Hi. Let me say here a little bit about myself for anyone who might be interested.
I am a Roman Catholic priest but God has greatly impacted my life through the Evangelical Church and through the Charismatic/Pentecostal stream of Christianity. I was brought up as a Roman Catholic and would have always considered myself as a Catholic and a Christian. However, the reality is that I did not really understand what it meant to be a Christian either intellectually or experientially, neither in my head nor in my heart. I had never made any explicit act of repentance and faith, nor had I explicitly accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior or committed myself to follow him as a disciple. It was only through the evangelical and charismatic stream of the Church, at about the age of eighteen, that I came to ask Jesus into my life, that I had a conversion experience and repented of my sins, that I put my faith Christ and that I began a life of conscious discipleship.
It was through the Evangelical Church that I realized my sinfulness and my need for a savior. It was through the Evangelical Church that I came to know not only that I needed salvation, but that I could never earn or deserve God's love and forgiveness and that I could not save myself, that this was a matter of God's grace. It was through the Evangelical Church that I learned my need for repentance and to have a personal faith in Jesus. In fact it was through the Evangelical church that I not only learned the basic gospel message but also that I learned almost all the fundamentals of what it means to be a Christian and to follow Jesus. It was the through the Evangelical church that the Lord instilled in me a zeal to share my faith in Jesus.
Almost immediately after my conversion experience I found that I had a burning desire to see others come to repentance and faith in Christ. This zeal is still very much with me. I think that it was about one year after my conversion experience that I got involved with the Roman Catholic Charismatic Renewal and experienced what some call the “Baptism in the Holy Spirit”. Some strong influences and inspirations in the early years of my faith were Jackie Pullinger (through her book Chasing the Dragon, through hearing her speak, and through being present when she ministered) and David Wilkinson and Nicky Cruz (through their books The Cross and the Switchblade and Run Baby Run).
Soon after my involvement with the charismatic movement in the Catholic Church I joined an interdenominational christian community, with which I am still very much associated. While more than half of this community is Roman Catholic there are a large number of members from Anglican, Baptist, Pentecostal and other mainly evangelical Churches. The leadership is split pretty evenly between Catholics and Protestants. This community is very much part of the Charismatic/Pentecostal stream of Christianity and sets a high priority on seeking to live a life of holiness, on developing a distinctive Christian Culture and on evangelism. This community has been one of the main influences in my Christian formation. YWAM (Youth With A Mission) has also been a big inspiration to me and has had influence on my life in a number of ways including through the books of Loren Cunningham and Floyd McClung, through YWAM updates, prayer requests and newsletters, through the YWAM Relief and Development department in the UK, and through the various ways in which I have had actual contact with their ministry
I entered a seminary in 1993 and at the end of my training spent some years as a deacon before being ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. I was ordained as a priest of Uyo Diocese in Nigeria however I have been mainly serving in the Philippines. I came to the Philippines about eleven years ago, before I was ordained, and for the last five years I have been chaplain at a national level to Couples For Christ and its Family Ministries and to Gawad Kalinga. or the last five years I have been acting as chaplain at a national, and even international, level to Couples For Christ and its Family Ministries and to Gawad Kalinga. I am also the founder and president of the Puso Ng Ama Foundation (PNA), registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of the Philippines, which seeks to help poor children, youth and their families experience God's love. At the moment, PNA focuses its work particularly in Payatas -an urban poor slum area, though it also does some work in Negros in a poor fishing village. I am also the founder of Heart of the Farther (HOF), a UK registered charity that serves children and young people, especially those in need.
While I am a Roman Catholic by conviction, I remain strongly committed to stand along side my brothers and sister in Christ from the Protestant Churches, particularly those in the Evangelical and Charismatic/Pentecostal streams of faith. I have a great respect especially for those Christians who are concerned with orthodoxy, who do not want to compromise or water down their their faith in any way, who remain steadfast to their belief in the historic Christian faith as set forth especially in the Apostolic and Nicene Creeds, who uphold the historic Christian doctrines that are central to all Christians whether Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant. I also have a great respect for those Christians who are concerned with orthopraxy and who desire to make sure that the historic Christian faith is lived out faithfully in today's world of contradictions; a world where the pre-modern, the modern and the postmodern all coexist, a world where globalization and localization coexist, a world where secularism and religious fundamentalism coexist, a world where extremes of ever increasing wealth and abundance coexist side by side with increasing poverty and need.
