Paul Woodward

My life before Oct. 1972 was a time of seeking God without a knowledge of the helps of the Holy Spirit. My family also entertained the works of the devil for three or more generations. I was told who I would later marry by a "devil board" a friend Joan and I were using. As my life in the Word of God and my marriage has evolved I know I am part of the ongoing work of our Lord of Love to reclaim lost ground from you know who.
I have learned so much through the support of hundreds of Spirit-filled sisters and brothers how to be a holy man. Of course the best way I learned was living daily in households.
Currently I have been challenged and encouraged in my prayer life by praying on Tuesdays from 4-6 am. One time I wrote Phil Tiews an e-mail saying I was not able to be there on a particular morning. He shot me back a message saying "no problem, it's pretty crowded at the church with all the saints and angels praying along" with him.
Thanks be to God for giving me the Word of God Community to grow in the
life of the Holy Spirit.
Paul Woodward

Frank Bondy

The “Shining White Cross” prophecy says, “You will sow a harvest that you will hear of in years to come.” It ends with the exhortation to “equip them and send them out.”

I had two stints with the Word of God, first as a student from 1972 to 1976, then I returned with my wife from 1980 to 1984. In the intervening years, I served as a junior officer in the U. S. Army.

Being a quiet, shy person who preferred to stay on the periphery of things, I was a rather nondescript member of the Community, certainly not one that you’d identify has having a part in fulfillment of the “Shining White Cross” prophecy.

While stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, I attended a small prayer group at a Catholic church in Killeen, TX. One Pentecost, a Catholic chaplain on Fort Hood, a Louisiana Cajun named Fr. Howell Champagne, up and decided that what Fort Hood needed was a Charismatic Prayer Group. However, he himself had absolutely no background in the charismatic renewal, and appealed for help. Someone who knew me from the Killeen prayer group dropped my name with Fr. Howell. Because I had been in Ann Arbor for four years, I suddenly became some sort of an “expert” in his eyes. I explained to him that I “wasn’t all that,” and it wasn’t like I’d been a leader or anything. Why me?

He retorted that this was like so many other assignments that a junior officer has, in which they are not really an “expert,” but nevertheless are responsible for training their soldiers, and are responsible to learn what they need to know to do so. He also reminded me that surely I was on a first-name basis with some people in Ann Arbor who could help me obtain some books, pamphlets, manuals, and tapes that would be helpful in getting us up to speed.

So from being a “nondescript” member of the Community, I suddenly found myself part of a small core group that taught the Life in the Spirit Seminar, and the Foundations course. I’m glad no tapes exist of the classes I taught. But as unpolished as they may have been, they were rooted in what had been developed in the Word of God Community. And the Lord certainly blessed the endeavor. By the time I left Fort Hood, the prayer group was thriving and growing. And the way things work in the military, how many people went forth from Fort Hood and took the message to other installations?

And to make this story complete, the young lady who would eventually become my wife received the Baptism in the Spirit during that inaugural Life in the Spirit Seminar.

It was during my second stint with the Word of God that the Sword of the Spirit was formed. Little did I know how that would affect me and my family. Soon after, on short notice, my company transferred me to Gaithersburg, Maryland. Our move was made a lot less traumatic by our almost seamless integration into the Lamb of God Community in Baltimore. Later, when we were pondering a job change, a move to the Pittsburgh area was attractive because of the People of God Community, of which we were a part for ten years. We were not the only ones to benefit in such a way, as we encountered people from Ann Arbor in both of these communities. What a blessing to be able to have the support of brothers and sisters when you move to a new place!

Life has taken me in a different direction in recent years, with my involvement in men’s ministry, first with a group that grew out of Promise Keepers, and more recently, with the Catholic Men’s Fellowship. While I joined these groups largely out of my own neediness, I am able to support my brothers in some very, very difficult situations largely because of the foundation that was built through approximately twenty years in Christian community. I am able to bear witness to the Lord’s goodness and mercy, and thus bring encouragement to others whose lives need to be transformed.

It has been a blessing for which I am most grateful, and I thank the Lord for the Word of God.

