Connie Carpenter moves in tandem with the Holy Spirit. It has been my privilege to know her for approximately 5 years. I have been in several of her meetings and I have never left one of them the same as when I came. By the power of the Holy Spirit moving through this yielded and extremely sensitive woman, I have witnessed the awesome and holy presence of God ministering directly to people. Connie, ministers to the “whole” person. The respect and honor that Connie displays to the Lord and to the people she is ministering to, is unprecedented. The teaching she shares is sound. My life, the life of my family, and the life of my church has been forever changed, through the life giving ministry of this beautiful servant of God. To God be the Glory!

Connie’s powerful anointing is unique among the ministries I’ve known. She carries a passion for the Holy Spirit and for revival that is almost unmatched by any that I’ve personally encountered.  Her anointing seems to be most similar to Kathryn Kuhlman and Benny Hinn, yet uniquely her own. To me, there are a few areas that particularly stand out:

(1) Genuine miracle ministries are rare – many ministries can say healings have occurred at some point in their ministry, but it’s rare for it to be an earmark of a ministry – particularly when including the kind of creative miracles that have occurred in her ministry.

(2) Across the Western world, It has become more and more uncommon to find the weight of God’s presence manifest in meetings. I am unaware of any other ministry that carries the combination of an intense reverence for God, is marked by the fear of the Lord, and carries a presence of the holiness of God as her’s does. There are others that are also characterized by dramatic and unusual moves of the Holy Spirit, but not in this combination, intensity, and expression.

(3) Another salient point is the ‘quality’ – for lack of a more accurate word- of the God-encounters people have when she prays for them during meetings. Being Slain-In-The-Spirit has become very common in Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement. I still remember when it was relatively rare for it to occur, even in the most intense meetings. There was a day when only a few ministries carried a genuine anointing for that consistent manifestation of the Spirit. However, with being Slain in the Spirit having become very common, there has also been largely lost a depth and intensity of the Holy Spirit’s work in people while being Slain. I suspect there are a few reasons for this.  However, again, Connie’s anointing particularly stands out in this regard. No such dilution or shallowness marks the moving of the Holy Spirit in her meetings. There seems to be genuine, deep, change that takes place within people by the time they get up off the floor. I am seeing an actual inward work taking place in them – I am sad to say that – in my opinion – this has become rare within the church today.

(4) Many ministers have either an anointing for worship, preaching/teaching, or for laying hands on people and ministering to them in the gifts of the Spirit.  She is a rare minister who moves in all three.  Importantly, there is a manifest presence of the Holy Spirit and the holiness of God that is present throughout the time she ministers the Word.  I have personally found that to be very rare – the manifest weight of the presence of God while preaching.

I have found Connie to be a consistent, unique voice for revival, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and the holiness His presence brings. She brings a purity of the anointing and motive that I’ve only seen a few times. Rare indeed are those who match the depth and intensity of the anointing she carries – even rarer still is the heart, for revival and personal transformation evident in her ministry. I count it a great privilege indeed to have worked with her and to be able to call her a friend and a mother in the Lord.

Sunday night after offering was over I took it back and helped count it – my normal board duties. After the offering was locked in the safe. I walked back up the hallway to go back into the service.

As I came to the end of the hallway and the beginning of the foyer out side the sanctuary I began to hear what sounded like the sound man playing praise songs on a stereo up in the sound booth. I thought he had make a mistake regarding playing a song that Connie had requested off of a Charles Martin CD because the music & singing I heard was not Charles Martin.

I took a few steps up the sound booth stairs and saw him just sitting at his post watching the service and there was no music playing in the sound booth but I still heard it’ seemingly above the ceiling of the sound booth.

I walked through the sanctuary doors into the service and heard the music still again and it seemed to be coming from above the roof. The sound was more pure than what one hears from an individual, tape or CD. At the same time I thought my contacts were drying out and a haze was forming on them. I rubbed my eyelids over my contacts to moisten them but the haze was still there.

I realized my contacts were not dry. I realized that I was seeing smoke. I immediately thought Oh No! One of the furnaces must be on fire or a fire is in the back and the furnaces are putting the smoke into the sanctuary. When I thought that thought, the roof of the building was no more, the heavens opened up and I saw angels, what seemed like all the hosts of heaven singing over the church, worshiping God. It was the music and song I had heard earlier.

Then Connie suddenly said “something just changed – Tom, did you notice it?” Just slightly before Connie made that statement I saw smoke ( His glory cloud) enter the sanctuary midway up the building on the west wall. When I looked at the cloud of glory, I saw us (every one there that night) in the temple of old and we were all standing behind the veil in the very presence of God. What a glorious experience!