A good friend in Hong Kong gave me a wonderful worship CD written as a partner to the Oswald Chambers book "My Utmost for His Highest". I got the book, and began an amazing journey with this radical lover of God. I learned that "vertical" worship music, with words that are spoken to God from the Bible, lifted my soul like nothing else. I learned practically that I was made to worship my Creator. I also learned that following God was not a sometimes thing, it was a 24/7 life abandoned to God. I wanted to follow God with everything I had, in every department of my life.

In 1996 I became the global VP of marketing and we moved to Cincinnati. After a prayerful and thorough search, we felt called to Hope church in Mason Ohio. Once we found a strong church, I found a men's group. These guys rubbed off on me and they challenged me. "God changed me from a Scrooge into a generous giver." They modeled how to take Jesus to work. With their example, God changed me from a Scrooge into a generous giver. I learned that every believer is called to serve Jesus, to be fishers of men. I shared my faith often at work, and in 1999 I began to teach and to speak as an evangelist. I developed a growing passion to speak and help others get God.

Hope church was a great place of growth, sitting under the teaching of David and Jonathan Burnham. I served as a Sunday school teacher, in the youth group, on missions trips, as an adult Sunday school teacher, on the prayer ministry, and eventually as the Sunday morning Bible teacher. I became an elder in the fall of 1999, and lived through a split in our church. The themes of teaching, evangelism and leadership continued to be my focus.

While I was still at P&G, I began to take seminary courses, and in the spring of 2000, one third of the way through my Master's, I felt God calling me to leave P&G. My call was unclear, but like Abraham, I felt the need to obey even though I did not know exactly where I was going. I would finish at Trinity and Marianne and I would do whatever ministry God would put in front of us. During this time, I preached, we did marriage retreats together, we prayed, we sought after God, and we began to streamline our lives for ministry. One day, we declared ourselves slaves of Christ and signed over our lives to Him.

This is about the time when I discovered the ministry of the Holy Spirit. I knew that Jesus gives every believer His Spirit, which places God and His unlimited power inside us. I also had studied the lives of David and Solomon and I realized the single biggest difference between them was that only David had the power of the Holy Spirit. "The Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but power" While on vacation in Australia during the Christmas of 2000, I read the entire New Testament with a focus on the Holy Spirit. I was stunned by one verse that said "The Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but power" (1 Corinthians 4:20), and I felt like I had not trusted God for this kind of power before.

As I read Acts, I wondered about the things going on then, and still wondered if I had received the power that Jesus promised (Acts 1:8)and if I was filled with the Holy Spirit. I then realized that God commands us to be filled with the Holy Spirit - it is not optional! Then I heard Bill Bright teach on the Spirit-filled life and I knew that I had found the key to being a truly effective Christ-follower.

I looked for an analogy to better understand the Spirit-Filled life, and found the Alpha course description very helpful. It works like a water heater.  When we trust Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes in to light the pilot light, which never goes out. The pilot light of course does not produce much hot water! The gas flow "turns on the burners" producing lots of hot water, representing spiritual power in our lives. It is power to understand the Bible, to pray, to share our faith, to worship and to serve others. When we sin, the gas gets turned off. When we confess and ask for a fresh filling, the Holy Spirit turns the burners back on. Our job is to confess before the water gets cold!