John Long first came into contact with
William Irvine in 1897 during a mission conducted under the auspices of the
Faith Mission in
Ennis,
County Clare. Long joined the Faith Mission Prayer Union in 1898 and continued his membership until 1915. Long resigned his Methodist colporteurage in November 1898, and his membership in the Methodist Church a year later. Long elicited strong responses from his preaching, in 1898 claiming 100 converts in a single mission. Long became an itinerant preacher with the
Two by Twos under William Irvine, going out along "the new Lines of Faith in God" in 1899. In 1907, Long was publicly excommunicated from the Two by Twos for refusing to damn all non-Two by Two clergy, including Methodism's founder
John Wesley. ==Years with Elim and Pentecostalism==