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About the Book
"Understanding Your Potential" by Myles Munroe is a practical guide that explores the power of fulfilling your purpose and realizing your full potential. Munroe delves into the importance of self-discovery, goal-setting, and maximizing your unique gifts and talents. Through inspirational insights and actionable steps, this book empowers readers to live a fulfilled and impactful life by harnessing their inherent abilities and pursuing their passions with intention and dedication.
Oral Roberts
Granville Oral Roberts was born January 24, 1918 in Pontotoc County, near Ada, in Oklahoma. His parents were deeply religious. His father was a farmer who also preached the gospel and established Pentecostal Holiness churches. His mother regularly prayed for the sick and led people to Christ. While she was still pregnant, Robert's mother committed Oral to God's service. Even though Oral had a very strong stutter his mother would tell him that one day God would heal his tongue and he would speak to multitudes.
The Roberts family was desperately poor. When Roberts was 16 he moved away from home, hoping for a better life. He rejected God and his upbringing. He started living a wild life and his health collapsed. Roberts had contracted tuberculosis. He returned home and eventually dropped to 120 pounds. He was a walking skeleton. God spoke to his older sister, Jewel, and told her that He was going to heal Oral. During this same time Oral turned his heart back to God and gave his life to Christ. A traveling healing evangelist named George Moncey came to Ada and held meetings in a tent. Oral's elder brother was touched when he saw friends of his healed in the meeting. He decided that he should get Oral and bring him to be healed. On the way to the meeting God spoke to Oral and said "Son, I'm going to heal you and you are to take my healing power to your generation. You are to build me a University and build it on My authority and the Holy Spirit." Once at the meeting Oral waited until the very end. He was too sick to get up and receive prayer, and so had to wait for Moncey to come to him. At 11:00 at night his parents lifted him so he could stand. When Moncey prayed for him the power of God hit him and he was instantly healed. Not only that but every bit of his stutter was gone!
After Roberts was healed he began to travel the evangelistic circuit. He met and married Evelyn Lutman, a school teacher from the same Holiness Pentecostal background as Roberts. They had their first child Rebecca and then the entire family began traveling as ministers. In 1942 they left the evangelistic field for a while and Roberts became a pastor. He also returned to college to further his education. While a pastor he prayed for a church member whose foot was crushed. The foot was instantly healed. God continued to speak to Roberts about his call to the multitudes. God called him to an unusual fast. Roberts was to read the four gospels and the book of Acts three times consecutively, while on his knees, for thirty days. God began to reveal Jesus as the healer in a new way. God also began to give Roberts dreams where he would see people's needs as God saw them. God called him to hold a healing meeting in his town. A woman was dramatically healed, several people were saved and Roberts' ministry changed overnight.
Roberts resigned his church in 1947 and began an itinerant ministry. Notable healings began to occur. One man tried to shoot Roberts. God used the story to bring him media attention, which expanded his ministry very quickly. Roberts felt called to purchase a tent and take his evangelistic ministry to larger cities. His first tent held 3,000 but he quickly exchanged it for a tent that held 12,000. In July 1948 The Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association was established. Oral began traveling continuously throughout the United States. Like many of his Pentecostal brethren Roberts held inter-racial meetings. This brought him a lot of negative attention from groups who didn't like his stand. He even received death threats for not holding segregated meetings. In 1956 Roberts was invited to Australia. He held meetings in Sydney and Melbourne. In Melbourne there were outright physical attacks and destructive gangs. He was literally driven out of the city for praying for the sick. Often when people discuss the healing revival of the 1950s Oral Roberts and William Branham are listed as the most widely recognized leaders of the movement. Others came along side and many emulated them, but they were the most widely recognized personalities.
Roberts was a man who understood and used the media for his benefit. Roberts began publishing a magazine almost immediately upon starting his ministry. He grasped the power of radio and television. In 1954 Roberts began filming his crusades. He began playing his sermons on radio and then airing the crusade tapes during evening television prime time. Unfortunately there is some evidence that healing meetings were scripted ahead of time, and not all healings were genuine. People began writing to the Ministry headquarters by the thousands. They were accepting Christ as their savior after seeing a person healed on TV. By 1957 the ministry was receiving 1,000 letters a day and he was getting thousands of phone calls. He established a round the clock prayer team to answer calls and pray for people who contacted the ministry. In 1957 Roberts claimed 1,000,000 salvations. Between 1947 and 1968 Roberts conducted over 300 major Crusades. Money was flowing into the organization at an unprecedented rate.
