Our Founders

  Bishop Wayne and Stephanie Boosahda have been married for more than 38 years, having first met at Oral Roberts University in the winter of 1971.  From the beginning of their marriage they sensed a strong calling and mission of service to the Good News of the kingdom of God  as a couple. 

Bishop Wayne had served previous to coming to ORU in the fall of 1969 as a youth pastor and worship leader in youth evangelism, having had a dramatic conversion encounter with Jesus Christ at the age of 17.  From the beginning of his relationship with Christ as Lord of his life, music and arts were foundational elements of his witness and service to others through the Gospel.  Participating in various Jesus rock bands as musician and vocalist while at ORU, as well as high school and college involvement in drama, he honed the gifts, anointing and vision that would coincide with his future wife’s gifts and callings and prepare him for their ministry as a couple.

 Over the first few years of their marriage, the Boosahdas sang together at home gatherings, retreats, weddings and churches, while holding down mainstream jobs and growing together in the foundations of their marriage and vision for life.  They were involved in the mainstream and Catholic Charismatic Renewal, as well as the Jesus Movement of the late 60’s and early to mid 70’s with their music and eventually began a home church community based around a life of worship, sharing a covenant relational life in Christ and participating in the celebration of the Eucharist as a renewal community patterned after some of the Catholic Charismatic communities they had visited. 

Throughout their ministry they have been devoted to inspiring others to seek to live a "worship way of life" in relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit learning, drawing from and participating in a variety of spiritual renewal movements, as well as devoting themselves to the Scriptural, historical and practitioner aspects of worship as discipleship.

In 1977 Wayne began producing records for new and emerging Christian recording artists, working with Stephanie serving as an arranger and studio musician.  Wayne was privileged to produce Twila Paris’s first album, arranging a recording and publishing contract for her with Zondervan’s Milk and Honey Records.  They both worked in recording, songwriting, developing new songwriters and discovering new artists for five years together, during which time Stephanie’s recording and songwriting ministry began to take off, with her serving as a regular musical guest on the 700 Club and Ross Bagley Program and occasionally filling in as co-host of the 700 Club with Pat Robertson.  Her first record was launched on the 700 Club’s own recording label, House Top Records and led to future recording/songwriting contracts with Milk and Honey, Benson and New Pax labels.  Amy Grant and other artists have recorded songs written by Stephanie.  She has also written theme songs and music for the Feed the Children ministry, the 700 Club and others featured in worldwide televised events, such as the Global Day of Prayer, and traveled in an international concert and speaking ministry for years recording 8 albums in the process.

Church planting became another feature of the Boosahda’s calling as a result of their first effort in the mid 70’s.  Beginning in the 80’s they embarked on church planting, training and equipping new leaders and developing local church training centers that featured a central focus on worship and the arts.  In the late 1980’s they began to be directed by the Holy Spirit into a fresh work of spiritual renewal now called “The Convergence Movement”, or “the convergence of the streams”, which blends aspects of the three major streams of Christianity:  the charismatic, the evangelical and the liturgical/sacramental.  This general renewal conception of the nature of the Church is also being described by a growing segment of evangelical Christians as "ancient-future" faith/worship with emerging fresh expressions, such as "the new monasticism" and "ancient-future" worship communities gaining ground around the world.

Drawing on the riches of Christ throughout Church history and throughout the life of the Church universal, they and other key friends and fellow leaders were among the first to pioneer a worldwide communion of churches (The Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches) shaped by this convergence of the streams.  Wayne was consecrated as a bishop in Historic Apostolic Succession in February of 1996 with the CEEC and serves today as founding Primate Emeritus of a family of churches, ministries, and other bishops in full communion partnership with the worldwide Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches known as The Christian Communion International. 

Bishop Wayne and Stephanie are based in the Nashville, Tennessee area where they lead a new ancient-future worship community called the Greenhouse Abbey and spend their time writing songs, developing training materials for emerging leaders and continue in their pioneering efforts in convergence worship renewal.

 

 

 

 


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