Wellspring Women’s Ministry Blog and Online Community

It isn’t often that Catholics and Protestants talk to one another much less enjoy it! But while we lived at the coast we met a lovely couple who were Catholics. . . AND they were genuine, born-again, baptized in the Holy Spirit, believing and evangelizing Christians just like us. Charlie was our real estate agent. He prayed with us to find the right house and later prayed with us to sell it. Now, I had met Catholic Christians before, but these friends were my first experience with Christian Catholics who were as RADICAL in tgheir commitment to Christ as I was! I also found that they often experienced the same kind of bewilderment and misunderstanding from other, less radical Catholics that we experienced from other Protestants. We became close friends with Charlie and Lydia during the three years we lived in Carteret County and have continued the friendship ever since. That’s one more dividing wall broken down and shattered in my life!

Through Charlie and Lydia we met a friend of theirs, Father Ed Wade, a Catholic priest who is also a radical Christian. Ed’s heart really burns for unity in the Body of Christ as does ours. So while we were at the beach we formed an unofficial “coalition” for the purpose of fellowship, mutual support, and prayer for unity among believers. WE sponsored a few public meetings, but mostly we fellowshiped together. Our little group came from the most disparate of backgrounds. In fact, the one common denominator among us was radical commitment to Jesus Christ. There was Charlie and Lydia and Ed and us, plus a black Pentecostal apostle and his wife who is a pastor, and an Episcopal priest who had had to leave his denomination because of disagreement over the ordination of homosexuals (now THAT’s RADICAL Christianity!) and his wife. When we got together we rarely talked about the things that separate us, but majored on the things we have in common. Nothing was off-limits for conversation, but our hearts really reached out to one another in a genuine desire to know, love and support one another. I think we all grew as we fellowshiped together.

We still see all these old friends regularly — not as often as we would like because we are all busy, but enough to keep the relationships healthy and alive. In recent months, Father Ed has been able to host a weekly radio program on International Catholic Radio (Radio Maria) called “Thy Kingdom Come”. On it, Ed and a lovely Scottish woman named Elizabeth Pringle interview some of the most interesting people, including my hubby twice now. They had Michael to talk about Prophecy and it was fantastic! On the second program people called in from all over the place to ask questions about the gifts of the Spirit. There are Catholics out there who are hungry for the things of God! How awesome that He would allow us to be in one spreading the word among them!

This Thursday at 3PM Eastern Time I will be on the “Thy Kingdom Come” program on Radio Maria. I would encourage you to listen and to pray for us. And please give me your feed-back here or on Facebook. We will be discussing things from my book, In the Beginning on the topic of women and God’s vision for women. I had a marvelous time discussing this today with Elizabeth over Skype video. She is thoroughly delightful and I expect you will love her almost as much as I do already! You can find the program online by going to the Radio Maria website. When you get to the Homepage, click on the button for “Listen Live” and it will take you directly to the broadcast which will begin at 3 PM.