By Al Ngu, MDiv (RTS Orlando)

While studying at Leicester University UK, I was invited by the Christian Union to a charismatic house church. There, I encountered experiences I had never known as a Christian: people speaking in tongues and prophesying. My friends and I—fellow believers—were eager to know whether we could receive these gifts and whether they were biblical. After studying Acts 2 together and hearing their explanation, we paired up, and they laid hands on us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The first time, I received nothing. But the second time, I felt the power of God come upon me. I began speaking in a strange tongue, overwhelmed with joy and peace.

Decades later, I found myself in an RTS New York City classroom during a History of Christianity lecture. Alongside a classmate, I spoke up in defense of the ongoing gifts of the Spirit, engaging a professor who held to cessationism. In those moments, we sensed the Spirit’s presence. Both experiences were real. Both were the work of the same Spirit.

The church need not choose between them.

For too long, charismatic and Reformed tribes have treated each other like rival street gangs. One side quotes 1 Corinthians 14; the other counters with Ephesians 4:11-13. Both miss the point: **the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead (Rom 8:11) is the same Spirit who inspired the Westminster divines.** Congruence, not compromise, is the biblical answer.

My wife and I have planted three churches on two continents—each time watching prophecy sharpen strategy, tongues fuel prayer vigils, and healing anointings follow elder-led, expositionally-driven services. The pattern is clear: **Reformed theology guards the fire; charismatic fire spreads the theology.**

Yet Manhattan remains a spiritual desert for this synthesis. The island boasts 200+ evangelical congregations, but only a handful hold both the *sola scriptura* of Geneva and the *dunamis* of Pentecost. Young professionals stream into the city chasing ambition, only to discover Sunday services that are either theologically rich but experientially sterile—or experientially electric but theologically shallow. Both leave them hungry.

That’s why we’re praying to plant a reformed charismatic church in Midtown: a congregation where the five-fold ministry of Ephesians 4 equips every member, where expository preaching anchors Sunday gatherings, and where Friday-night prayer rooms expect the Spirit to interrupt with words of knowledge for the barista who just lost her mother. We want the CEO and the concierge to sit under the same elder-qualified teaching and the same manifest presence.

Critics will object. “Charismatics chase experience.” Fair—unless experience is tethered to the *regula fidei*. “Reformed types quench the Spirit.” Also fair—unless quenching means testing every spirit (1 John 4:1) under the authority of Scripture. The early Puritans practiced both: Jonathan Edwards catalogued the Northampton revival and wrote Religious Affections to discern true from false fire. We stand in that stream.

The book I’m writing argues from Scripture, history, and neuroscience that **the gifts and the doctrines are not rivals but dance partners.** Tongues without TULIP become emotionalism; TULIP without tongues becomes academic idolatry. Together, they form a gospel ecosystem where justification by faith fuels justice in the streets, and miracles magnify the God who ordains whatsoever comes to pass.

Manhattan needs this witness now. Post-pandemic anxiety, AI-driven loneliness, and cultural fragmentation have created a perfect storm for supernatural hope. Imagine a church where a hedge-fund analyst receives a prophetic word that leads to ethical reform in his firm—and sits under a 45-minute exposition of Romans 8. That’s the congregation we’re raising support to launch in 2026.

Will you pray? Will you give? Will you move? The Spirit who hovered over the waters still hovers over the Hudson—and He’s not afraid of Calvin.

*Al Ngu graduated with an MDiv from RTS Orlando in May, 2025. He and his wife have planted churches in Asia, and the U.S. Follow the journey at:

https://www.tiktok.com/@alngu2?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

YouTube UCrBq6n8KpEAgyfljEA0Wzzw ]

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