Impartation

Above is a small sample of what Google shows you when you search for “impartation,” a widespread practice within charismatic Christianity today. What is it?

Impartation (the word)

If you were raised as a Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant Christian, you probably never heard of “impartation.” It is not part of our common Christian inheritance, and the word itself did not enter the English language until about two hundred years ago. The verb “to impart” is found in some English translations of the Bible to render the Greek verb μεταδίδωμι / metadidomi, which occurs five times in the New Testament and means to share, to give to another.

Beginning in 1947, “impartation” took on a new and quite specific meaning in some Pentecostal groups: the transmission of special spiritual gifts from one person to another, usually by the laying on of hands. It all began with the Latter Rain revival.

Impartation and the Latter Rain

The Latter Rain revival (1947-48) grew out of the ministry of healing evangelist William Branham.¹ In the fall of 1947, Branham held “a series of revival meetings in Vancouver, British Columbia, and leaders of the Sharon Orphanage and School from North Battleford, Saskatchewan attended the revival. …Several of the school's teachers … had [Branham] lay hands on them for an impartation.” The laying on of hands, which had already been employed to pray for healings, now became a way to pray for spiritual gifts, such as prophecy, to be passed from one person to another.

Among those at the Vancouver meetings were two brothers, George and Ernest Hawtin, who returned to the Sharon School hoping to continue what they had seen. During extended chapel services scheduled for February 11-14, 1948,

The Lord spoke to one of the brethren, “Go and lay hands upon a certain student and pray for him.” …one of the sisters who had been under the power of God went to the brother saying the same words... He went in obedience and a revelation was given concerning the student’s life and future ministry… Soon a visible manifestation of gifts was received when candidates were prayed over, and many as a result began to be healed, as gifts of healing were received.

For the participants, impartation meant “praying for others with the laying on of hands, and doing so resulted in the reception of spiritual gifts by the person being prayed for.” The Sharon group then organized a “Feast of Pentecost” that attracted visitors from all over Canada and even the United States. The same happened at a July 7-18 camp meeting, as George Hawtin wrote:

We have been praying for a return of the days when people would be filled with the spirit immediately when hands were laid upon them as they were at Samaria and Ephesus. It was our great joy one night to have two ladies walk up before the whole crowd and receive the Holy Spirit in this fashion. When hands were laid upon them one immediately fell under the power of God; the other began to speak in tongues as the spirit gave her utterance.

The revival led to another meeting in Vancouver in November, 1948. M.D. Beall, pastor of Bethesda Missionary Temple in Detroit, Michigan, drove 2,500 miles to join the meeting. Afterward, she wanted to bring back to the United States what she had experienced in Canada, including impartation. Beall described what happened in her home church:

People began to come from the ends of the earth… They came to receive an impartation of spiritual equipment to be given them… They continued to come and fill the auditorium from morning to night.

Beall’s daughter, Patricia Beall Gruits, became a Latter Rain leader in her own right. Her future daughter-in-law described asking her for impartation:

She asked if I would teach the Understanding God class at our home church, Bethesda. … I told mother I would accept on one condition: “I will do it, but only if you will lay your hands on me in prayer and impart that spiritual gift to teach that you have.” I knew I had the gift to teach in the natural, but I desired that anointed gift of teaching that she had. And so she did. Mother gladly gave what she herself had received. On that day, I believe I received a deposit of spiritual DNA that had been imparted to her.

Gruits’ description of impartation shows how the practice is still understood today. Within the Latter Rain revival, impartation was recognized as a foundational practice within Christianity.

While earlier Pentecostals recognized prayer for spiritual gifts, Latter Rain teachers systematized the idea that anointed leaders could impart gifting and spiritual blessing through the laying on of hands. This practice was based on passages like 1 Timothy 4:14, which instructed Timothy not to neglect the gift received through prophecy and the laying on of hands.

In 1949, the General Council of the Assemblies of God USA condemned Latter Rain teachings and practices, including impartation, deprecating an “overemphasis relative to imparting, identifying, bestowing or confirming of gifts by the laying on of hands and prophecy,” and the “extreme and unscriptural practice of imparting or imposing personal leadings by the means of gifts of utterance.” M.D. Beall’s church separated from the Assemblies of God that same year.

The restorationist teaching of the Latter Rain was carried on by Beall and younger leaders like Bill Hamon and his organization, Christian International. The defining beliefs and practices of the Latter Rain, including impartation, would be preserved and come to even greater prominence thanks to the revival known as the Toronto Blessing (1994-).