God has given me a passionate heart for mission. After many years my zeal for evangelism is still very much with me. I desire to share my faith and to see people turn to Christ in repentance and faith. I desire to see people become disciples of Jesus and to grow in lives of holiness, love, humility and purity. I also desire to serve the poor and to fight poverty and injustice. I desire to see the world changed to become closer to how it is meant to be. The vision that I believe God had given me for my life is to be a “Missionary Servant of God's Love for the Poor”. I very much believe that God has given me a particular calling to live among the poor and to live a missionary life that is dedicated to evangelization, to helping people find their vocation, to serving the poor, to fighting poverty and to leading, equipping and facilitating others to evangelize, to help people find their vocation, to serve the poor and to fight poverty.
For many years I have believed that my life and service is meant to be especially dedicated to those outside the Church or on the margins of the Church, most especially to the poor (who are normally either outside the Church or on the margins of the Church). Actually this has been my passion and driving force in life for at least twenty five years and it remains my driving force in my ministry as a Roman Catholic priest. It was because of this that I came to the Philippines eleven years ago to live and serve among the urban poor in the slum areas. This came about through reading Viv Grigg's book Companiaon to the Poor. This book inspired me so much and I believe the Lord used it to speak to me very clearly. After reading it, I was able to find Viv Grigg's email and phone number. I contacted him and he put me in touch with Servants to Asia's Poor, who arranged for me to live in a slum area in Manila.
Actually, even though I have never met him, Viv Grigg has had a huge impact on life, ministry, and vision. I believe that I am called to set up within the Catholic Church a society inspired by Viv Grigg's vision of an army of apostolic workers among the urban poor as well by the vision, life and ministry of those whom Scott Bessenecker calls “the New Friars”. Largely inspired by both Viv Grigg and “the New Friars” I hope to start, or help start, a missionary association whose members mainly live among the poor. This may possibly be called*the Missionary Servants of God's Love for the Poor (MSGLP). I am sure that at some stage I will open a thread on this for discussion, but probably I will wait till I have been part of this on-line community a little while before doing that.
I love sport, especially rugby and table tennis - even though I have not played it in a very long time and hardly ever even get to see it. I also love reading (escapist novels with happy endings - there is enough sadness in the real world!!), particularly science fiction and thrillers, as well as theology, the social sciences, biographies and various Christian books. I enjoy watching films (especially action, thrillers, science fiction and of course inspirational films). I have just started a blog which can be found at <http://frpaulu.blogspot.com>.
I am a Roman Catholic priest but God has greatly impacted my life through the Evangelical Church and through the Charismatic/Pentecostal stream of Christianity. I was brought up as a Roman Catholic and would have always considered myself as a Catholic and a Christian. However, the reality is that I did not really understand what it meant to be a Christian either intellectually or experientially, neither in my head nor in my heart. I had never made any explicit act of repentance and faith, nor had I explicitly accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior or committed myself to follow him as a disciple. It was only through the evangelical and charismatic stream of the Church, at about the age of eighteen, that I came to ask Jesus into my life, that I had a conversion experience and repented of my sins, that I put my faith Christ and that I began a life of conscious discipleship.
It was through the Evangelical Church that I realized my sinfulness and my need for a savior. It was through the Evangelical Church that I came to know not only that I needed salvation, but that I could never earn or deserve God's love and forgiveness and that I could not save myself, that this was a matter of God's grace. It was through the Evangelical Church that I learned my need for repentance and to have a personal faith in Jesus. In fact it was through the Evangelical church that I not only learned the basic gospel message but also that I learned almost all the fundamentals of what it means to be a Christian and to follow Jesus. It was the through the Evangelical church that the Lord instilled in me a zeal to share my faith in Jesus.
Almost immediately after my conversion experience I found that I had a burning desire to see others come to repentance and faith in Christ. This zeal is still very much with me. I think that it was about one year after my conversion experience that I got involved with the Roman Catholic Charismatic Renewal and experienced what some call the “Baptism in the Holy Spirit”. Some strong influences and inspirations in the early years of my faith were Jackie Pullinger (through her book Chasing the Dragon, through hearing her speak, and through being present when she ministered) and David Wilkinson and Nicky Cruz (through their books The Cross and the Switchblade and Run Baby Run).
