In July of 1979, at eighteen years of age, Rodney M. Howard-Browne of Port Elizabeth, South Africa, reached a crossroads in his life. Over a period of several months, an increasing spiritual hunger had been developing within him, and while at an interdenominational prayer meeting with about eighteen young people at this time, he cried out to the Lord, "God, either you come down here tonight and touch me, or I'm going to die and come up there and touch you." He began shouting, frightening nearly everyone who was present. He shouted for twenty minutes, "God, I want your fire." Describing this incident at his campmeeting fifteen years later (July 18, 1994), he said it was as though all of a sudden somebody had taken gasoline and put a lighted match to it. The fire of God fell upon Him instantaneously, and he was immersed in the liquid fire of the Holy Spirit. He became completely inebriated in the Holy Ghost. He was beside himself. Overflowing, he laughed uncontrollably. He went from laughter to weeping to tongues, back to laughter and weeping again. Four days later, the glory of God was still upon him, and by this time he was saying, "God, lift it. I can't bear it any more... Lord, I'm too young to die, don't kill me now." For a two-week period, he felt the presence of God. He said that, although these things became the basis of his later ministry, this was not really evident until about ten years later.
In 1980, while still in his native country, he was travelling in ministry with a group of denominational people. He would preach, and they would sing, but he was warned not to talk about the Holy Ghost, but to talk about Jesus. One day, when they were in the vestry of a Methodist church, a woman who was in terrible pain asked for prayer. Rodney said that he continued as follows:
I got up from my seat.... I was going to put my hand on her head.... And I lifted my hand and got it about here. Just like it looked like you'd pull a six-gun out of a holster and point it at somebody. And when my hand got about here, it felt like my fingertips came off, and out of my hand flowed a full volume of the anointing and the power of God, and it flowed right out of my hand and it went right in to her forehead and she crumbled in the floor.... There was nobody in the room more amazed than me. And I looked down at the woman and I looked at my hand, ...and I'll tell you what -- my hand -- the fire of God -- the anointing of God -- the virtue -- the dunamis was still coming out of my hand. It felt like my hand was a fire hose. And now you start getting nervous -- you think, "I'd better look out where I point this thing. This thing's loaded now." And so the rest of the team came in, and I didn't know what to do with it other than what we'd just done, so I said, "lift your hands." Bam, Bam, Bam, Bam, Bam, they're all out in the back of the vestry.... Now I'm in trouble. If the priest comes back, I'm finished.... So I went around and just managed to ...get them just right and sober them up and say "get up and pull yourself together, we've got to go in to the meeting," and we managed to get them all up except one girl. We had her propped between two men and got them out into the auditorium....I get into the service, and that night I had to speak and I said to the Lord, I said, "Lord, you know I'm not allowed to talk about Holy Ghost. You know I'm not allowed to talk about tongues. You know I'm not allowed to talk about 'fall' and 'power' and these words.... Lord, how can we have what happened in the back room ...happen out here?" And the Lord said to me ..."Call all those that want a blessing." ... Everyone raised their hands. So I said, "all right, get up, come up, and line up." ...And so I was going to go down and lay my hands on the first person's head. And the Lord said to me, "just be very careful, and so don't put your hands on them because some people [will] think you'll push them over if you do." ... I take my finger, ...put it on the forehead of the first person and I said, "in the name of Jesus." ... It looked like an angel stood there with a baseball bat and smacked them up the side of their head. And the person hit the floor. And I went down the line. Bam, Bam, Bam, Bam. The whole row was out under the power of God ... Some of the people were pinned to the floor.... for an hour and a half. Some of them, the moment they hit the ground they were speaking with other tongues, and we had said nothing about it.... And that anointing stayed again for a period of two weeks.
Let me tell you right now -- for an eighteen-year old to experience that kind of anointing -- it's dangerous. And then suddenly, ...it was gone. I prayed for people, they would fall down, but it was not the same. And I thought I'd lost the anointing. So now I'm starting to pray -- to get before God and find out: "What have I done to lose the anointing, and what formula must I use to get it back?" ... He said, "You can't do anything to get that anointing back.... That anointing is not you.... That anointing is all me. It has nothing to do with you." He said, "I just gave you a taste of what will come later on in your ministry, if you are faithful." He said, "If I gave it to you now, you'd destroy yourself.... I can't give it to you now. ... There's no formula for it. If there was a formula for it, you'd do it and you'd get it, and you'd think it was you.... From now on, whenever that anointing comes, you'll know it's not you and you'll know it's all me and you'll have to give me all the glory and all the praise and all the honor."