“I, Pietro Ottolini was born November 11, 1870 in the town of Pescaglia, Province of Lucca, Italy. I was raised in the aforementioned locality where people live in great simplicity, but as I grew up, a strong desire developed in me to leave the country. It was in the spring of the year 1891 that I decided to go to the United States of America.”
These are the opening words to my great-grandfather’s autobiography. Peter Ottolini was a pioneer in what was eventually termed the “Italian Pentecostal movement” in the early 20th century. Many Italian Pentecostal churches were planted in Italy, New York, Chicago, California, and St. Louis, Missouri.
I was raised in the St. Louis congregation founded and pastored by my great-grandfather. Much was expected of me spiritually because of my last name. Most of the services were in Italian, but there was a Sunday evening service in English. I was expected to be at all the services and always sat at the front of the church where “the fire was the hottest.”
An idiom we used in the church was that the preaching was always from the heart and from the Book, a common way of referring to the Bible. The elders were suspicious of Bible study resources like commentaries, lest the mind should get in the way of the Spirit. Matthew 10:19 was the guiding Scripture for the preaching event: “When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for it shall be given you in the same hour what you shall speak. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father, which speaketh in you”.
The Italian Pentecostal movement was built on experiences over doctrine. Our church loved the Bible but did not see it as a necessity to refine teaching. The main experience one was to have in our movement was the classic baptism in the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in tongues.
“Did you receive ‘it’ yet?” “Are your bags packed for heaven?” “How long have you tarried?” “Do you have your ticket for heaven?” “Is there oil in your lamp yet?”
Experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit, considered a second experience after salvation, was the foundation of the Italian Pentecostal movement.
My great-grandfather passed away in 1962 when I was six years old, but I remained at the Italian church he founded. As in other movements, once my great-grandfather passed, his disciples took over the ministry, but Peter Ottolini’s disciples were not as gifted in ministry as he was. Under their leadership the movement turned into a monument.
I moved to the University of Tulsa in 1973 to earn a bachelor’s degree in jazz performance. Troubled in my soul, I was walking alone around campus one night and experienced the “it” I heard about from my Italian church: the powerful Holy Spirit. I did not find Jesus. He found me. As a college junior I was filled with God, and my life was radically transformed.
God was gracious to save me and fill me with his Spirit in the only way I had ever known. No altar call, no preacher, no soft music, no one guiding me, just God’s power rushing through my being as if I had grasped live electrical wires in both hands. I was transferred from darkness to light in an instant, and I loved Jesus instead of myself. I finished my bachelor’s degree in a different subject, abandoned my dream of playing for Doc Severinsen in the “Tonight Show” orchestra, returned to St. Louis, and married my high school sweetheart.
My new wife and I attended New Covenant Church, a church birthed out of the Catholic charismatic movement in the late 1960s. As a Pentecostal, I was at first uncomfortable with guitar-led worship, casual dress, and a lot of hugging. I was taught God basically did not save Catholics, in part because my family was greatly persecuted in the old country by the Catholic church. But apparently, the Holy Spirit was also given to people who were not Italian!
The church was led by a Welsh preacher, and about 1,000 people attended each week. The Welsh pastor recognized the hand of God on me, and my wife and I were sent off to Yorkshire, England, for two years to be trained for the ministry. Molly and I were zealous for the Lord and selected to join 16 St. Louisans in planting a church in San Diego, California. With my music background, I was a a gregarious performer, a perfect combination for a pastor in the charismatic movement.
Starting a church from scratch is difficult. I relied on my personality and zeal to grow the church. Eighteen months later, I was exhausted. I could no longer keep up preaching on faith, the anointing, three steps to happiness, etc. I needed to add knowledge to my zeal. I enrolled in a master’s degree program at Fuller Theological Seminary’s San Diego campus. In an Old Testament class taught by David Hubbard, I fell in love with theology.
When I was called back to St. Louis to lead New Covenant Church, I quickly enrolled in Covenant Theological Seminary to finish my master’s program.
The more I studied God’s word, the more my beliefs and ministry shifted:
- From Spiritcentrism to Christocentrism
- From focusing on my faith to resting in God’s providence
- From glory for me to glory for God
- From semi-Pelagian to Augustinian theology
- From topical to expository preaching
- From obsession about gifts of the Spirit to a focus on personal growth in holiness
- From entertaining the church to helping them grow in grace to be like Jesus
- From sensational worship to a deep love of the hymns of the church
- From pressure to produce in ministry to only pleasing an audience of one
- From striving to produce God’s power to resting in knowing God’s power is revealed in his Word
After graduating from Covenant Theological Seminary in 1993, I completed my studies and was awarded a Ph.D. from Trinity Seminary.
During my dissertation writing phase, the Lord led me to ask to be admitted to the Missouri Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America. I no longer wanted to be detached from the historic church as a charismatic. I wanted to be aligned with like-minded men who stood for God’s truth in a sin-diseased world. After much testing, I was received as a teaching elder in 2010. I thank God for allowing me to be a part of a body that confesses and keeps God’s word.
I love being a Calvinist. I do not despise my past. I thank God for my heritage. I still have a Holy Spirit-inspired zeal for the Lord, but I thank the Lord Jesus daily for the gifted teachers, like David Calhoun, who helped me grow in knowledge while not quenching my zeal. My only goal now, as I approach 70 years of age, is to glorify God in all I do by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Steven Joseph Ottolini has been married for 48 years and serving in ministry for 44 years. He is a teaching elder in Missouri Presbytery.