Frank Bondy

Gail (Schottin) Walsh

I found out about the prayer meetings through my parents, Norman and Rachel
Schottin. They had heard about some Catholics on campus who were reading
their Bibles and having prayer meetings and they were checking it out. I
remember my first prayer meeting in just a corner of the St. Mary's basement with
lamps. I had been in church all my life, but I could tell something was different at
these meetings. The love and presence of God was so tangible. There was such excitement about what the Holy Spirit was doing in people's lives. I was blessed through the many wonderful relationships with brothers and sisters through the years and to be joined with people who wanted to follow God in a radical way. Rufus and I moved our family to Tennessee with Spring Arbor Dist. in 8/99--near Nashville. It is very exciting now to be a part of a fresh move of the Holy Spirit here. It reminds me at times of the early prayer meetings in Ann Arbor.

In Christ,
Gail (Schottin) Walsh

Mike Gladieux

While I was attending graduate school at the University of Michigan I heard about the community early on. I knew “the 4” from my undergraduate days at Notre Dame. I had gone to Campus Corners to the apartment prayer meetings, because Steve had called me up and invited me. And I had stopped in at St. Mary’s basement for a prayer meeting, but although I was touched, in neither case did The Lord catch me. Then one Thursday evening I went to a Word of God prayer meeting at St. Thomas gymnasium. I went on a lark. As I was there, a man from a motorcycle gang stood up and testified about how Jesus had saved him. As he spoke, I “saw” The Lord Jesus standing next to him. I was astounded!! I spoke to The Lord. “Jesus! You really are here!” Instantly He stood before me, and touched me. I was filled with the Love of God as the Holy Spirit flowed through my body like an electrical current. My whole lousy life was before me like a 3-dimensional mural. Jesus said nothing, but just loved me. I wept copiously. I called on Jesus and told Him that I wanted to be like Him. I was so sorry for my wrong life style. After the meeting Jim Cavnar invited all who were interested to sign up for The Life in The Spirit seminar. I did and was caught up in the wonderful move of the Holy Spirit here in our community, and became part of The Word of God. A few weeks later Ralph was reading a few sentences on receiving Jesus that Billy Graham had written. I specifically asked Jesus to save me and be Lord of my life. I had a momentary vision of Jesus in heaven making a check mark next to my name in some big book. I now know that it was The Book of Life. I think He checked the “Do Not Erase” column next to my name. My life has never been the same. The friendships, the teaching, the fellowship. How God has blessed me!

Paul and Gloria Melton

Gloria and I are eternally grateful for each and every member of The Word of God Community for the following reasons:
1. because you said YES to the LORD when He invited you to come to Ann Arbor, sometimes at great distances and sometimes with great difficulties
2. because you helped form community and built the BODY of CHRIST for me so that I could change my life forever
3. you made all of the sacrifices, tithes, attending lectures, career changes, etc. etc.
4. you grew in the Love of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit and IT is still strong.
Paul and Gloria Melton

Jamie Treadwell

I never would have guessed back in 1977, in my first contact with the Word of God in Mary Markley dorm, that today I would be writing this testimony of God’s faithfulness as a lay missionary, single for the Lord, dual citizen of the United Kingdom and the United States.

I write this tonight from the Servants of the Word house in London, England. I just finished a skype call confirming plans for my visit to Beirut Lebanon where I will be training a youth group in their new outreach efforts.

I left the USA in 1986 to serve in our communities in Europe for one year, or perhaps longer if the Spirit so directed. It has now been 21 years across the pond, including 12 years in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The work with young people I started doing with the Word of God provided the foundation for international ministry in youth work I am now engaged in across Europe and the Middle East. I am deeply grateful for the incredibly rich life the Lord has given me. It has been a journey through great difficulty and sorrow, but never without the abiding presence of Christ, and the firm vision of community life that was planted in my heart in those early days of the Word of God in Ann Arbor.

Winslow and Elizabeth Fox

Coming into The Word of God 36 years ago and being baptized in the Holy Spirit has transformed our lives. God has generously and continually given us more of His Holy Spirit so that step by step He has changed us and renewed our personalities into more mature Christians who can be confident in living daily by His grace and to His glory, and has called us to serve Him in various ways.

In Psalm 40 it says: "Many O Lord my God are the wonders you have done. The things you planned for us no one can recount to you."

Praise God for the spirit-filled extended family He has given us in The Word of God!
* * * * *
"The single most tranforming thing about coming into The Word of God for me was receiving The Baptism of the Holy Spirit, and at the same time receiving the awareness of the distinction between God and Jesus."
Elizabeth F. Fox
* * * * *
I am amazed at how the Lord used many people to work change in my life.
During high school, I briefly considered going into seminary. I thought I was in a pretty good place in my Christian life. So I was reluctant to listen to Harry MacIntosh, Jim McFadden, my own wife, and small-group people like Sister Renee when they spoke about "something more".

