In September, ARM hosted Bishop David Pytches, a well-traveled speaker and leader of renewal in Chile and England. He ministered to us together with his wife Mary and another couple, Richard and Prue Bedwell, at three locations in Canada: Delta, BC; Montreal, Quebec; and Oakville, Ontario.

Originally from England, the Pytches began their ministry in Chile. "Going with so many assumptions from my village church background, to pioneer church planting in another culture in an urban situation really changed all my thinking", said David. "I had to ask myself what were we trying to plant -- an Anglican church? What are the values of Anglicanism outside of an English culture? It was a very disturbing time. So many things I believed were fundamental to my faith were accessories -- sometimes luxuries."

David and Mary had been in the mission field for ten years when they returned to England, spiritually exhausted from their work. "By 1969, I was going through a crisis because I found that the Christ I was preaching as the answer for others, I wasn't allowing to be the answer for my own life. I had been so zealous I had forgotten about love and didn't know it."

They were ready to leave mission work, but heard an unmistakable call to return to Chile. So, with four small daughters, they took a ship back to the mission field. As Mary went up the gangway, she prayed, "Lord, I can't get off this boat the way I am getting on. You will have to do something."

And God did do something. They met a missionary recruit with Pentecostal experience, and Mary sought the renewal of the Holy Spirit. He touched her in a dramatic way and David, while suspicious, could not argue with the validity of the experience. "I recognized the reality," he said. "A new dimension had come into our marriage."

A few months later, he too met the renewing influence of the Holy Spirit and shortly thereafter was made bishop. He began to educate himself by searching the Bible and reading books by Michael Harper and others. He became convinced that fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit are available to all believers. "Some Christians seem to experience a fullness all at once, some get it later, but I know that God is always ready to give more of his Holy Spirit to those who ask," he said. Moreover, he realized that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were for God's ministry in today's church.

Under his leadership, evangelism and church plating continued, along with extensive training of church leaders. It was an exciting, but difficult time, owing to the tensions in Chile that ultimately led to the overthrow of the Allende government in 1973.

In 1976, David, Mary and their family returned to England and entered parish ministry a suburb of London. It was a church that had already come into renewal, but David could not really see how to integrate the gifts of the spirit into the life of the church. That was to remain a mystery until John Wimber came to the church for a weekend in 1981.

"He was very gentle, humble and had a good sense of humor," David recalls. " I soon found that he had some pretty challenging alternatives to our traditional way of thinking. He showed us that we were prisoners of our western would view -- which was material and rationalistic -- causing us automatically to discredit anything outside those limits."

This echoed David and Mary's experience in Chile; they realized that they had glossed over some of what they had read in the Bible. Under John Wimber's teaching that weekend, the Spirit of God came upon may of the young people. As David expresses it, "because he gave time and silent space for the Holy Spirit to do something (which was a totally novel thing to me) I could see he was in no way whipping up emotions and it certainly didn't violate any of my biblical perceptions. I felt happy to let God be God."

Some remarkable healings (and some exaggerations) they occurred over the next few months. A lady received sight in a blind eye, they came back a year later and the other eye was healed! "It wasn’t just the healing, but the new sense of hope and purpose which people witnessed to." People could now see that the anointing of the Holy Spirit was for ministry to others. "For me, to know that someone was actually healed instantly in church at a Sunday morning service was a life-changing experience."

David says this is a real challenge to traditional churchgoers. "We like to feel that we have everything under control and can anticipate everything. We don't like spiritual surprises -- they are threatening." To advocates of "all things decently and in order" he replies. "Yes, but the questions is, which should come first -- order or life? I reckon it must be life."

"I would prefer the order of the nursery to that of the cemetery. In the nursery things get untidy and sometimes out of place; there is constant tidying up. That's what I believe we have to do with the things of the Spirit. Were humans go too far (which is pretty rare, but the possibility is always there) we just nudge them back into order again."

St. Andrew's Chorleywood has an evening service with prophecies, tongues and interpretation, and other gifts of the Spirit in evidence. One concern is that an order of service can be worded out so tightly that there is often no time left for God to intervene, other than along the predetermined lines. "I think that just allowing space for the gifts brings a new dimension. It raises the level of expectation and awareness of God. We are actually listening to hear God speak."

This has blossomed into a number of practical ministries. The church runs a mothers and babies group, and a day center for some 60 elderly people. Young people are encouraged to get involved in inner-city ministries. The church has grown in numbers and has given rise to spin-off churches in various sizes.

As the news of events at St. Andrew's spread, other church leaders in England visited to learn first-hand what has been happening. This evolved into a series of three-day conferences. Known as New Wine, they increased from 350 to over 6,500 participants between 1987 and 1992. In addition, ten-day in-service retreats have been set up for clergy to encourage them in their parish responsibilities.

Come and hear the story of St Andrew's Chorleywood. Stories such as these, from another part of the world, allow us to see new possibilities in our own parishes and dioceses. Where we are willing to let the Holy Spirit take over and do a new thing, surely we shall be witnesses to the blessings that God has for His Church -- it is His Church and He is sovereign. To Him be the glory!


(Authors Ian and Meg Sinclair are members of St. Mary's Church in Kirkland, Quebec. They are also publicity chairpersons for the Montreal conference committee. Printed in Summer 1996 of Anglicans for Renewal.)

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