Bishop Malcolm Harding: Gentleness and Courage

 

By Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird

An article previously published in  the Light Magazine

 

The late Bishop Malcolm Harding deeply loved Canada and the Anglican Church, even with their flaws.  He had a contagious joy in the Lord with an unforgettable twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face.  Just short of the age of 90, +Malcolm died on Sunday June 14^th 2026.  His wife Marylou said to us, “He’s home again.”

Rev Paul & Lois Carter, the first Anglican Mission in Canada Network Leader, commented, “We remember +Malcolm as a man filled with grace and the courage to do what is right.” Rev. Sharon Hayton of CMJ Canada said:  “He had an amazing ability to share and teach with such grace and genuine love that all could receive.” He was so kind and loving, yet he had the courage of his convictions when the Anglican Church was going astray. He was the second Anglican bishop in Canada to seek oversight from faithful Anglican Archbishops overseas, initially receiving a licence from Archbishop Gregory Venables of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone of South America.  He memorably observed:

I now realize that we cannot have unity at the expense of truth. I cannot in conscience travel the path that the Anglican Church of Canada is traveling, away from historic Christian teaching and established Anglican practice.

Born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England, he moved to Canada and was ordained as a deacon in 1962. After serving five rural parishes in New Brunswick, he burned out and went into Social Work for ten years.  In the early 1970's, a lawyer in Dauphin Manitoba invited him to a bible study, the last thing that Malcolm would have wanted to do. He had been steeped in the liberalism of Dr. Paul Tillich.  He then cautiously became involved in a Marney Patterson Crusade and for the first time began to understand what Jesus meant when He said, "You must be born again." Then a priest came to town who introduced him to life in the Spirit.  As Malcolm put it, “They didn’t push. They didn’t arm-twist. They lovingly, patiently loved this guy who had given up on the parish ministry.” 

Bishop Malcolm commented: “I well remember the beginning of that world-wide marvellous outpouring of God's Holy Spirit in the late 50's and early 60's which became known as the charismatic renewal. It was indeed that very movement of the Spirit which propelled me back into the ordained ministry in the early 70's, having been a dropout for some ten years.”  In 1973, Malcolm was ordained as an Anglican priest, and took a two-third’s cut in salary.  Yet God provided for his family. 

In 1992, he became the fifth Bishop of the Diocese of Brandon where he gently modelled how to move in the Spirit, holding an annual diocesan Holy Spirit conference. He taught that “the spiritual gifts, especially the so-called gifts of power such as tongues, healing and prophecy, should be treated as tools to build up and revitalize the body of Christ.” Reed Fleming, a Church Army Officer & past ARM Chair, commented, “During the last year of his episcopacy, Bishop Malcolm wanted to do an evangelistic tour (Mission Trek) covering every parish in the Diocese of Brandon. My friend Agnes Flam and I joined Bishop Malcolm and his wife Mary Lou as we travelled thousands of kilometers over that year. It was a holy and a delightfully memorable time! He was at once a great and a humble man!” Bishop Malcolm was also greatly loved as the Episcopal Visitor for the Anglican Church Army/Threshold Ministries. The former National Director, Captain Bruce Smith saw him as 'humble and kind.”

From 2001 to 2008, he served as the National Ambassador and then as Missioner for Anglican Renewal Ministries of Canada, leading over one hundred parish missions in twenty-five dioceses. He called it ‘being on the old sawdust trail.”  From 2006 to 2007, he was also ARM’s Leadership Training Institute Director. Like Jesus, +Malcolm had a delightful, childlike playfulness. We will never forget how he loved relaxing with his massive miniature railroad set in his basement. Fittingly, his favorite song was Jesus on the Mainline which both Laurie-Anne Copple (ARM Office Manager) and Emma Marsh (a past ARM Vice-Chair) said that he loved to sing with the Swampy Cree in Northern Manitoba.  Archdeacon Paul Crossland, who served on the ARM Board, fondly remembers how Bishop Malcolm always made time for each person, giving them his full attention.  He was radically present to both Jesus and others. Rev. Barbara Richardson of St Chad’s Toronto called Bishop Malcolm “a presence, a man for the people.” Through his gentleness, many clergy and laity opened up to the Holy Spirit:

Don't fear the Holy Spirit. Far too often, clergy and laity have conveyed to me a deep fear that if they really let go and let God's Spirit move freely as the breeze, there will be total chaos and all control will be lost.

Letting go and letting God is often easier said than done.  He saw Anglican renewal as "a rekindling in the fireplace of Anglicanism." “My whole ministry,” said +Malcolm, “is really all about helping clergy and parishioners rekindle those vital flames of Pentecost so that the church can become what God has always intended it to be---'Aglow in the Spirit’".  Rev. Fred Carson, SOMA Canada Director & ARM Board member, said “he was a great and honourable man…I will miss his quiet mannerisms, his practical faith, his bold but sensitive proclamation of the Gospel, and his way of always providing an opportunity for people to be heard.”

We will never forget when Bishop Malcolm, with his wife Marylou, was the evangelist/keynote speaker at the BC Christian Ashram retreat which was at Crescent Beach.  Virtually everyone he prayed with rested in the Spirit.

Because Bishop Malcolm had a deep passion for personal evangelism. he shared about it on the retreat: “Get people to tell their stories. Witness talks are so important.” He loved to ‘gossip the gospel’ wherever he went.

At the Ashram, he commended Elsie Quick’s Partners in Hope as “the best example of outreach ministry in Canada. Partners in Hope brought together everything that I dreamed would happen.”  Elsie commented that he was a great friend to Partners in Hope with his vision for ministering to the whole person.

He was full of kindness and joyfulness and a clear-eyed vision of God’s kingdom being revealed among us. I can see him sitting across a table at a drop-in center listening carefully to individuals - listening with attentiveness and care. He had an easy smile and laugh, simply interacting with persons who, despite their appearance or the odours coming from them, were persons with dignity.  They were created in the image of God, and then had life situations that needed to be addressed so they could begin living fully God’s amazing plan for their lives.