But when they prayed, it seemed as though they had a personal relationship with God. I was used to praying, but these people, full of the Holy Spirit,
seemed to address God on a first-name basis.

I wanted that closeness, and received it with the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. This came gradually, not in one instantaneous flash, but over weeks. I am grateful for the change.
Winslow G. Fox

Martha Darling

These days, there’s a lot of talk about the breakdown of society, the disappearance of relationships, the increasing separation of people from each other other. People lose touch, literally—no one touches them, hugs them, thinks about them, wants to be with them. More and more, people are turning into isolated cells, without families or friends, vulnerable to any societal infection that comes along.

Where’s the social network we all need? I’ve found that net of love in The Word of God.

First, I think of a fishing net. Remember things like household birthday parties and cluster Christmas plays? I think of such activities as simple, safe ways to include strangers in my life, until they aren’t strangers any more. It’s easier to help lonely souls who need more of God when I’m working at it with other people. Prayer meetings, household dinners, The Word of God Guesthouse, Word of God guests in my house—when I live these things, I witness, even if I don’t know I am. “Lord, where are you staying?” “Come and see” (John 1:38-39).

Second, I think of a safety net. It’s tit for tat in society; I scratch your back, you scratch mine; one hand washes the other. You help others with the mindset that you’re piling up IOUs to collect on when you need help. In The Word of God, I learned to help others for love’s sake, to “lend without expecting repayment” (Luke 6:35). We hold hands to make a net for catching each other when one of us falls off the tightrope. We help even when the other person can’t pay back the dinner, or the babysitting, or the yard work. We hold each other’s hands, but more than that—we hold each other’s lives.

When I moved to Ann Arbor in 1975, my only network was my large, close-knit family. Everyone in my family believed that only family could be trusted. I joined the community, and my family felt betrayed. I was actually letting strangers help me and I was helping them, treating strangers as if they were family! For over 30 years, my family bitterly resented my involvement in The Word of God.

It took the most cataclysmic event of my life—my daughter’s suicide—to change their minds. They saw firsthand over many months how the community loved, cared for, and watched over me. They saw both nets—the net that fished me out of the ocean and brought me to God, and the safety net that kept me from smashing on the ground when my life fell apart.

We have a tremendous gift here. We’re part of a stunning work of God. The network of love which the world needs has been shared with us. God, help us keep it, and help us keep sharing it!

Susan and Larry Randolph

First of all, we love the Word of God Community because it gave us the Life in the Spirit Seminars, valuable foundational teachings, and hours of experiencing union with God in the Spirit of praise and worship at the many gatherings we attended. Larry felt drawn by the Lord into the life and work at Christ the King Catholic Church and so we ended our association with the WOG but only because of time and energy conflict not for any other reason. As to the question, "What has the Lord done for you?" He has been completely faithful - even when we were not faithful. He has loved us and blessed us beyond measure and to such a degree that we couldn't help but love Him in return. He so inclined Himself to us to lift us up from the attachments of this world. Slowly but surely He is setting us free - so bountiful is His grace!!

"How has God transformed our lives?" I wish I could say that He has so transformed our lives that we now look and act completely like Jesus, but that is not the case. We do, however, desire and pray for daily conversion and have come to find out that God loves that prayer and will daily send ways to bring that about. It usually and almost always comes in the form of relationships and a deep call to surrender to the unconditional love of God to be poured out first in our marriage toward each other and then to every single person God brings to us. It is a supernatural work that we have finally come to see only God can accomplish if we but ask and say yes!! By God's grace we will continue to daily ask and say yes . "What has God done in our lives?".We have received many miracles of healing from burned fingers that were blistered to pure skin in a matter of minutes to an eye poked with a stick being healed in seconds. There have been so many of those kind of healings with our grandchildren that I am ashamed to say that I think we experience them so frequently we see them as a common occurance that we don't give them the kind of notoriety that they deserve, but when we fall into bed at night we thank God from the bottom of our hearts for His constant faithfulness and mercy. You see, the Lord has blessed us with 17 grandchildren and He has daily taught us and continues to teach us that we are not in control, but that He is. That requires our constant dependence upon Him. We see one of our primary duties in life is prayer and penance for the salvation of these little hearts for Him. And more than salvation we pray that they will be laborers for the building up of the His Kingdom. God is teaching us dependence. That actually is right up there with the miracles because both Larry and I are by nature extremely independent. Larry has also heard the Lord call him to become a deacon in the Catholic Church, so he is undergoing that process right now.