In the late 1950s the healing movement was waning and ministries were under attack for their lack of financial accountability. Roberts began to move on the vision God gave him to build a University. It was chartered in 1963 and became open to students in 1965. Roberts was having a significant national impact in the late 1950s and early 1960s. For several years his named appeared in the Top 100 list of the nation's most respected people. Although Roberts continued to hold healing meetings his focus shifted to the University and the television programs.
The 1970s and 80s brought many crises to the Roberts family. Their daughter Rebecca and son-in-law Marshall were killed in a plane crash. Their son Ronnie struggled with depression after serving in Vietnam and also declaring himself gay. He grew despondent after losing his job and committed suicide. Richard Roberts got a divorce. After Richard remarried he and his wife lost a new born son within two days. Roberts began teaching a doctrine of "seed faith" where he claimed that if you gave to his ministry then God would pay you back in multiplied ways. The television ministry received heavy criticism for the constant requests for money. The Roberts were living an extravagance lifestyle while many of their supporters were not wealthy. Financial questions were raised in how Roberts used University endowment funds to purchase personal homes and cars.
In 1977 Roberts had a vision to build a hospital where people not only received care but received healing prayer. It was to be called City of Faith. Roberts put his heart and soul into the project, believing that God would build it as He had the University. The hospital struggled along and Roberts called his followers to give to the project, believing he had a vision from God to raise the money. Roberts even claimed twice that if money didn't come in that Jesus would "take him home." The hospital was built, but never succeeded financially, and finally closed in 1989. Financial giving was plummeting for both the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association and Oral Roberts University.
Roberts retired in 1993, at the age of 75. Roberts, with his wife Evelyn, moved to California to live near the coast. Evelyn died in May 2005. Although Roberts influence waned after the problems of the 1970s and 1980s, he was still recognized for his pioneering work on the "sawdust trail", television evangelism, and building a Christian University. He often appeared on religious broadcasting networks as a recognized leader in the healing movement of the last half century. He died December 15, 2009 at the age of 91.
Oral Roberts' legacy is a mixed one. Roberts brought the truth of God's healing to the public in a way that few others accomplished in his lifetime. His financial and personal issues and increasingly extravagant claims eventually brought his ministry into disrepute. The University he established continued to have financial crises under the leadership of his son Richard Roberts. It was only after Richard stepped down in 2009 and new leadership took over the University that it stabilized financially. The University is no longer connected to the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association.
A Task Too Big for One - The Third Person in Evangelism
I came to the Quran study prepared, though not without some trepidation. One of the members of the group had invited me to his home on the outskirts of our Central Asian town. We had met the previous week at a park, where I had given him a copy of the Scriptures. That’s when he told me about his men’s group that gathered one night a week to discuss Islam. Having heard me talk about Jesus, he wondered if I’d be willing to do the same for his friends. “Could you come,” he asked, “and explain to us the message of the New Testament?” I readily agreed. Almost instantly, however, I began to question my willing response. If this man or his group wanted to do this foreigner harm, it would be all too easy in an isolated location at night. So, in the days that followed his invitation, my mind scurried after all the reasons why I shouldn’t go. I rehearsed my inadequacies. I questioned my language ability. I thought of my wife and kids. Ultimately, though, I was convinced that I couldn’t turn down such a unique opportunity, so I did the only thing I could do: I asked for help. First, of course, from God. But then I asked a few brothers in Christ to come with me. Evangelism with a Third Person Sometimes when confronting our evangelistic responsibility, our spoken or unspoken response is, How am I supposed to do that? I’m not gifted for evangelism. I don’t know all the answers. What if something goes wrong? Behind those apparently self-effacing lines may lie genuine fear — something akin to what I experienced that night — but they may reveal a hidden assumption of self-sufficient individualism. In order to be a good evangelist, we assume, one must be adequate in and of oneself. You must be bold yet relatable. You need to be an accessible theologian — personable though persuasive. You’re supposed to be both studied apologist and winsome communicator. Yet who among us fits that category? No one. No one individual is sufficient to match our calling. Like