While sometimes seen as a threat by the establishment, Bishop Malcolm was deeply loved by other godly bishops and priests. 

Bishop Felix Orji of the Diocese of All Nations experienced him as a very, very gracious and godly Bishop, “I’m grateful to him for his example of bibliocentric, cruciform, gracious and reasonable practice of ministry. “

Formerly of the Diocese of the Arctic, Bishop Larry Robertson said “he would always call me at least once a month to see how I was doing. He had a gentle Spirit and never attempted to direct me but instead through questions and prayers would help me seek the Lord’s guidance. He was a good friend and a great partner in the proclamation of the Gospel.”

Previously from the Diocese of Athabasca, Bishop Fraser Lawton, said, “I think +Malcolm was an amazing man and inspired many of us in ministry. He was devout, never ostentatious, but always filled with gentle love and grace.”
Bishop Charlie Masters of ANIC/ADOC said, “When I and Bishop Trevor Walters and Bishop Stephen Leung became Bishops, I found Bishop Malcolm, and his dear wife Mary Lou, were always incredibly encouraging and assuring me of their love and prayer. I thank God for this dear, gracious, mighty Bishop, who has now been promoted to glory.”

The Western Suffragan Bishop Mike Stewart of AniC/ADOC noted, “My favourite phrase of dear +Malcolm when speaking about the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing renewal to the Church was, “Let the wind blow!”

Rev Bob Bailey of Holy Cross, Abbotsford described him as “very humble, very committed, and very straightforward. I always liked him. He was as committed as anyone could be.”

A key Ontario priest, Rev Bruce McCallum, saw Malcolm as “a very kind and gentle man, a pioneer in the renewal movement.”

Rev. Pete Falk who served in Minnedosa, Manitoba, commented, “Bishop Malcolm Harding loved the Lord Jesus. He had a servant’s heart. I never doubted he was in my corner. He frequently would reach out to see how I was doing.  As my first bishop, he ordained me. I thank God for him. I learned from a master who learned from the master Himself, Jesus Christ. 

May Bishop Malcolm Harding’s example inspire other Canadians to worship the Father in spirit and truth.

 

 

Anglican Renewal Ministries Board

]

Bishop Malcolm Harding speaking at Renewal Mission 2003. Between us is Archbishop Gregory Venables, the retired Primate of the Southern Cone visiting St. Simon’s NV.

Bishop Malcolm & Marylou Harding

The Power of Pentecost

 

E. Stanley Jones on the Power of Pentecost

By Rev Dr Ed & Janice Hird 

an article previously published in the Light Magazine

https://lightmagazine.ca/e-stanley-jones-on-the-power-of-pentecost/

Have you noticed that there is a growing interest among many Christians in the Jewish feasts, including the Day of Pentecost/Shavuot?  Liturgical churches often use the red colour to symbolize the fire of the Holy Spirit. Ironically, many Pentecostal churches don’t celebrate the day of Pentecost, though that seems to be changing. Many countries around the world celebrate Pentecost/Whit Sunday as a public holiday, some giving Whit Monday off as well.

E. Stanley Jones loved the day of Pentecost, dealing extensively with Pentecost in many of his 28 books. The 2026 Book of the Year Christ of Every Road by E. Stanley Jones is specifically called “A Study in Pentecost.” He wanted us to experience the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity.

This year’s day of Pentecost is celebrated 50 days after Easter/Passover on Sunday May 24. The Jewish feast of Shavuot/Pentecost on the 6th of Sivan goes from May 21 to 23, being based on the lunar calendar rather than the Gregorian solar calendar. While they occurred on the same day in 2022 and 2025, the Jewish and Christian Pentecost can sometimes be weeks apart. 

Shavuot in Hebrew means “Weeks”, referring to the seven weeks of time from Passover to Pentecost. Exodus 23:16 calls it the Festival of Harvest (Hag HaKatzir), referring to the offering of the first fruits (two loaves of bread) from the spring wheat Harvest (Exodus 34:22, Leviticus 23:15-21, Numbers 28:26, Deuteronomy 16:9-12).  Israel’s climate is so rich that it has both a spring and fall harvest.

Rabbinic tradition links Shavuot chronologically to the giving of the Ten Commandments/Torah to Moses in Exodus 19 on Mount Sinai.  In Acts Chapter 2, we saw the birth of the Church with the giving of the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room on Mount Zion, paralleling the giving of God’s Word on Mount Sinai. The original Harvest theme of Shavuot becomes the missionary Harvest of all the nations.  God told them to wait in the Upper Room until they were clothed with tongues of fire and supernatural tongues, enabling them to become witnesses in Jerusalem, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. 

While E. Stanley Jones did not speak in tongues, he was gracious to those who did. Jones was deeply charismatic in the sense of moving in the Spirit, surrendering to the Spirit, and listening to the Holy Spirit.

In Christ of the Round Table, he called Pentecost normal Christianity, as illustrated in Romans Chapter 8. In The Christ of Every Road, he described Romans 7 as sub-Christianity, lacking a living experience of Pentecost. This, Jones said, is “the supreme tragedy in present-day Christian living.” He called Pentecost the dominant need of our age. The lost chord in the modern church, said Jones, is Pentecost.

Why was Jones so excited about Pentecost? Jones was impressed by how Pentecost affirms our common humanity: “Pentecost strips us of all pretensions, pride, place and makes us persons.” Jones held that Pentecost saved the disciples from the trivial, the marginal, and the irrelevant. Pentecost is the charter of freedom and equality, laying the foundations of western democracy. All, through accepting Christ, receive the indwelling Spirit, whether rich or poor, Jew or Gentile, male or female, young or old. 

He also valued the life-giving implications of Pentecost: “It stands for life, hence its central impulse is sharing. We only live as we give.” The infilling and outpouring of the Holy Spirit releases a radical generosity. Pentecost for Jones was about utter self-surrender. Only Pentecost can get us out of our closets, no longer hiding behind closed doors. It gives us the gift of courage. The Holy Spirit makes us spiritually contagious, infecting others with God’s love.                                             

Pentecost for Jones meant power – power to forgive injuries, to keep an un-soured spirit amid the deepest injustices, to overcome evil with good, hate by love, and the world by a cross. It cleanses our tongues from backbiting, jealousy, and bitterness, and purifies our hardened, divided hearts, making us more Christ-like. Pentecost gives us the weapons of inexhaustible forgiveness, unquenchable good will, and limitless love.

