God has had a surprising impact on my life. I walked away from the Christian faith of my upbringing, dabbled in Hinduism, decided I should believe, then hung around voodoo for awhile. When God took a bolder step, I saw Jesus and was baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Both in the United States and as I traveled around the world for the State Department over the next fifteen years, I was caught up in miracles and moved by God, the Holy Spirit’s directions. He showed me how His church works and how it can do better for Him.
Then starting in 1988, He placed me in the mission agency whose purpose has been to bring renewal in the Holy Spirit throughout the global Anglican Communion. As an officer of the U.S. operating arm and, after 1998, as the administrative secretary of the body’s international directorate, I led some short-term missions, oversaw others, and worked on international renewal conferences in three continents.
Throughout this, I experienced how the Charismatic Renewal Movement, with its intense focus on the person of the Holy Spirit, has impacted the U.S. Episcopal Church and many national churches of the Anglican Communion in the world: Here in the U.S., much of the Episcopal Church has now separated to form another denomination; the Anglican Communion itself is being restructured. But to what extent have Anglicans turned their attention away from the Holy Spirit?