I believe that the Spirit is doing something great and powerful on this 40th year! I have been hearing, almost daily, in some form or fashion, "This is the year of freedom for God's people". I am excited to be living in these days of great grace!!!! Larry and I are very much looking forward to celebrating with our brothers and sisters in the Word of God!! In His Love,

Susan Randolph

Jan (Mertz) Watson

What a neat idea! Happy anniversary. Here is a short update from me:

I left Ann Arbor and moved to Colorado in September 1990. After my mother’s death in 1987, this move allowed me to connect more closely with my dad and siblings. Since that time, I met and married a wonderful man, Mayo Watson. We celebrated out 10^th anniversary this summer. I happily acquired a grown family which has since expanded to include two incredible grandchildren. In addition to family life, Mayo and I spend a good portion of our time serving through parish life in the Catholic church. We are blessed to belong to a solid, vibrant Archdiocese which has greatly enriched our faith. Our particular parish, Saint Mary’s in Littleton, is cared for by three Spanish priests who have a humble and lively love for the loving heart of Jesus. Mayo teaches 7^th and 8^th grade at our parish school. I volunteer at the library and am president of the Altar and Rosary Society, a women’s service organization. All those years of serving Sunday night district dinners gave me the training I needed to lead these women! I have made a few visits back to Ann Arbor on business trips. It’s always a joy to reconnect with some of my old friends. I am seeing a lot more gray hair and reading glasses and pictures of grandkids with each visit! God bless you all.

Jan (Mertz) Watson

Ron and Liz Ghormley

Dear brothers and sisters,

Our testimonies all differ in details but many are similar in their main points as they touch on The Word of God. Usually it goes like this: "Someone invited me to a prayer meeting, I went, experienced the power of God and my life has never been the same." For Liz and me it went something like this:

While I was out of town on a business trip someone invited Liz to a small charismatic prayer meeting at St. Paul Lutheran School near Concordia. When I returned home I discovered that Liz was all excited and insisted that I go with her to the next prayer meeting. One of the leaders told us that they were closing down for the summer and if we really wanted to experience the power of God we should attend a Word of God meeting down at St. Mary's. Procrastinator that I am I didn't do anything about the suggestion. In September Ted Kennedy, Jr. came to the office where I worked (Townsend & Bottum on S. State St.). Bill Bottum (my boss) listened to Ted's description of the goings on at The Word of God and suggested that perhaps he should talk to me. (God didn't give up on us.) Ted invited us to a Thursday gathering that night. Ted's wife Emily met us there and steered us to an "explanation room" led by Jim Cavnar. Jim also gave the talk that night and I think he may have swept up and put away the chairs. It was my first experience of the power of the Holy Spirit and we were swept up with many of you who were being called to Community in those glorious days. I remember a few names from our Community Weeked down at the Hall of the Divine Child in Monroe. Gary and Barbara Morgan, Dorcee Clarey, Jeanne Kun, Ed Loescher were among those attending the weekend.

That was 37 years ago and literally our lives were changed forever. As we all know it was not always easy but we praise God for allowing us to be part of what he was doing all those years ago. We rejoice in what God has done with us and for us over all those years. He remains faithful even though we have not always been faithful. We pray that the Lord will continue to lead all of us in the years ahead. Happy 40th Anniversary! We are truly sorry that we can't be with you and celebrate this great occasion. God bless you all!
Ron and Liz Ghormley

40th Anniversary Testimonies & Testimony Book

As part of our 40th anniversary, work has begun on collecting personal testimonies and stories about what the Lord has done for us as members of the Community.

• What has the Lord done for you?
• How has God transformed your life?
• What has God done in your life – miracles, answered prayers, prayers answered before asking?
• What has the Lord taught you?

Testimonies can be as short as a single paragraph or as long as a page or two. Keep entries focused on a single topic and feel free to submit more than one entry!

We would like to publish testimonies on this blog as well as compile them and publish in both print/PDF format more towards the middl-ish/end of our 40th year.

Please address questions and/or send testimonies to:
Phil Tiews: Phil@TheWordOfGodCommunity.org OR

Stephen Lucchetti: slucchetti@comcast.net / slucchetti@gmail.com