(Ern Baxter calls us to keep both the Word and the Spirit ...)
Ern Baxter calls us to keep both the Word and the Spirit in balance. He shows us how they were designed from all eternity, to complement what the Father was doing in the earth. We can have both the experience of the Holy Spirit and the stability of the Word - together.
Ern Baxter is known as one of the greatest Christian preachers of the 20th century. He was a Canadian Pentecostal evangelist who had great influence not only in Canada, but in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia as well.
Background
Ern Baxter was born in 1914 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, to a family that was initially Presbyterian. In a couple of years, following the father's conversion, all of them went into Classical Pentecostalism (a Protestant Christian movement that emerged in the early 20th century among the proponents of baptism with the Holy Spirit).
However, being a teenager, Baxter lost for a while his faith in religion. There were two things which brought him back to Christianity - a miracle of healing and the words of a friend: "Ern, being a Christian isn’t about what you do for God, it’s about what God in Christ Jesus has done and will continue to do for you."
Education
Ern Baxter didn't complete high school. Nonetheless, it wasn't an obstacle to become a profound orator and travel all around the world in ministry.
Career
In 1932 Ern Baxter as a gifted pianist joined a missionary traveling across Canada. During that trip, Ern attended a conference where he received the baptism in the Holy Spirit and came to the ideas which eventually became central in his ministry: Word and Spirit or Reformed doctrine and charismatic life and power. In that period of time, Baxter became pastor of a congregation of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada.
In the 1940s Ern Baxter joined touring evangelist William Marrion Branham and worked with him for approximately 5 years. When Branham started to preach the things that Baxter considered to be wrong, Ern left the mission. In 1953 he returned to a pastorate and became a preacher in the largest church in Vancouver. His influence continued to grow not only in the United States but also in the United Kingdom and Australia.
Baxter was an affiliate of the Charismatic Movement and co-founder of the periodical New Covenant Times. In the early 1970s, he began to be featured in New Wine Magazine. Baxter received great experience being a minister in the Christian Growth Ministries (c.1974-78) and serving in the quality of minister in Mobile and then in El Cajon till his death in 1993.
Ern Baxter was an influential voice in the Charismatic Movement. He preached a great number of keynote addresses and impacted a lot the British New Church Movement.
Besides, Baxter was an avid reader and collected nearly 10,000 books and periodicals. They are now housed in a Memorial Library under the auspices of Charles Simpson Ministries.
At the very beginning of Ern Baxter's ministry, he noticed that there was a dichotomy in the Body of Christ. Adherents to Evangelical Christianity were Word-centered but anti-Holy Spirit while the proponents of Pentecostalism vice versa held to the Holy Spirit and neglected the Word. Baxter strongly believed that it was necessary to keep both the Word and the Spirit in balance.
Views
Quotations:
"We first need to stress the importance of good foundations in the Christian life. Most of the problems we encounter as Christians and many impediments to our personal growth derive from our failure to have laid sound foundations at the very beginning."
"What I preach is what I get. And if I address my congregations constantly out of a Trinitarian base and show the significant importance of the Holy Spirit, I have to first generate a hunger in men and women that makes them know that the Holy Spirit is not an optional Pentecostal bonus."
Personality
Ern Baxter was a man of vision and wide reading. He was not merely interested in knowledge. He worked to pass it on to young people whom he affectionately called “Timothys.”
Quotes from others about the person
Charles Simpson, New Wine Magazine (November, 1986): "Ern has a profound preaching and teaching ministry. He is a preacher’s preacher."
Interests
collecting and reading books
Connections
Ern Baxter was married twice, first to Margaret Baxter who died in 1961 and after that, in February 1964, he married Ruth Baxter.
