LOS ANGELES: PRIEST OF BREAKAWAY CHURCH DRAWN TO FLOCK

By Brian Martinez, The Orange County Register

Praveen Bunyan, 42, has gone from being addicted to drugs and alcohol to living under a tree for 15 months while shepherding Christians in rural India to leading an affluent Newport Beach church in a high-profile secession from Episcopal oversight.

As a teenager and college student, Bunyan rejected the faith of his father and grandfather -- both influential clergymen in the Anglican Church of South India.

He instead focused on school, sports, socializing and sin.

But at age 20, Bunyan had a "conversion experience."

While searching through a drawer, a needle he had been using to shoot drugs accidentally pricked his finger.

Blood dripped onto an old brown Bible collecting dust. He opened it and read that an innocent Jesus had died for him.

"I fell to my knees and gave my life to Christ," he said.

Bunyan finished his graduate studies in public administration at Madras Christian College in India and became a college professor.

He accompanied his parents on a short summer mission to a poor Indian village, where one family was converted. Bunyan volunteered to stay and care for the new Christians' spiritual needs, despite his parents' worries that he had no place to live and didn't know how to cook.

He stayed in the village for 15 months, sleeping under a tree, eating wild fruit or food provided by the villagers, and learning to work on a farm.

"I had incredible culture shock," he said. Bunyan established churches in 12 surrounding villages, prompting friends and family to declare that he was destined to become a minister, he said. They urged him to attend seminary.

He met Grace Veena Samson while earning a master's degree in divinity at Union Biblical Seminary in India and married her in 1987.

The couple, both ordained Anglican priests, traveled to the United States in 1993 to study theology at Biola University.

Bunyan worked with various Episcopal congregations -- assisting at parishes in Los Angeles and Philadelphia and leading two small churches in Colorado.

When the former rector of the 1,200-person St. James Episcopal Church in Newport Beach announced his retirement, the parish's vestry began a seven-month search for the next leader of the congregation.

The board of 12 lay leaders started with about 40 names referred to them.

When St. James called Bunyan and asked for a resume, he refused.

"We didn't want to move anymore," he said. "After almost moving back to India, we decided to establish our lives in Colorado."

St. James e-mailed him. He again declined to send his resume. They called again, and asked him to at least pray about it. He refused even that but later changed his mind.

Then he reluctantly sent his resume and prayed often for God's direction.

"We had Praveen come for a weekend, and there was an extraordinary sense of God's presence in him and his family," said Jim Dale, a St. James director.

The search crew was impressed by Bunyan's leadership and counseling skills, mission-oriented mind-set, family, love for people and sense of humor, Dale said.

After much prayer, the board voted unanimously to offer Bunyan the job, and had him on speaker phone when he accepted in November 2002.

"There was applause, shouting, crying and joy in that room," Dale said. "And everything has worked better than we ever expected."

When the church's lay leaders indicated several months ago a desire to secede from the oversight of the Episcopal Church -- the U.S. branch of the international Anglican community -- Bunyan was in full agreement.

"We need to protect the integrity of our own faith journey," he said.

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