An Excerpt from Danyele Bloom Holtner, Wanda Fost and Leslie Precht. Draw Near to Hear: Practical Wisdom for Hearing God Personally and Corporately (2021), pp. 13-20.
Aglow began in 1967 with four women in Seattle, Washington who were hungry to experience an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that was happening in their region. They called some other women together to pray. In those days, they didn’t have a mindboggling selection of teachings instantly available on YouTube or the capability of participating in national and global conferences from the comfort of their own homes on devices they could hold in their hands. They just had an open line to God. He was speaking, they were listening, and a woman’s movement was born. As they cried out to God, three of the women received the same verse, Romans 12:11 from the newly published Amplified Bible: “Be aglow and burning with the Spirit”. This verse became the tagline for the ministry, and the word “Aglow” was incorporated in its title.
More than fifty years later, Aglow International exists in more than 170 nations and includes men’s groups called Men of Issachar, but its inspiration remains the same—dependence on hearing the Holy Spirit. God wants to take us today to a place where we aren’t dependent on the Internet, inspired teachings, powerful prophets and other intermediaries. First and foremost, He wants us to come to Him, individually and corporately.
Aglow in Canada began the following year, 1968. Madge S. Bowes had attended a Christian women’s club in California and longed for a women’s group in her own city. Back home in Victoria, British Columbia, others affirmed her desire. A friend “forcefully prayed” that she would initiate a group; her husband suggested she call Rita Bennett, whose husband Dennis was instrumental in ushering in the charismatic renewal movement, to speak at their first meeting; and Rita counselled Madge not to pattern their meetings like the church services they were so familiar with. She encouraged her to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit, open to following His lead and willing to learn from Him. As their meetings grew in attendance, Madge and others in Victoria were communicating, and often exchanging speakers, with a group forming in Seattle. At a certain point, Madge and Marion Beaton flew to Seattle to participate in a meeting that took place in “someone’s living room” where the decision was made to adopt the name “Women’s Aglow Fellowship” for this new international movement of women from all denominations. Groups multiplied across Canada.
“Aglow Canada was part of the spontaneous, organic, and supernatural pathway of the Spirit geographically moving from California, up through Seattle, on to Victoria and across to the Vancouver area. The pathway of the Spirit brought charismatic renewal and refreshing…”
(Peggy Kennedy, personal correspondence, August 2021)
This is the DNA of Aglow in Canada. Jane Hansen Hoyt recently acknowledged that Aglow Canada is a pacesetter for our nation and for Aglow International and enlarged on the significance of what the Holy Spirit had initiated through Madge and the women of Victoria:
“[The group that first met in Seattle] went from a place of small beginnings, and…Canada picked it up, and I believe that is when the international aspect of our ministry began to unfold. So, hats off to Canada! You heard something, you felt something in the spirit realm, you saw something and you moved with it! And that is one of the strongest aspects of Aglow Canada. You are followers of the Holy Spirit. You hunger for the Holy Spirit. You desire to know what He’s saying, where He’s leading, and you follow…It’s because of your heart for God and your ear towards the Holy Spirit.”
(Jane Hansen Hoyt, transcription from “Emerging Sound” National Day of Prayer for Aglow, April 20, 2020)
Madge felt the weight of responsibility in making choices while leading those meetings of a newly forming Holy Spirit movement in Canada.
“I could allow freedom for the Holy Spirit to move and for the women to operate in the gifts of the Spirit (as in tongues and interpretation or prophecy, etc.). If I did, I had the responsibility for discernment. If anything or anyone were out of order, it would be up to me to move in God’s authority. I was aware of my inadequacies but slowly and cautiously began to be more sensitive and free. It was my desire to have the moving of the Holy Spirit and to hear what He wanted to say to us in edification, comfort and confirmation…Consciously, I would make sure my spiritual antennae were “up” as I went into the luncheon meeting. I committed myself and the service to God—then in faith, I trusted the thoughts He brought to me as guidance. At times I would question, then wait for the confirming peace of the Holy Spirit. So I grew and we all grew under God’s anointing. It was truly life changing!
“In those blessed luncheons, since I was in charge, I HAD to listen. Feeling my responsibility, I wanted so much to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s voice and I found that was precisely what was happening. My desire for God was really His promise to me that He would answer. I soon began to realize that God wants to work in a supernaturally natural way as we mature and are able to hear His voice more clearly…as He graciously opens our spiritual eyes and ears. It’s amazing!”
(Madge S. Bowes, Personal communication, December 1, 2007)
Aglow flourished as local groups were established across the nation and organized into Areas to ensure support and oversight; but by the year 2000, there was a crisis of declining interest at the local level. Some members came to a national conference in Edmonton that year suspecting Aglow was dying. However, through conference speaker and prophet Peggy Kennedy, the Lord revealed that He was about to use Aglow Canada to download something from heaven to planet earth. He had shown Peggy a vision of a small table with a drape placed over it and told her that some people had come to the conference thinking, “That’s the corpse of Aglow and someone was decent enough to pull a drape over the body.” Then in her vision, God spoke to the young women, and when He did, something transferred to the older generation and to Aglow leadership:
“You [the young women] will walk up to that and pull, and you’ll discover under the drape is not a corpse. It is an architect’s model of that which is being developed and which is about to come forth. There is no dead body under that drape. By the hand of the Lord, someone will reach out, pull the drape and find out what is under there. It is an architect’s model all built to scale, and it will fit anywhere in Canada—cities, rural Canada…Muslims, natives, ethnic groups, north, south, central, the Atlantic Provinces, Nunavut, the Island. It’s the Architect’s model, all built to scale. It’s that which is yet to come.”