Pentecost is about fire in God’s fireplace: “He makes every common bush flame with God.” Jones saw Pentecost as “an experience in which the soul is kindled into flame.” 

Pentecost to Jones was the sermon on the mount become practical. Without the Holy Spirit, the Christian life just becomes an unbearable burden. Pentecost, said Jones, is not a spiritual luxury, but rather an utter necessity for human living. Pentecost for Jones was an artesian well of joy bubbling over. Jones said,

“It is the joy of the eye that sees, of the aesthetic mature that senses beauty, of the intelligence that has found truth, of the heart that knows love, of the life that has found Life.”

Pentecost gives us a divine song to sing, sometimes because of, sometimes in spite of. Blessed, said Jones, is the Christian who has learned to work to the music of the Spirit. When the Holy Spirit fills us again and again, prayer overflows to the Father.  Jones said,

“If the will is surrendered and responsive, so that the channels are open, then, flowing from the eternal purity of the divine nature, the life of the Spirit bubbles up within our hearts as a fountain of exquisite joy, cleansing away the impurities of our thinking and acting and providing power by which to live, and to live anywhere.”

Jones believed that with the embrace of Pentecost, we will experience a spiritual awakening on a widespread global level. Pentecost makes all languages, cultures and nations sacred, fulfilling the Great Commission. 

What might happen at Pentecost if we choose to ask for more?

Dr James Houston, Geographer of the Soul

 

(21 November 1922 – 15 March 2026)

-an article published in the Light Magazine

By Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird

 

Why would anyone leave a teaching position at Oxford University in England to start from scratch in Vancouver, BC? How did Dr James Houston become the spiritual father of Regent College? in December 1961, a pivotal spiritual encounter with God prompted his dramatic career shift. Jim explained,

That December, I took ten busloads of InterVarsity students from the various universities in Winnipeg to InterVarsity’s wonderful Urbana conference…Two nights after I arrived back in Winnipeg, I was awakened in the middle of the night to see an intense light at the foot of my bed.  Oddly, I didn’t feel surprised or even curious, simply deeply convinced I was in the presence of God.  I had the same reaction as Saul of Tarsus when he saw a bright light: ‘Lord, what do you want me to do?’ There was no answer yet.  For seven years, I waited until I knew what it was that I had to do: to give up my safe and happy life at Oxford and return to Canada. 

Jim was born in Edinburgh, Scotland to Plymouth Brethren missionary parents.  His parents had both been missionaries in Spain for twenty years before meeting each other. In the village of Piedralavas, Jim’s mother Ethel had to flee while being stoned. Jim’s father James rescued her and then married her the next year in a blacksmith shop in Madrid.  Jim’s early childhood was as a MK (missionary kid) in Spain.  Regarding his parents he commented,

My mother was considered ‘opened-minded’; she came from the ‘Open’ Brethren.  However, my father came from the ‘Glanton’ Brethren, an offshoot of the ‘London’ or ‘Tight’ Brethren.  There had been, then, some tensions between my parents.  I had always navigated between them, feeling much more sympathetic to my mother.

His unique Spanish upbringing led him to do a 1950 Oxford doctoral thesis (D. Phil.) on The Social Geography of the Huerta of Valencia. Jim’s love for Mediterranean landscapes resulted in his writing A Social Geography of Europe (1953) and The Western Mediterranean World (1964), focusing on rural settlement types in Spain.

As a geographer, Jim focused more on the study of ‘place’ (human context, history and meaning) rather than just ‘space’ (a mathematical construct).  This led Jim to emphasize how people create meaning in their surroundings. Humanity was more important to Jim than technique and abstraction. Through a close friendship with C.S. Lewis, geography to Jim became a deeply spiritual and even theological exercise.

Jim first met C.S. Lewis after arriving in Oxford in 1945.  As a young lecturer in geography, he took part in a regular bible study with CS Lewis from 1947 to 1953/54. Jim lectured at Oxford from 1947 to 1971 as fellow and later bursar at Hertford College.  Through his Russian Orthodox landlord, Dr. Nicholas Zernov, Jim took part in a monthly dinner with C.S. Lewis and other Christians dons.  Jim wrote,

In the spring of 1953, at the time when C.S. Lewis was preparing to take up an appointment as full Professor of Literature in Cambridge, …I asked Lewis what had been his central message in his Christian writings.  ‘All my writings,’ he said, ‘are against reductionism…this is contained in ‘On the Abolition of Man.’

 This fight against “reductionism”, especially in the devaluing of the human person, was taken up by Jim in many of his forty+ books, especially The Transforming Friendship. Eugene Peterson commented,  “James Houston relentlessly confronts our secular, soul-destroying ways of treating one another…” Jim was impressed by C.S Lewis’ ability to integrate keen intellectual rigour with deep Christian faith.  Lewis thought ‘hard’ and ‘with discipline’ about faith.  This showed Jim how professional expertise and committed Christianity could co-exist without conflict.  Jim brought such thoughtful, disciplined interaction with faith to his Regent College context.

Regent exists in large part because of deep connections that Jim made with Granville Chapel elders like Marshall Shepherd, who became Regent’s first Chair. 

Regent College had a tumultuous beginning. The first Regent summer school was held in 1968.  In 1970, they prepared to receive diploma students.  Two Texan Marine Veterans, having had their lives saved in Vietnam, were the first to register for the college.  While driving to attend a wedding, an old man in a large car ploughed into their small Vauxhall, and killed them. The first year’s class was composed of only four students and two professors. 

Jim brought in other key scholars, such as F. F. Bruce, Samuel Escobar, Michael Green, and John Stott to Regent’s summer school program.

