ing these dramatic things in my life?” That led her to pray, “Lord, as a Catholic, I believe I’ve already received Your Spirit in baptism and confirmation. But if it’s possible for Your Spirit to do more in my life than He’s done till now, I want it.”
‘My spiritual life felt powerless and pedestrian. It was like I was pushing a car uphill.’
It first hit David Mangan, though, after he listened to a teaching that weekend that the Holy Spirit could still bring tongues and power like dynamite. Mangan wanted both – the tongues and the dynamite – and asked the Lord for it because his Christianity felt powerless and pedestrian. “My spiritual life could not be described as dynamite,” he said. “It was limping along. The way I describe it, it was like I was pushing a car uphill.” As for what he was hearing about the gift of tongues, he was so intrigued, “I wrote in my notebook, ‘I want to hear someone speak in tongues – me.’ I realized I did that because I don’t know how much I would’ve believed it if it was someone else.”
Mangan received a powerful answer as he sought the Lord alone that weekend in a chapel located on the upper floor of The Ark & The Dove, a location that’s become known now as the Upper Room. That’s the same name used for the place where the Holy Spirit fell in the Book of Acts on the disciples after Jesus had ascended to heaven.
‘I lost all sense of time. I was lost in Christ and happy to be so.’
“The presence of God was so thick, so powerful, you could cut it with a knife,” Mangan said of the atmosphere in that room. “It’s the most intense experience I’ve ever had in my life. Time meant nothing to me. I had no idea if it was two minutes or two hours; it made no difference. I was lost in Christ, and happy to be so.”
And he got his dynamite. “There were all these electrical explosions going on in my body,” Mangan described. Then he began to speak in tongues. The overwhelming feeling caused him to run and ask the retreat leaders if it was really possible. They said it is a valid experience which happened throughout history to a lot of saints. The experience infused him with a new dynamism and power in his spiritual life – or as he puts it, “It was like somebody told me that the car I’d been pushing uphill had a motor and now I had the key.”
1968 – July: Brisbane, Australia (Clark Taylor)
Clark Taylor (1937-) founded Christian Outreach Centre (COC), and the Worship Centre, based in Brisbane, Australia. Now COC is a global movement with over 16,000 churches, many schools, and its Christian Heritage College which awards government accredited degrees in ministry, education, social sciences and business.
His wife Ann tells his story:
Clark Taylor became a Christian in Brisbane in 1959 at a Billy Graham Crusade and began to train for the Methodist ministry in 1961. In 1963, he suffered from Cerebral Malaria. I was married to him in 1964, and we had three children.
He was baptized in the Holy Spirit in 1967. Another miracle happened in 1967. At times, Clark would become unconscious as a result of the Cerebral Malaria. By 1967, he was having these unconscious turns frequently. One morning, when he was in Oxley Methodist Church, he felt that God said to him, “It’s time for you to be healed.” He told this to the minister, who replied, “Come down on Tuesday night when the prayer meeting is on and I will pray for you.” This was quite remarkable, because in 1967, such things as healings and the baptism in the Holy Spirit were rare in the Methodist Church. At the prayer meeting, Clark started to lapse in unconsciousness, but the people laid hands on him and prayed for him and he was totally healed in that instant.
We were appointed to the Holland Park Methodist circuit in 1968 to assist the senior minister. Soon after his arrival, Clark commenced Thursday night Bible studies in the manse. Although it was holiday time, fifteen attended the first night. By April, there were 100 hundred attending Bible studies.
Prayer meetings were commenced three times a week. These were a good indication as to who had been baptized in the Spirit