Independent Assemblies of God International
Independent Assemblies of God International belongs to the Pentecostal (Trinitarian) family of churches.
Governance: network.
The fellowship descending from Scandinavian-American Pentecostalism's congregational wing — churches that prized local autonomy too much to join the Assemblies of God, relating instead through a ministerial fellowship.
Congregation count not yet source-verified against RCMS 2020; NULL rather than estimated.
The fellowship of Pentecostal congregations too congregational to join the Assemblies of God — a Scandinavian-American stream that chose association over organization.
Heritage
Scandinavian Pentecostal immigrants — Norwegians and Swedes in Chicago and the upper Midwest — formed fiercely independent assemblies in the revival's first decades, convinced on principle that the New Testament knows no authority above the local congregation. Their loose associations, organized from 1918 onward, carried several titles over the years; a 1949 parting over the Latter Rain revival left the wing open to that renewal continuing as the Independent Assemblies of God International. It remains a ministerial fellowship relating self-governing churches, not a denomination governing them.
Theological family
Trinitarian Pentecostal in the classic mold — Spirit baptism, gifts of the Spirit, evangelical doctrine — with congregational independence held nearly as firmly as the doctrine itself, an inheritance from Scandinavian free-church conviction.
Who decides what
A fellowship, on purpose: credentials for ministers, voluntary association for congregations, conferences for relationship — and no headquarters with authority over a local church.
What a first-time visitor would find
Free Pentecostal worship shaped by each congregation: singing, prayer for the sick, the gifts welcomed, preaching central — with the local church answerable to no one else for its style.
What it has always cared about
Local-church sovereignty as theology, not preference; the Scandinavian-American free-church memory; openness to renewal movements; and missionary work carried on congregation by congregation.
Its gift to the wider church
A preserved alternative inside Pentecostal history: proof that the revival could organize itself as pure fellowship — and a reminder of the price, since bodies built this way are nearly invisible to censuses and histories alike.
Commonly confused with
Above all with the Assemblies of God (USA), a separate and much larger body whose title it shares — the shared wording dates from the era when "assemblies of God" was generic revival vocabulary, not a brand.
Range of views inside it
By design, wide: congregations differ in worship, emphasis and culture, and the fellowship regards that freedom as the point.
A note from the mapmakers: We have not verified a congregation count for this fellowship against RCMS 2020, so we publish none — and its congregational polity means any list of member churches is soft-edged. Name-based matching cannot distinguish its congregations from Assemblies of God churches or independent ones. Nothing here may be asserted of an individual congregation; sentences drawn from this record hedge accordingly and yield to the congregation's own materials.
Sources: Handbook of Denominations in the United States (Abingdon Press) · Encyclopedia of American Religions (J. Gordon Melton, Gale)
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