Dr. Carl E. Armerding was a co-founder with Jim of Regent College, and his successor as Principal. He comments,

Dr. Jim Houston (1922-2026), was a dear friend of almost sixty years, a colleague for most of that time, and an inspiration to generations of students and others throughout the world. His lectures and publications in that field have created a following world-wide, and it was only recently, after his 103rd birthday, that he had to lay down his pen. We shall miss him, not only for his scintillating, and often fresh, commentary on life as a follower of Jesus, but for his friendship, which was legendary. Stepping into heaven would have been, for Jim, both a ‘coming home’ and a grand re-union.

Jim also co-founded the C.S. Lewis Institute in Washington, D.C., where he served as a Senior Fellow and lecturer for decades. 

Dr. Jeff Greenman, who served as President of Regent from 2015 to 2025, first met Jim in 1982 in Washington, D.C. where he would visit in order to disciple leaders,

My first impressions were that Jim was warm, personable and kind. He had a remarkable ability to ask penetrating questions, to listen to my story and to discern what God might be doing amidst the threads of my personal story.

Jim invited Jeff to attend Regent where he currently serves as Research Professor of Theology & Ethics,

(Jim) always had big ideas, grand schemes and lofty dreams about what Regent could be doing. I deeply appreciated that he was eager to come to my office to pray for me. To my surprise, he even became eager to help Regent raise funds, and supported me in my fundraising role as President. This was a shift for him…he remained able to learn and grow, his mind was always active and his ideas were always evolving, and this quality remained active right into his final weeks of life. 

Many of the first Regent students were involved in the Jesus Movement, a youth revival impacting millions. Dr. Paddy Ducklow, a Regent student who later served as the Carey Professor of Marriage & Family, recalls how Jim’s wise compassion saved him from joining the Children of God cult. While Jim took the CoG literature to analyze it, Rita gave Paddy a bowl of soup and a warm blanket in front of their fireplace. Jim then returned, saying, ‘It’s not true, Paddy.’  This didn’t just rescue Paddy, but also potentially the 1,400 youth that Paddy was leading at Salt Circus.  

Dr Paul Spilsbury, President of Regent College, commented,

Jim Houston was deeply loved at Regent College. Jim always seemed to be miles ahead of everyone else in the depth of his insight into the Christian life and into what the Spirit was saying to God’s people and calling forth from us. As president, I have benefited enormously from Jim’s personal advice and kindly guidance on many occasions. He was someone who knew much about the ups and downs of institutional life, and he offered his support unstintingly. It’s hard to put into words how much Jim meant to us or to quantify how much we will miss him. He was more than a friend. He was a brother in Christ, a confidante, and an exemplar who filled us with a sense of the reality of God.

In 2014, Jim’s wife Rita passed away after battling dementia. Jim’s final years were spent in a care home, where he would anoint visitors with frankincense and remind them: ‘Our Lord is the best friend you could ever have.’” With one of his final books written at age 102 on aging well, it is not surprising that the James Houston Centre for Faith & Successful Aging has become part of his legacy. Regent is also inviting people to consider donating to the Jim & Rita Houston Courage Fund.

May Jim’s courageous example inspire us all to more fully integrate our thought and action towards transforming our world.

Oral Roberts: Two Folded Healing Hands

 

By Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird

-an article for the Light Magazine ‘Healing Pioneers’ series

During his lifetime, Oral Roberts was the most famous Christian evangelist, next to Billy Graham.  In the 1980s, he was so well-known that he was recognized by 84 percent of Americans.

His rallies were really two parallel crusades on the same evening. Like his hero Billy Graham, Oral would spend the first half of his Crusades preaching the gospel message and giving an altar call for salvation. His wife Evelyn Roberts said: “Two thirds of the people sitting in our tents were not saved. They did not know Jesus.” Then in the second half of the Crusade, he would speak about the healing ministry and pray specifically for the sick.  Many who came being curious about the miracle healings ended up giving their lives to Christ.

Billy and Oral first met in Portland Oregon where Billy invited Oral to open his Crusade in prayer.  Oral initially said no, telling Billy that his healing ministry was seen as controversial.  Billy responded, saying that it was not controversial to him.  He explained that he did not pray for the sick in his Billy Graham Crusades because he did not have that healing gift like Oral did. Billy went on to say that he had privately attended Oral Roberts crusade where a sick relative was healed.   They went on to develop a good friendship.  Billy Graham spoke at the official opening of the Oral Roberts University: “ORU’s founder and first president was a man who was an evangelist first and always of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Born in 1918, Oral Roberts, as the son of a very poor Pentecostal pastor, wanted nothing to do with church. Poor and starving as a teenager, he left home with his basketball coach, seeking to become a basketball star.  Being a workaholic, he only slept two hours a night. His goal was to become a lawyer and the Governor of Oklahoma.  In the middle of a basketball game, he collapsed from tuberculosis.  In those days, TB was virtually a death sentence.  They sent him back home to die. But his older brother took him to George Moncey’s tent meeting in July 1935 where he was supernaturally healed from tuberculosis. Even though he was instantly healed, it still took him time to regain his full strength.  This miraculous healing left Oral with a deep sense that he was called to heal others.  He said: “If God healed me, who am I to doubt what He will do for someone else.”  However, it took twelve years before his healing ministry was launched.

In the spring of 1948, Oral was conducting a one-night crusade in Nowata, Oklahoma.  While praying for a deaf young boy, the Lord said to Oral, “Son, you have been faithful up to this hour, and now you will feel My presence in your right hand. Through My presence, you will be able to detect demons, and through My power they will be cast out.” Suddenly, Oral felt a burning sensation traveling down his right arm to his right hand. His hand was throbbing as though there was an electric current flowing through it. After Oral placed his hands on the boy’s ear, he felt the Lord’s power surge through his right hand.  Turning the boy away from his mother so that the boy could not see her mouth, Oral asked her to speak to her son. The young boy heard every word that his mother uttered!

