A few years ago, Pastor George Bowen and I began to recognize a growing movement in the northeast of ministers that love the gospel, embrace the reformed theological view, and love the continuous ministry of the Holy Spirit in the church through the Scriptures and the gifts. This growing movement has created a growing need for gospel-centered, reformed charismatic ministers to have ways to connect for the sake of fellowship and the ever-increasing kingdom of God.

I know that I personally long for fellowship with my reformed charismatic brothers and sisters. After growing up in the Catholic Church, then saved in a Pentecostal church, I knew little of evangelical doctrine and theology except the simple idea that Jesus saved me on the cross. I was an experience-driven disciple that truly loved God, but didn’t understand the role of grace in sanctification and was failing miserably as a legalist. After walking through “the dark night of the soul” in 2001-2003, the light of grace began to shine through the Scriptures like I’d never seen. Over time, through studying the Bible, I landed firmly in reformed theology without even realizing what I was! My wife and I soon found out we were strange animals in the charismatic-pentecostal movement, which tends to default to Arminianism, and sometimes hard-core Arminianism, depending on how deep its roots are in the holiness tradition. Though we loved our Pentecostal and charismatic brothers and sisters, we coveted the rare fellowship we would sometimes find with those who embraced a higher view (or at least practice) of Scripture, a passion for gospel-centrality, and found the same joy and comfort in the doctrines of grace that we did.

In 2010 we planted a church with Acts 29 called GraceLife, and we were blessed to establish a church community that both loved doctrine and embraced the gifts of the Spirit. Now we’re thankful to begin building a wider community of brethren around the northeast that we can fellowship and serve together with. Things are still developing, but one thing we want to do immediately is start to make relational connections. Stay tuned!