a binational church out of farmworker camps, and its revival and musical culture has shaped Latino congregations far beyond its own family.

Commonly confused with

With the United Pentecostal Church International — likewise Oneness, but historically Anglo where the Assembly is Mexican-American in root and largely Spanish in worship; with its own Mexican sister church, the Iglesia Apostólica, a separate organization; and with trinitarian Spanish-language Pentecostal churches whose Sunday worship can look similar from the pew.

Range of views inside it

Range in language, from Spanish-dominant to fully bilingual congregations; in how strictly traditional holiness standards are kept from one generation to the next; and in music, from coritos to contemporary worship.

Where Apostolic Assembly of the Faith in Christ Jesus churches are on the map

12 Apostolic Assembly of the Faith in Christ Jesus congregations appear on The Church Map, across 4 states.

• California — 6
• Texas — 3
• Oklahoma — 2
• North Carolina — 1