A few days later, Oral spoke at a church in Tulsa. At the end of the service, Irma Morris who had tuberculosis came forward. Feeling God’s purpose surge in his right hand, he commanded the TB to loose her body and set her free in the name of Jesus. “Oh, Oral, what did you do to me?” she cried. “Your right hand. It felt on fire when you touched me....Something in your right hand is causing a warmth to go through my lungs. My lungs are opening up. I believe I am being healed!” From this moment, Oral went on to teach about the importance of a point of contact in healing: “When I lay my right hand upon you, let that be a point of contact and believe.” Oral went on to pray individually with one and a half million people.  One participant said: “ It felt like walking through the pages of the book of Acts.”  In praying for so many people, Oral suffered from repetitive stress injury, breaking his right shoulder twice, and his left shoulder twice.

Oral’s experience of healing convinced him that God is a good God. This is why he often said, “Something good is going to happen to you.”  He believed that the best was yet to come.  As people discovered the goodness of God, they began to expect miracles to happen. 

Oral Roberts had unusual favour in ministering healing to many First Nations people. With his mother being Cherokee, and Oral holding Choctaw Nation membership, he understood the suffering on the Trail of Tears.  In August 1955, Roberts conducted a Native American Healing Crusade on the Crow Reservation in Montana. In 1963, he was awarded The Outstanding Native American of the Year award. 

Rev. Roberts brought significant breakthrough in the area of racism: “In many places, misguided Christians picketed and paraded outside our tent because I refused to segregate the altar of God.” In 1953, Roberts was told that people planned to kill him if he desegregated seating in his meetings. He announced, “Anyone who comes to our tent can sit where you want to sit.”  Roberts observed, “[Afro-Americans] have been the victims of more mistreatment and racial bias than any other peoples in modern history.” As a pioneer in Christian TV, Roberts’ first primetime TV show in 1969 featured the black gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, this at a time when blacks were ‘invisible’ in American religious broadcasting. 

He also built the ORU university representing 114 nations, with 14 percent Afro-American, 14 Hispanic and 16 percent international student.  The majority of ORU students in the 1970s were converted hippies who had joined the Jesus Movement.  Oral knew in the birth of ORU that his calling was not just to heal bodies but also to transform minds. God wanted us to be whole persons in body, mind and spirit.  They had a slogan at ORU: Get your learning while you keep your burning. With 25,000 having graduated so far from Oral Roberts University, ORU may be his greatest legacy.  With Roberts moving from the Pentecostal Holiness to the Methodist Church, this symbolized Roberts’ desire to impact the Church interdenominationally. God gave him unusual favour with key renewal leaders like Francis MacNutt and Rev. Michael Harper.

In 1948, only one percent owned a TV set.  But by 1953, fifty-three percent owned a TV. So Roberts in 1954 began broadcasting his 10,000+-strong tent meetings to millions of viewers.  He made use of TV to make the healing ministry accessible to ordinary people.

Oral wrote fifty books, selling over fifty million copies.  His Healing Waters/Abundant Life magazine at its peak reached one million people per month. His house was full of letters.  He hired 300 letter readers to write responses to the letter writers. In the early 1970s, Oral Roberts received nearly six million letters a year. John Lennon of the Beatles wrote Oral Roberts saying that he enjoyed Oral’s TV show.  He also said that he hated being under the influence of drugs: “Maybe if I had a father like you, I would have been a better person.”

Oral’s strong, 66-year marriage with his wife Evelyn was one of the keys to his lasting impact.  As a child, Evelyn stated that she would never marry a pastor because in those days, it was a life of grinding poverty. As a trained teacher, she had the courage to speak into Oral’s life, protecting him from the many pitfalls and scandals that easily take out highly successful leaders.  Often, she would sit in the front row of his meetings and correct him publicly if he recalled details incorrectly in his stories. Her unwavering loyalty and wisdom protected Oral during the deeply painful family crises of their daughter Rebecca’s 1977 plane crash death, their son Ronnie’s drug-related suicide in 1982, and their son Richard’s divorce.

Oral had supernatural gifts of faith and generosity (1 Corinthians 12:9; Romans 12:8).  Because God had been so generous to him, he was inspired to be deeply generous to others.  His joyful generosity, which he called ‘seed faith’ or sowing and reaping, inspired millions of other people to grow in their giving to God through tithing and sacrificial giving.  Being a selfish Christian is a contradiction in terms. Oral realized that God blesses our generosity so that we can keep growing in generosity to others.  As Jesus said in Acts 20:35, it is more blessed to give than receive.  Such generosity birthed ORU against all odds, with now 5,000 students.  When facing innumerable challenges at ORU, he would walk between buildings and proclaim, “The same God who lifted me from the death bed, will sustain this university.”

In our greatest strengths are often hidden our greatest weaknesses.  We are grateful for Oral’s generosity.  He had great faith for healing through both medicine and prayer, symbolized by ORU’s large bronze sculpture Healing Hands .  Rather than medicine and healing prayer being opposites, Oral saw them as two hands joined together. This led him in 1981 to start a 60-story medical school costing millions of dollars. When the building debts piled up, Oral in 1986 said that the Lord would ‘call him home’ if the medical bills were not paid.  Remarkably, the money came in, but Oral had to close and sell the medical building in 1989 because of operating debt.  We regret this incident which had many people giving out of fear and guilt.  When people initially give because ‘the sky is falling’, they often suffer from donor exhaustion when the financial problems keep re-emerging.  Only love and gratitude are sufficient reasons to not grow weary in being biblically generous.  Either way, Oral was a healing pioneer from which we can all learn much.

May we be willing, like Oral Roberts, to embrace the goodness of God who is still the same yesterday, today and forever.

 

Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird, co-authors, God’s Firestarters

Bill Wilson and Rev. Sam Shoemaker: 12-Step Pioneers

 

-an article published in the Light Magazine “Healing Pioneers” Series

By Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird

 

From 1917 until 1919, Sam Shoemaker served as a YMCA missionary in China. In January 1918, Sam met a fellow missionary to China, Frank Buchman, founder of the Oxford Group where he experienced a profound spiritual renewal through the "Four Absolutes" of honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. Absolute Purity means to find some all-consuming and high faith and purpose which takes up and uses one’s energies. Sam always said that ‘we should believe the incredible and tackle the impossible.”  He memorably noted that“…everyone has a problem, is a problem, or lives with a problem.”   