The Toronto Blessing and Randy Clark

As previously reported, the Toronto Blessing revival made Randy Clark famous in charismatic circles. It also presented impartation to a wider audience and a new generation. Clark had learned about impartation from Vineyard pastors John Wimber and Blaine Cook. In January, 1984, Wimber prayed for Clark and told him, “God says you are a Prince in the Kingdom of God.” Years later, Wimber said he had heard God tell him audibly that Clark “would one day go around the world laying hands on pastors and leaders to impart and stir up the spiritual gifts in them.” Clark says that he derived many of the concepts and much of the language used in his ministry from these two men, adding, “I received an impartation from both John and Blaine.”²

Clark’s life and ministry changed in 1993 after he attended a conference given by Rodney Howard-Browne in Tulsa. There “he was touched, received an impartation forcefully by the Holy Spirit and healed of a nervous condition. The next Sunday back in his home church, Randy reports that a worshipper ‘fell under the power of the Spirit.’ She lay on the floor for 45 minutes, laughing and slapping her thigh.” Clark had not only received an impartation; he had given one. Word spread through the Vineyard and Clark was invited to speak at other meetings, and eventually at Toronto.

Clark and other pastors have not ceased recounting what happened there. Missionaries Rolland and Heidi Baker, founders of Iris Global, both came to Toronto and received impartation from Clark. The story is recounted in Clark’s book, There is More: Reclaiming the Power of Impartation.

Clark tells what happened in 1998, during Heidi Baker’s third trip to Toronto:

I preached a message… called “Pressing In.” This is the sermon I have seen God use to build faith for an impartation of fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit... Its bottom-line message is that God is looking for people who are desperate to be used by Him... Heidi came to the altar and began to pray for God to touch her…. [I spoke] the following prophetic word to her: “Heidi, God wants to know, do you want the nation of Mozambique?” …Heidi answered …, “Yes!” Then I said, “God is going to give you the nation of Mozambique. You are going to see the dumb speak, the lame walk, the blind see and the dead be raised.” … The power of God came on Heidi with such force and intensity that she was rendered paralyzed from the neck down for a short period of time. She experienced heat, electricity, laughter and crying and thought she might die from the power. …What came out of this impartation is a saga so remarkable that it is perhaps the most phenomenal harvest of souls in our present day. Heidi and Rolland’s stories of miracles, divine appointments, provision, heroism and heartrending experiences could be straight from the book of Acts.

The Bakers were not the only well-known pastor to receive impartation from Clark, who recalls:

[In 1995] I prayed for Leif Hetland who… was one of about fifty pastors who had lined up for impartation prayer. …I prayed over him, not realizing I was prophesying to him, the following. “I see you in a dark place. All around you is darkness. But God says you are light. I see a multitude of people coming out of the darkness and following you in the light. God is going to make you a bulldozer. You’re going to make a way where there has been no way.” At once Leif fell to the ground and shook for two and a half to three hours. Leif had seen few healings and no miracles prior to this event. The following week almost everyone he prayed for healing was healed. He flowed in many of the gifts of the Spirit for the first time. The fruit of this experience has been over 1,000,000 souls born into the Kingdom of God mostly in a Muslim country, but thousands of others in Tanzania and Cuba…

Clark’s activity and teaching on impartation have had a vast influence. Today, if you hear a preacher or teacher using the following words or phrases, they have been influenced by Clark, knowingly or not: press in, desperate for more, praying with expectation, greater anointing, greater gifts, greater touch, fresh touch, and “more Lord!”

Among the pastors and leaders who have learned about impartation from Clark are some Catholics.

Encounter Ministries and Impartation

We previously noted that the Encounter School of Ministry has been influenced by Randy’s Clark’s Global Awakening organization. Encounter’s view of impartation is a prime example. In a video from 2019, Fr. Mathias Thelen, co-founder of Encounter Ministries, tells how he first heard of Clark in 2012 from his mentor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Dr. Mary Healy, after he asked her, “do you know anyone more I can read on healing?” Healy recommended Randy Clark of Global Awakening, and said that he was really good in his theology.³ So Thelen began to read Clark’s materials, including the book There is More in which Clark, in Thelen’s words, “chronicles all the people he has prayed with for a greater share in the anointing of God for signs, wonders, and miracles…for prophetic gifts, for leadership gifts, for apostolic gifts, and after having prayed for them, they do incredible things.” The book left him “hungry” for “more,” so he went to a conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at which Damian Stayne spoke. During Stayne’s talk, Thelen prayed for impartation: “Lord, whatever’s on Damian Stayne’s life, I want.” Then, as another conference participant was praying with Thelen,

electricity comes from the top of my head to the soles of my feet…and I went down to the ground shaking…I realized that what I asked for was actually happening and I said, “Lord, give me more!” After that time…the anointing on my life increased. …So I said, “I’m gonna go and see Randy Clark.”

Thelen went to Orlando, together with Patrick Reis, co-founder of Encounter Ministries, to attend one of Clark’s Voice of the Apostles Conferences. Both Clark and Thelen tell what happened next but, assuming they are talking about the same event, their accounts differ. In Thelen’s version, he did not approach Randy Clark, but was several feet away while Clark was praying for impartation. Thelen said he was sent flying back five to ten feet onto the ground, crashing into Patrick, and then lay on the ground shaking for about half an hour. “Randy never touched me…but the bunger for the anointing…drew that to me.”