(Peggy Kennedy, Aglow National Conference, Edmonton Alberta, October 2000)
Five months later, God revealed some of the details of that model when Cindy Jacobs prophesied to Zee Jones, the President of Aglow Canada at that time:
“Daughter, I have you on the cutting edge of this women’s ministry, for I am getting ready to raise up a flood of women leaders…Get ready to train them; get ready to mentor them. I’m even going to show you how to have a mentoring program where those who are older in Christ, the older women, will teach the younger women. I’m going to show you how to do a new thing in this nation that will be modeled around the world…There is a paradigm shift coming even in focus, even in emphasis…There’s some change coming, but the change will only be for your good, to escalate things.”
(Cindy Jacobs, Prophetic word to Zee Jones, Red Deer Alberta, March 4, 2001)
God confirmed His commitment to changing Aglow Canada to carry out His purposes globally in a July 2002 prophetic word given to Rose Taylor as she prayed about changes in the National Board:
“I am calling you forth to fulfill My purposes in your nation. It is not a copy of International, the United States or even what you have been but a very distinct and special plan. It is not only a plan to fulfill My purposes in this nation but to use the nation of Canada for My purposes among the nations of the world.
“I am calling you forth as an Apostolic and Prophetic ministry that will speak forth My word and lead My people to its fulfillment. The word is change, restructure, rebuild for I am setting up and establishing My order…Lay aside the ways of the past; release your own thinking, concepts and ideas. Come before Me in humility, hear the word of the Lord and let Me direct you step by step. For I desire to do a new thing, to build a new model, to establish a new order that will bring honor and glory to My name….”
(Prophetic word to Rose Taylor, July 2, 2002)
Four years later, in January 2006, God again confirmed that He had wonderful plans for the future of Aglow in Canada by giving a vivid prophetic dream to Danyele Bloom Holtner, just before Aglow Canada’s 39th anniversary while she was serving on the National Board. The dream began with Danyele sitting on a bench in a big house filled with people. Beside her was a torn, old gift-wrapped box. She asked the woman sitting on the other side of the box what it was. The woman replied that it was for someone whose 39th anniversary they were about to celebrate. Danyele wondered what was in the box and heard in her spirit, “God in the box”. The woman continued, “We give him the same old thing every year and he doesn’t even notice”. Danyele was curious to know what this person looked like. She saw him sitting at the back of the room, looking rather unappealing and not interacting with others.
The scene changed. She noticed a renovated crown ceiling, new framed windows and new doors. She opened a door and saw to her immediate right a brand-new extension to the renovated house with a very spacious entrance, double doors and a striking window. She heard, “This is the new house of Aglow”. A long corridor off the entrance ended in two wings, one connected to the renovated house and the other to the new extension. The place felt like a very spacious mansion, but it had not yet been furnished. There were many new doors yet to be opened.
The scene shifted again to a room in the renovated house where people were sitting on benches waiting for a birthing celebration. She saw six headless women laying on the floor dressed in seventies style clothing and heard, “I will rearrange the government of this ministry”. In the final scene, she was in another extension to the renovated place, a brand-new kitchen with double counters. A family friend appeared and proudly showed her a fashionable new baby outfit. When she woke up, Danyele heard again, “This is the new house of Aglow”, and knew she was to remain in intercession for the destiny of Aglow International Canada.
A month after Danyele’s dream, at an Eyes and Wings Conference in Kelowna, British Columbia, Stacey Campbell prophesied over National President Sheryl Lindberg that God was shifting Aglow Canada from a place of healing and encouraging women into a place of battle. This new season of strong warfare would require a “new container” to hold it. She continued,
“You will have to have a whole new structure for this to hold it. Something has to go down in order to build again, and there is a whole new level of militancy that is coming upon you, and you need to start with a fresh container to build…this wing of it.”
(Stacey Campbell, Prophetic word to Sheryl Lindberg, Kelowna BC, February 12, 2006)
Stacey saw a joining of the generations, with Aglow mothering the next generation of women into a Deborah anointing to be deployed to take back the Kingdom of God in the marketplace, business and politics.
We recognize in hindsight that God was dismantling some of the things we had become accustomed to doing in the past and loved doing because they had worked so well and felt comfortable. Those methods produced much fruit in their time. But God was deconstructing and rebuilding Aglow to enter this new century and era with our dependence severed from human structures, our headship transferred to Him alone and our identity firmly established in Christ. He provided GameChangers and LifeChangers, tools developed by Graham Cooke for Aglow International, to train women and men to recognize and live out of their identity in Christ. These tools can be used in face-to-face meetings or on Internet meeting platforms. Canada has been a global pacesetter in deploying these tools across the nation to train Aglow people and others. Our National Apostolic Team has also been proactive in encouraging and supporting Area Teams and Local Teams to lay down agendas, rules and procedures, to listen to the Lord together and to do what He tells them in order to bring Kingdom transformation in their localities and regions.
We believe this handbook is a tool that is faithful both to the origins of Aglow in a desire for God that is only satisfied by relationship and heart-to-heart conversation with Him, and to the urgency we are sensing to propel the Kingdom forward in the era in which we are now living.
Danyele Bloom Holtner, Wanda Fost and Leslie Precht. Draw Near to Hear: Practical Wisdom for Hearing God Personally and Corporately (2021).