Soon after my involvement with the charismatic movement in the Catholic Church I joined an interdenominational christian community, with which I am still very much associated. While more than half of this community is Roman Catholic there are a large number of members from Anglican, Baptist, Pentecostal and other mainly evangelical Churches. The leadership is split pretty evenly between Catholics and Protestants. This community is very much part of the Charismatic/Pentecostal stream of Christianity and sets a high priority on seeking to live a life of holiness, on developing a distinctive Christian Culture and on evangelism. This community has been one of the main influences in my Christian formation. YWAM (Youth With A Mission) has also been a big inspiration to me and has had influence on my life in a number of ways including through the books of Loren Cunningham and Floyd McClung, through YWAM updates, prayer requests and newsletters, through the YWAM Relief and Development department in the UK, and through the various ways in which I have had actual contact with their ministry
I entered a seminary in 1993 and at the end of my training spent some years as a deacon before being ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. I was ordained as a priest of Uyo Diocese in Nigeria however I have been mainly serving in the Philippines. I came to the Philippines about eleven years ago, before I was ordained, and for the last five years I have been chaplain at a national level to Couples For Christ and its Family Ministries and to Gawad Kalinga. or the last five years I have been acting as chaplain at a national, and even international, level to Couples For Christ and its Family Ministries and to Gawad Kalinga. I am also the founder and president of the Puso Ng Ama Foundation (PNA), registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of the Philippines, which seeks to help poor children, youth and their families experience God's love. At the moment, PNA focuses its work particularly in Payatas -an urban poor slum area, though it also does some work in Negros in a poor fishing village. I am also the founder of Heart of the Farther (HOF), a UK registered charity that serves children and young people, especially those in need.
While I am a Roman Catholic by conviction, I remain strongly committed to stand along side my brothers and sister in Christ from the Protestant Churches, particularly those in the Evangelical and Charismatic/Pentecostal streams of faith. I have a great respect especially for those Christians who are concerned with orthodoxy, who do not want to compromise or water down their their faith in any way, who remain steadfast to their belief in the historic Christian faith as set forth especially in the Apostolic and Nicene Creeds, who uphold the historic Christian doctrines that are central to all Christians whether Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant. I also have a great respect for those Christians who are concerned with orthopraxy and who desire to make sure that the historic Christian faith is lived out faithfully in today's world of contradictions; a world where the pre-modern, the modern and the postmodern all coexist, a world where globalization and localization coexist, a world where secularism and religious fundamentalism coexist, a world where extremes of ever increasing wealth and abundance coexist side by side with increasing poverty and need.
God has given me a passionate heart for mission. After many years my zeal for evangelism is still very much with me. I desire to share my faith and to see people turn to Christ in repentance and faith. I desire to see people become disciples of Jesus and to grow in lives of holiness, love, humility and purity. I also desire to serve the poor and to fight poverty and injustice. I desire to see the world changed to become closer to how it is meant to be. The vision that I believe God had given me for my life is to be a “Missionary Servant of God's Love for the Poor”. I very much believe that God has given me a particular calling to live among the poor and to live a missionary life that is dedicated to evangelization, to helping people find their vocation, to serving the poor, to fighting poverty and to leading, equipping and facilitating others to evangelize, to help people find their vocation, to serve the poor and to fight poverty.
For many years I have believed that my life and service is meant to be especially dedicated to those outside the Church or on the margins of the Church, most especially to the poor (who are normally either outside the Church or on the margins of the Church). Actually this has been my passion and driving force in life for at least twenty five years and it remains my driving force in my ministry as a Roman Catholic priest. It was because of this that I came to the Philippines eleven years ago to live and serve among the urban poor in the slum areas. This came about through reading Viv Grigg's book Companiaon to the Poor. This book inspired me so much and I believe the Lord used it to speak to me very clearly. After reading it, I was able to find Viv Grigg's email and phone number. I contacted him and he put me in touch with Servants to Asia's Poor, who arranged for me to live in a slum area in Manila.
Actually, even though I have never met him, Viv Grigg has had a huge impact on life, ministry, and vision. I believe that I am called to set up within the Catholic Church a society inspired by Viv Grigg's vision of an army of apostolic workers among the urban poor as well by the vision, life and ministry of those whom Scott Bessenecker calls “the New Friars”. Largely inspired by both Viv Grigg and “the New Friars” I hope to start, or help start, a missionary association whose members mainly live among the poor. This may possibly be called*the Missionary Servants of God's Love for the Poor (MSGLP). I am sure that at some stage I will open a thread on this for discussion, but probably I will wait till I have been part of this on-line community a little while before doing that.
I love sport, especially rugby and table tennis - even though I have not played it in a very long time and hardly ever even get to see it. I also love reading (escapist novels with happy endings - there is enough sadness in the real world!!), particularly science fiction and thrillers, as well as theology, the social sciences, biographies and various Christian books. I enjoy watching films (especially action, thrillers, science fiction and of course inspirational films). I have just started a blog which can be found at <http://frpaulu.blogspot.com>.