In a recorded talk also from 2019, Randy Clark gives a different version of events.⁴

…young, tall Catholic priest, probably late 20s, came up to me and said, “Would you pray for a Catholic priest?” I said “yeah.” He had a friend, Patrick Reis. This was Fr. Michael (sic) Thelen, professor at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit, Michigan — professor training young guys to become priests.⁵ So he knelt in front of me, he and Patrick and I prayed, and unlike the rest of these stories, there’s no tears…there’s no shaking, he didn’t fall down, there was not one manifestation at all. But he believed God had done something. And when he went home, he stepped out and tried to go for stuff he had never done before. Today he’s, probably more than any other Catholic priest in America, noted for this healing anointing and he’s just taken our material…all over. He does healing crusades and conferences; he sees a lot of stuff and so does Patrick.

Thelen and Reis on Impartation

In Thelen’s talk on impartation, he not only praises Clark for his ministry of impartation, but also repeats much of Clark’s teaching on the subject. Thelen’s definition of impartation is: “the transference of a grace of the Holy Spirit operating in the life of one person to the life of another person.” Impartation is also a big part of the conferences organized by Encounter Ministries.

At the event advertised above, Patrick Reis spoke on “Advancing the Kingdom Through Impartation.” That same year, Encounter Ministries published Reis’ book Supernatural Saints: A School of Ministry from the Saints, The work profiles several Catholic saints who are supposed to illustrate a “supernatural lifestyle;” their stories are interwoven with descriptions of what is taught by Encounter Ministries. Impartation is discussed on pages 39-43. Reis defines impartation as “the transference of a spiritual gift or grace operating in the life on one person to become operative in the life of another person.” He says this definition is based on Romans 1:11, “For I long to see you, that I may impart to your some spiritual gift to strengthen you” (RSVCE). He describes how ESM teaches about impartation:

At the Encounter School of Ministry and at most of our conferences we invest time in teaching on this reality before praying for impartation. We go to great lengths to build an atmosphere of faith to receive prayer for impartation and we have received an incredible amount of testimonies that demonstrate the reality and fruitfulness of impartation.

Reis notes that some Catholics are skeptical about impartation and “assume that prayer for impartation is a modern aberration that should be avoided.” In addition to adducing scripture texts that he thinks speak of impartation, he offers the story of St. Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419) to show that impartation is not a new thing. St. Vincent Ferrer was credited with so many miracles that Reis sees a “logistical question:” how was it possible for only one man to pray for “tens of thousands” of miracles in a span of about twenty years? While one might answer that praying for a thousand miracles does not take more time than praying for one miracle, Reis comes to a different conclusion: St. Vincent practiced impartation. “The response to the demand for his prayer ministry was to impart the gifts of his life to others, so that they could pray for the needed miracles.” Encounter draws the following “ministry lessons” from the life of this saint in this Instagram post.

Other Catholics Groups and Impartation

In November, 2013, 160 leaders of the Catholic charismatic renewal held an “International Prophetic Consultation” in Bethlehem, meeting under the auspices of ICCRS (International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services, now replaced by CHARIS).⁶ Dr. Mary Healy participated in the meeting and reported, “We had a wonderful time of prayer for impartation of the Spirit.” Another participant was Andi Oney who, together with her husband Larry, a permanent deacon of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, runs Hope and Purpose Ministries, which features impartation in their gatherings.

Another Catholic group that promotes impartation is Urban Encounter Ministries, based in Columbus, Ohio. Here is the schedule of an event they organized in May, 2023. The featured speaker, Barbara Heil, also spoke on “Advancing the Kingdom through Impartation” at an Encounter Ministries conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2021.

Conclusion

Faithful Reader, at this point you probably have many questions about the theory and practice of impartation. In the present post, I have limited myself to giving an account of where it came from, and how some of its best-known exponents present it. Everything in this post comes from published books and materials accessible to anyone with access to the internet. I think another post will be needed to consider impartation and the presuppositions behind it in a thorough biblical and theological way. In the meantime, if you have specific questions, please let me know, and I will do my best to address them at some future time. Happy commemoration of St. Vincent Ferrer.

1. In the account of the Latter Rain revival that follows, I draw from the website “Beautiful Feet.”

2. Bill Johnson and Randy Clark. The Essential Guide to Healing: Equipping All Christians to Pray for the Sick. Grand Rapids: Chosen Books. 2011, 6.

3. Healy and Clark co-wrote a book, The Spiritual Gifts Handbook. Using Your Gifts to Build the Kingdom (Chosen: 2018). Impartation is discussed on pages 43-45 and 198-199.

4. Clark does not say exactly when this meeting took place. There was a Voice of the Apostles event in Orlando in 2014 and 2015.

5. Thelen was on the staff of Sacred Heart Major Seminary from 2014-2016.

6. During the same gathering, Michelle Moran, the president of ICCRS spoke about the “latter rain” to the participants: “In the early years of the Renewal we had the ‘early rain.’ But now we are in the time between the two. We are not in the latter rain yet, because we are not moving in the power of the Spirit strategically, healing the sick, doing miracles, reaching out to the poor, evangelizing in power. …It is time to prepare people to go out, because the Spirit is going to bring us into the harvest in a way we’ve never seen before—a massive harvest.”