As Christians around the world prepare to celebrate Pentecost Sunday, when believers were first baptized in the Holy Spirit, a new film and companion prayer guide explore how this history-shaping, powerful event fulfills Jesus’ prayer for unity.
“That They May Be One” will be in theaters nationwide five days before this year’s celebration of Pentecost on May 24. It features Christian leaders across denominations highlighting ways the Holy Spirit has worked for generations to answer Jesus’ desire for unity among believers.
A companion to the movie – 10 Days In The Upper Room – provides opportunities for prayer, worship, and connection with evangelicals like Francis Chan, several Catholic leaders, and other modern-day and historical pioneers of Holy Spirit-led movements.
In theaters May 19-20, the film “That They May Be One” includes insights from Chan and Catholic scholar Dr. Mary Healy, charismatic healing evangelist and Dr. Randy Clark, as well as spiritual authorities on historic Pentecostal outpourings at Topeka, Kansas; Azusa Street; and a Catholic university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The docudrama uses testimony, insights, and reenactments of Jesus’ prayer and the Holy Spirit’s coming at Pentecost to reinforce the theme of His desire for renewal, awakening, and unity among ministries and communities of believers.
“That They May Be One” is a call to rediscover the Holy Spirit who is still moving today, according to the film’s promoters.
The director believes the Spirit of God is moving in the earth, powerfully, despite the evil that competes for the attention of believers to draw them away from the Lord.
“In reality, the greater move is God’s and what He’s doing on the earth right now. I would call it a bridal-preparation time,” said Adriana Gonzalez, the film’s executive producer.
When Jesus will return is unknown, Gonzalez affirms, but He is bringing together the Body of Christ – His Bride. She believes the Holy Spirit is sanctifying, purifying and uniting people.
“So when I – I’m a Catholic – look around, there’s passion and awareness of our need for unity. I see this in other parts of Christianity, too; how the Holy Spirit is putting in a passion and burden – a good burden – for unity.
“This is something the Lord wants,” said Gonzalez, who founded a group 16 years ago that today is called Flourish Your Faith Ministries.
It oversees a non-profit in Guatemala where her husband, Dr. Manny Gonzalez, a practicing physician, volunteers at a mission in a poor community.
Her film takes a retrospective on a time when leaders like Chan and Dr. Ralph Martin, host of a Catholic television program and ministry leader who is also featured in “That They May Be One,” disagreed on matters of faith to the point of believing the other was completely wrong, Gonzalez said.
A story of God’s providence over a 100-year span, beginning with the prayers of a Catholic nun, Pope Leo XIII’s reverence for the Holy Spirit, a dramatic outpouring in Topeka, the Azusa revival in Los Angeles, and an awakening at Duquesne University are woven together to form a powerful thread through the documentary.
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Gonzalez, who is pursuing a master’s degree in theology, said there’s a historical thread dating to the 1800s in Italy, where Elena Guerra’s prayers and urging of Pope Leo XIII persuaded him to consecrate the 20th Century with the plea, “Come Holy Spirit.”
The day Pope Leo prayed, the Holy Spirit came to Topeka, Kansas, where students spoke in unlearned languages – one of the spiritual gifts listed in 1st Corinthians 12.
The place where they met, Stone’s Folly, became a Bible college led by Charles Parham, a 19th and 20th-century preacher who is recognized as the spiritual father of modern Pentecostalism.
About 40 Bible-college students, including Agnes Ozman, who may have been the first to speak in tongues during the outpouring in the early 1900s, testified of having personal experiences with the Holy Spirit. The outpouring, Gonzalez believes, was in part God’s answer to the nun’s prayers.
“The story isn’t meant to say that everything that happened in the 20th Century was an answer to now-Saint Elena Guerra’s prayers. The point is to say that God answered her in this very unexpected way, using unity to bring about even more unity,” said Gonzalez, pointing to the Holy Spirit’s outpouring on Catholic students in 1967.
A revival preacher who later came to what’s called Azusa Street in Los Angeles was influenced by the ministry of Parham and the Bethel Bible School in Topeka.
A revelation of God’s great love – on a personal level – is another sign of the Holy Spirit’s ongoing ministry in the world. It’s more than mental assent to God’s love, but an overwhelming experience of it, Gonzalez believes.
Also, it’s about a revelation of Jesus – who He is, His Lordship, and intimacy with Him that comes by the power of the Holy Spirit.
These themes are embedded in the film’s storyline, the producer said.
“For the person who’s received that Pentecostal experience there’s always a hunger for more. And that’s right because God is infinite. There’s always more He can give, and there’s always more we can receive. There’s always more intimacy in growing close to Him and to one another,” Gonzalez said.
The film’s title, “That They May Be One,” is taken from John 17, in which Jesus prays in the Upper Room the night before His crucifixion.
“What I most love to talk about is the importance of Christians to immerse themselves in those hours before Christ died – everything He said and did. His high priestly prayer, Jesus’ words offer us, honestly, a sort of life plan,” Gonzalez said.
A companion to the film, 10 Days in the Upper Room — Flourish Your Faith Ministries, is a prayer guide featuring key figures from the movie and Christian voices both past and present.
Tickets for the film are available online at “That They May Be One” and at participating movie theater box offices.