Billy Graham called Sam “a giant among men… I doubt that any man in our generation had a greater impact on the Christian world than did Sam Shoemaker.” Billy Graham saw Sam as the single, most dynamic preacher of his day

 Ordained as an Anglican/Episcopal pastor in 1921, he served as Rector of Calvary Church, New York, from 1925 to 1952. 

As Bill W tells it in AA Comes of Age, he went in December 1934 with his friend Ebby to Dr. Sam’s Calvary Church Mission:

There were some hymns and prayers.  Then Tex, the leader, exhorted us.  Only Jesus could save, he said.  Somehow this statement did not jar me.  Certain men got up and gave testimonials.  Numb as I was, I felt interest and excitement rising.  Then came the call.  Some men were starting forward to the rail.  Unaccountably impelled, I started too…I knelt among the shaking penitents. Maybe then and there, for the first time, I was penitent too.  Something touched me.  I guess it was more than that.  I was hit.  I felt a wild impulse to talk. Jumping to my feet, I began…Ebby, who at first had been embarrassed to death, told me with relief that I had done all right and had ‘given my life to God.’

Bill and his wife Lois started attending Oxford Group meetings at Calvary House with Sam Shoemaker. Sam became one of Bill’s closest personal friends, even hosting the first AA meetings in his Calvary Church Hall. Both Sam and Bill had a wonderful sense of self-deprecating humour that drew the non-religious to God.  Sam often said: “I never feel quite as much at home as I feel at an AA meeting.” A woman said to him:  “Sam, you may not be an alcoholic but you certainly do talk like one of them.” AA now has over two million members worldwide, with more than 123,000 groups in about 180 countries.  So many have gotten their lives back.

Where did AA’s amazing 12 Steps come from?  They were written by Bill W.  Thinking of the twelve apostles, he decided that the society should have twelve steps. Dr. Sam, as he was known affectionately in AA circles, had a profound impact on Bill W’s spiritual awakening.  The divorce of Bill’s parents when Bill was aged 10 was a shock that he never forgot.  He says he remained depressed for almost a year following his parents’ divorce.  He ended up staying with his grandparents after his mom left for Boston to attend Osteopathic School. Bill’s pain was heightened by the fact that he did not see his father again for nine years.

 

Bill W said that ‘It was from Sam that co-founder Dr. Bob and I in the beginning absorbed most of the principles that were afterwards embodied in the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, Steps that express the heart of AA’s way of life.’  Bill W went on to say that Dr. Sam ‘gave us the concrete knowledge of about what we could do about (alcoholism)’ and that Dr. Sam ‘passed on the spiritual keys by which we were liberated’.  Dr Sam, according to Bill W, ‘has been the connecting link.’

Before AA, they would just put people in sanitariums because they didn’t know what to do with them.  AA showed how alcoholism is a disease with a spiritual solution.  Even though Dr. Sam was not an alcoholic, he had unusual insights into the human condition that drew alcoholics to him.  Reminiscing about the first time that he met Dr. Sam, Bill W said: ‘I can still see him standing there before the lectern.  His utter honesty, his tremendous forthrightness, struck me deep.  I shall never forget it.’  Dr. Sam according to Bill W,

always called a spade a spade, and his blazing eagerness, earnestness, and crystal clarity drove home his message point by point…Here was a man quite as willing to talk about his own sins as about anybody else’s.

 

The author of twenty-eight books, Dr. Sam was named as one of the ten greatest preachers in North America. Sam founded several movements, including Faith at Work in 1926 and the Pittsburgh Experiment in 1955, which integrated business and faith. His wife Helen, who wrote Sam’s biography I Stand at the Door,  birthed the Anglican Fellowship of Prayer in 1958.  He challenged all of the failings of humanity with fierceness, wit and relevancy.  But Dr. Sam was never pessimistic or despairing. Like Bill W, Sam never gave up on people.

There are now dozens of recovery groups who apply the 12 Steps to all kinds of addictions and challenges, including overeating, narcotics, sexual brokenness, emotional dysfunctions, and gambling dependencies.  Lois, Bill Wilson’ wife, birthed Alanon, which focuses on the families and spouses of alcoholics. There is even a specifically Christ-centered expression based on the beatitudes called ‘Celebrate Recovery’ that over five million people have already participated in over 35,000 host churches.

Since 1982, I (Ed) have done hundreds of Fifth Steps where people have come into great freedom from alcoholism and drugs.  Many have encountered the Holy Spirit as their higher power. When we admit that we have wronged others and then make restitution, miracles can happen.  Families are often restored after years of rejection. 

Many 12 Step groups around the world pray both the Serenity Prayer and the Lord’s prayer.  Both prayers are about ‘letting Go and letting God’.  According to Bill W, breakthroughs happen when “…we can surrender and truly feel, ‘Thy will, not mine, be done’”.  It is so hard to let go.  Yet as we work the twelve steps, as we admit our powerlessness, as we turn our lives and will over to the care of God, as we seek only for the knowledge of God’s will, then miracles can happen.

 

As Dr. Sam said to the 20th Anniversary AA Convention,

Prayer is not trying to get God to change His will. It is trying to find out what His will is, to align ourselves or realign ourselves with His purpose for the world and for us.  When we let willfulness cool out of us, God can get His will across to us as far as we need to see ahead of us.  Dante said, ‘In His will is our peace’.

 

Dr. Sam concluded his address to the 20th Anniversary AA Convention by saying:

I thank God that the church has so widely associated itself with AA, because I think AA people need the church for personal stabilization and growth, but also because I think that the church needs AA as a continuous spur to greater aliveness and expectation and power.

 

 “Perhaps the time has come”, said Dr. Sam, “for the church to be reawakened and revitalized by the insights and practices found in AA.”

 

Our prayer for those reading this article is that as with Bill Wilson and Sam Shoemaker, God may make each of us a channel of his peace, his serenity and his sobriety.

