pentecostal
Then, after a few years in the wilderness of, first, atheism and then New Age Paganism (not Satanism, whatever you may read in the Telegraph!) I came back to faith in a Pentecostal church.
However, I quickly found myself appreciating the breadth and freedom of it and, to the horror of my Pentecostal and Baptist friends, became one of the dreaded ‘Liberals’ I would previously have railed against.
My Christian journey began in the Church of God of Prophecy, a vibrant Pentecostal denomination
It was there that I first came to know about Jesus, attending a Pentecostal church with my mother from as young as I can remember.
Through this, I have facilitated dialogue between Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Methodists, and Pentecostal Christians.
I have been a Church musician in various guises: in a Pentecostal Church music group in the 1980s and in a more traditional role as an organist and choir director in more recent years.
My theological training at Queen’s Birmingham brought me alongside people preparing for ministry in Black Pentecostal, Methodist and Church of England traditions, as well as independent students.
In my twenties, we joined a larger Pentecostal church, here I encountered a different expression of worship and experienced the richness of a diverse church community.
Sacrificial gifts from parishioners must be used for initiatives which will benefit and build up their own churches, with voluntary surplus-giving primarily being shared with other churches as they partner in the gospel, rather than being directed to central projects; The number of young people looking for certainty in a changing world who are joining churches which are more traditional, conservative and pentecostal.
In my teens it was nurtured in the village church my extended family had worshipped in for generations, as well as in the charismatic Catholic and CofE churches and the Pentecostal church of our nearest big town where I attended school.
I have gone on to worship in a variety of churches – URC, Vineyard, Pentecostal, New Frontiers and Baptist - before arriving back to an Anglican Church.
My early Christian life was grounded in an ecumenical youth group, held in a Pentecostal church, attended by Christians from Baptist, CofE, and Methodist churches.
My own journey to faith has taken me through several traditions, from a Catholic upbringing, through evangelical and Pentecostal worship as a teenager, to pastoral leadership in another denomination, before God called me into the Church of England, a home I found because it holds this breadth together in one body.