Charles Fulton (minister)

rdf:langString Charles Fulton (minister)

rdf:langString Charles Fulton (born April 30, 1938) is an American minister and businessman who most notably served as president of and who was a prominent leader in the Christian renewal movement of the 1980s and 1990s. The son of federal judge Charles B. Fulton, he was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, he achieved his bachelor's degree from Stetson University, where his focus was on pre-law and business studies. Following an experience at a Billy Graham crusade, he became convinced that his destiny lay with an ordination in the Episcopal Church. Following his graduation from Stetson and a tour of duty in the United States Army, Fulton enrolled in Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University, where he received his M.Div. in 1964. He was ordained into the diaconate in August 1964, and became a priest in December of that year. Fulton spent the next 30 years mostly as a parish priest, though from 1974–1980 he re-entered the business world as the Executive Vice President of , which at the time was the world's largest employment agency. In 1980, however, he felt that God was calling him back into full-time ministry, and he resigned from the business world and started a new Episcopal church in Osprey, Florida. In 1987, he was called to a church in Jacksonville, Florida, and in 1993 he was chosen by the board of directors of ACTS 29 Ministries to serve as that organization's third president since its inception in 1973. During his time at ACTS 29, Fulton moved the headquarters from Evergreen, Colorado to Atlanta, Georgia. He also founded the YouthQuake conference, which is held each January in Ridgecrest, North Carolina. He also served on the steering committee for the , an umbrella organization that unites the renewal efforts of every major Christian denomination. Fulton also helped organized that organization's international conferences in Orlando, Florida (1995) and St. Louis, Missouri (2000). He was also one of the keynote speakers in 2000. Father Fulton is the current senior priest for Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Marietta, Ga., after a recent changeover from being the senior priest of St. Judes Episcopal Church in Smyrna, Ga., in 2016.