 

John & Paula Sandford: Healing the Family

-an article for the Light Magazine ‘Healing Pioneers’ series

Many people are fascinated with science fiction, the battlefield worlds of Star Wars and Star Trek.  John and Paula Sandford, as healing theologians, knew that the great arena of battle is inner space, rather than outer space.[1]  With their Elijah House ministry, their passion was to evangelize the unbelieving areas of the believer’s heart.[2]    They felt called to "restore the hearts of children to the fathers and the hearts of fathers to the children". (Malachi 4: 6)[3]

The Sandfords discovered through thousands of hours of Christian prayer counselling[4] that inner healing of the heart makes us more human:

The tragedy of our culture is that men and women are becoming progressively less human.[5]

Restoration of the inner person comes not through trying to correct our behaviour, but rather through death and restoration[6]:

Sins need forgiveness.  But our sin nature can only be dealt with by our own death on the cross.  Forgiveness is done for us totally by Jesus. Death on the cross requires our participation…[7]

Even though death, resurrection and forgiveness already happen when a person receives Jesus, we are slow to accept the new reality. John said that we are spiritual midwives attending at the birth of people.[8] Sanctification is daily death and resurrection in Christ. Restoring the Christian family happens as we apply the Lordship of Jesus to every area of our lives.[9] Everyone needs inner healing in order to mature in the Christian life, transforming our hearts.

Like Leanne Payne and Francis MacNutt[10], John and Paula were mentored by the grandmother of modern healing, Agnes Sanford.[11]  She saw inner healing as nothing other than the confessional, the revealing and confession of long-forgotten sins (James 5:16).[12]  Paula and I, said John, have heard more confessions than most priests.[13]

John first met Agnes Sanford in 1961 in Springfield, Missouri, where she prayed for the healing of his back by asking the Lord to enable him to forgive his mother.  His childhood relationship with his mother had been very difficult.[14] In John’s subsequent dream, five-foot-four Agnes Sanford tackled to the ground the six-foot-tall weightlifter John Sandford before racing with him through a skyscraper turning on lights. John commented: “Ever since then, the Lord has been turning on lights in my ‘tower of knowledge.’”[15]

In 1963, John joined Agnes as a teacher in many inner healing seminars conducted by her School of Pastoral Care.[16] 

After the death of her husband, Agnes Sanford came to John and Paula, needing love to come out of her walls of depression and to live again.  It was a great privilege to prayerfully release her from her depression.[17]

Four key areas where John and Paula made key contributions were in the area of the heart of stone, inner vows[18], bitter root judgments, and performance orientation[19].  These four areas have been key to the Sandford’s success in restoring marriages and reversing ‘silent divorce.’  John and Paula’s vulnerability about their marriage challenges gave courage for many other couples to be transparent in seeking healing.

John and Paula often opened up inner healing by asking three questions[20]:

1)        What was your father like?

2)        What was your mother like?

3)        Did they give you affection?

Because Paula’s mom struggled with anger, so did Paula in the early days of raising her children. Through deep inner healing, Paula became very sweet, even when she later had Alzheimer’s.  Her son Mark said:

Whenever my wife Maureen and I visited her, memories of the angry mother of my distant childhood faded in the warm glow of gentle hugs and kisses and “I love you” and “I'm so proud of you.” We never detected a hint of anger toward us.[21]

Both John and Paula Sandford were wounded by their fathers being workaholics whom they only saw on weekend.  This left them with bitter root judgments that their spouses would not be available for them.  As Hebrews 12:15 puts it, “see to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”  Bitterness defiles everything.[22]  John said:

What is in us either blesses or defiles others.   There are specific ways that bitter roots defile. Our bitter root judgements can draw out the worst behaviour in people.[23]

Forgiveness by John and Paula of their fathers brought great healing to their marriage. John found it easier to be present to Paula when she no longer saw him through the eyes of her absent father.

For the first eighteen years of their marriage, Paula could not keep the house tidy.  Everything was messy. When John repented of his bitter root judgement about his mom being messy, Paula could keep the house tidy, with her children actually helping her.[24]

Marriage, said the Sandfords, is a twenty-four-hour-a-day, 365-days-a-year, exercise in the art of forgiveness.[25]  The ability to completely forgive is perhaps the most needful skill requiring restoration in family life today.[26] Forgiveness is vital in inner healing.  When we forgive our spouse, our hearts are more tender as the roots of bitterness are removed.  This makes it easier to be kind and generous to our spouse.  No more silent treatment, putdowns, or screaming. How does your family handle conflict? 

Because John’s mother was not safe to be around, he made an inner vow not to be open to a woman. Through breaking this inner vow, God radically restored intimacy within his marriage.

John’s father suffered from procrastination, never finishing things. Part of John’s heart of stone was that he was locked into his inner vow that unlike his dad, he would finish things. This caused him to not be available to his wife Paula because he would not stop until he had finished whatever project that he was already doing, whether ministry or sports.  This hooked into Paula’s inner vow that her husband would not interrupt things to be available to her.  Breaking this inner vow allowed John to be present to Paula in a life-giving way.[27]

The greatest difficulty concerning forgiveness, said the Sandfords, is that most often we do not know we still cherish resentment, or have lied to ourselves.[28] People almost inevitably think they have forgiven when they haven’t.[29] Until we lay the ax to the bitter root of unforgiveness, there is no rest.[30]  The Sandfords held that

Bitter-root judgments are the most common, most basic sins in all marital relationships –perhaps in all of life. 

Because of bitter root judgments, we continually look for a fight to happen with our spouse.  Seldom are marital fights ‘clean’, (i.e. actually concerning what they seem to be about.) Marriage is fraught with surprises.

