By 2006, Pentecostal churches were the fastest-growing Christian group in the UK, with almost 1 million members (compared with over 20 million in the USA).
The movement began among the poor and disadvantaged in the USA and has now spread to the poor of South America and Africa.
Worship is very informal and participants may show their emotions by clapping, shouting, dancing and entering trances. Preaching is often by stories, rather than sermons.
There is no hierarchy, so all members can play a part.
The worship is not based on written material, and this spontaneity makes it able to incorporate aspects of traditional non-Christian culture.
In small groups discuss how:
(a) functionalist and
(b) Marxist sociologists might explain the considerable success of Pentecostalism in appealing to the poor.