The best way to destroy a marriage, said the Sandfords, is to be sure to win every argument.[31]  They taught extensively about biblical listening: 

Real listening is the most difficult art in the world precisely because it calls for the most complete and constant death of self.[32]

True inner healing breaks the curse of self-centeredness, releasing us to a life of service. The single root cause of failure, said the Sandfords, in every marriage is selfishness.[33] 

When a person has a heart of stone, especially clergy and caregivers, they are incapable of divulging their inner being to another.[34]  Receiving is always riskier than giving.[35] The heart of stone, said John, is an automatic hiding place with us, a hard place inside of us that resists trusting brothers and sisters.  Love is a fire that will melt whatever remains of the heart of stone.[36]

Performance orientation, as described in Galatians 3: 1-5, leaves us stuck on an endless treadmill of trying harder to be good enough. We so easily believe the lie that we will never be loved unless we do things perfectly. John Sandford commented: “God doesn’t want us to try. He wants us to ‘die’ so that He can do it through us.”[37]

All of us can learn from the wisdom of John and Paula Sandford which is available in many books and also on YouTube.  Would you like God to give you a heart of flesh? Would you like to break any inner vows off your life? Would you like to be released from any bitter root judgments?  Would you like to be set free from performance orientation? Jesus is waiting to set us free.

 

---

[1] John and Paula Sandford, Restoring The Christian Family, (Victory House, Inc., Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1986), 21 The great arena of battle is inner space, not outer.

[2] https://www.elijahhouse.com.my/founders/ (accessed 2025—12-09)

[3] John and Paula Sandford, Restoring The Christian Family,.166 “Fathers’ love for their children is so important that without it, a curse comes upon the land. (Malachi 4:5-6)”

[4] John and Paula Sandford, The Transformation of the Inner Man, 91 “…twenty years of counselling as many as 1,200 hours in each year.”  

[5] John and Paula Sandford, The Transformation of the Inner Man (Bridge Publishing, Inc., Plainfield, NJ, 1982),214.

[6] John and Paula Sandford, Restoring The Christian Family,. ix.

[7] John and Paula Sandford, The Transformation of the Inner Man,  5.

[8] John and Paula Sandford (Elijah House)- How To Minister Effectively, Core Bible Study

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWjT-lt3X6k (accessed 2025-12-10).

[9] John and Paula Sandford, Restoring The Christian Family, 151.

[10] John and Paula Sandford, The Transformation of the Inner Man, 4  “Many pastors, doctors, nurses, and others came and learned; among them were Francis MacNutt, Barbara Shlemon, Tommy Tyson, Herman Riffel, Paula and myself…”

[11] John and Paula Sandford, The Transformation of the Inner Man, vi  “Of course no list of acknowledgements could be complete in a book concerning the healing of the inner man which does not give thanks for the pioneering work of Agnes Sanford.  Not only was she for all of us the forerunner in the field of inner healing by prayer, but she was also our own first mentor in the Lord, our friend and advisor. It was her solid common sense which first hauled our soaring mysticism to safe moorings in sound theology, the Word of God, and earthiness.” 

[12] John and Paula Sandford, Restoring The Christian Family, 141.

[13] John and Paula Sandford (Elijah House)- How To Minister Effectively, Core Bible Study

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWjT-lt3X6k (accessed 2025-12-10).

[14] John and Paula Sandford, The Transformation of the Inner Man, 4 “I (John) met Agnes Sanford in 1961 in Springfield, Missouri, where she prayed for the healing of my back by asking the Lord to enable me to forgive my mother.  (Until I was thirteen, my relationship with my mother had been terrible. But then I forgave her and was forgiven, and since that time, we have enjoyed a good, if imperfect relationship.)  I knew by my psychological training that Agnes was praying for the inner boy from conception to thirteen whom I could not reach.  It worked. I was healed.”

[15] John and Paula Sandford, The Transformation of the Inner Man, 4-5.

[16] John and Paula Sandford, The Transformation of the Inner Man, 5, “In 1963, I joined Agnes as a teacher in many seminars conducted by the School of Pastoral Care.  Together for several years, we taught the healing of the inner many in schools and missions across the country.” 

[17] John and Paula Sandford, The Transformation of the Inner Man, 221.

[18] John and Paula Sandford, The Transformation of the Inner Man, 232 “Authority breaks inner vows.  Friendship overcomes hearts of stone.  Forgiveness expressed by a counselor washes away guilt.”

[19] John Sandford, Performance Orientation #3241, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SMZpDQgEJE&t=10s (accessed 2025-12-15).

[20] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyShRWSXxG0 (accessed 2025-12-10)

[21] Paula Sandford, A Life Well Lived – Elijah Rain Ministries (accessed 2025-12-10).

[22] John and Paula Sandford, The Transformation of the Inner Man, 242 “Bitter-root judgments are the most common, most basic sins in all marital relationships –perhaps in all of life.” 

[23] elijahhouse.com.my/audio/bitterroots.mp3 (accessed 2025-12-10).

[24] elijahhouse.com.my/audio/bitterroots.mp3 (accessed 2025-12-10).

[25] John and Paula Sandford, Restoring The Christian Family, 54.

[26] John and Paula Sandford, Restoring The Christian Family, 67.

[27] Session E (Healing Life's Hurts 2004) John Sandford, Paula Sandford, Catch The Fire Toronto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-xyesqGYEE  (accessed 2025-12-14).

[28] John and Paula Sandford, Restoring The Christian Family, 101.

[29] John and Paula Sandford, Restoring The Christian Family, 101.

[30] John and Paula Sandford, The Transformation of the Inner Man, 104 “Forgiveness brings us to rest”.; 117 “But if we have laid the ax to the root and prayed, that thing is in fact dead.”

 

[31] John and Paula Sandford, Restoring The Christian Family, 64.

[32] John and Paula Sandford, Restoring The Christian Family, 63.

[33] John and Paula Sandford, Restoring The Christian Family, 92.

[34] John and Paula Sandford, Restoring The Christian Family, 33 “Faithful ministers of the gospel common suffer from a heart of stone, for the minister’s concept of his office seduces him to value giving but not receiving.”

[35]John and Paula Sandford, Restoring The Christian Family, 31.

[36] John and Paula Sandford (Elijah House)- Hearts of Stone, Core Bible Study

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY6RnvMP46w (accessed 2025-12-10) .

[37] John Sandford, Performance Orientation #3241John,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SMZpDQgEJE&t=10s (accessed 2025-12-15)