Moses, each of us has legitimate cause for doubting our abilities as a spokesperson for God. But in our insufficiency, God reminds us of his power and presence with us — and he gives us helpers. We’re not left alone to accomplish this task. We’re members of Christ’s body, and I believe we need to rediscover the value of doing evangelism in this God-supplied community. Some of my fondest memories from Central Asia were my gospel conversations with Muslims. If possible, I would always arrange for a time to meet when Dave, a Canadian brother, could come along. Dave was more welcoming and friendlier than I was. But I was more comfortable leading a discussion in the local language. As I spoke, Dave was constantly praying and engaging. Invariably, a moment would come in our conversation about Christianity when I’d be stumped. I’d lack a good answer. Or I’d forget a verse. At that moment, without fail, Dave would step in. He’d have just the words, timely and true. For me, the joy of seeing the Spirit use us as a team was thrilling. We, Not I Given our creaturely interdependence, it shouldn’t be surprising that the New Testament regularly portrays witnesses going out in groups. Jesus set the pattern by sending out his first followers two by two (Mark 6:7; Luke 10:1). In the early chapters of Acts, we find Peter and John praying and preaching together (Acts 3–4). At Antioch, the Spirit set apart Saul and Barnabas for a collaborative mission (Acts 13:2). Priscilla and Aquila, wife and husband, worked in tandem to disciple Apollos (Acts 18:26). Early evangelists also ministered in larger groups. The apostles bore witness together at Pentecost (Acts 2:1–4) and regularly at the temple (Acts 5:12–21). Later, when Peter was summoned to preach to Cornelius, he brought along some brothers (Acts 10:23). Paul also, like his Master, gathered disciples around him and traveled with them. He constantly ministered and preached in community (Acts 16:10–13; 19:9). This evangelistic method offers built-in accountability, prayer, assurance, and guidance. Many times, when meeting individually with an unbeliever, I’ve felt the need to speak the gospel only to shy away from doing so. But when meeting non-Christians alongside a brother or sister in Christ, I usually feel more encouraged and compelled to speak. Not only that, but I believe our witness is more persuasive when we evangelize alongside a third person. When done in community — by more than one individual believer — evangelism can expand beyond what “I believe” and “I think.” From my perspective, this was particularly important living as a minority and outsider in a Muslim nation. By working together, either with my wife and kids or other church members, our collective witness lovingly conveyed what we believed, what we experienced, what we shared in Christ. A consistent message from multiple voices is harder to ignore, especially when it comes from a community of joy, fellowship, and conviction. Evangelism for the Third Person But there’s another benefit to conceiving of evangelism carried out in community, especially when we’re talking with more than one person. I like to think of this as doing evangelism for the third person. Here again the Bible gives us examples. When Peter and company visited Cornelius, they preached the gospel to a group of relatives and friends (Acts 10:24). When Paul and Silas spoke with the Philippian jailer, they gathered his whole household to hear the good news (Acts 16:32). In Scripture, we regularly find evangelists meeting in homes, synagogues, at a river’s edge, in community halls, and the marketplace — often in community. More than once, I’ve experienced the unexpected blessing of meeting with someone who was interested in the gospel, only to have the other person in the room respond positively. On different occasions, we’d meet with an individual who had questions about Christianity. As the discussion continued, it became clear that their questions were more like accusations. But since we tried to do evangelism in community — either hosting friends or gathering groups at a café — there were usually other people in the room. And sometimes we would later learn that, even though silent, they were the ones most drawn to Christ. Not only that, but when we do evangelism in our homes, we do so with our children. They listen as well. They observe their parents’ faith made real as we reason with others about the gospel. And in that process, they can be shaped by a secondhand gospel as the third person in the room. In fact, sometimes I wonder if one reason some children grow up and walk away from the faith is because they’ve never heard their parents speak the gospel to anyone else. Another Person at the Table So, whenever you consider an opportunity for evangelism, don’t merely think of it as a one-on-one conversation. Personal evangelism doesn’t have to be individualistic. You don’t have to wait for that perfect moment when you’re alone with a non-Christian. You don’t need to muster up the strength or courage to do it all by yourself. Instead, do evangelism with a third person in mind. When you’re invited by non-Christians to a party — maybe a place you’d hesitate to go alone — take a friend in Christ. When you have unchurched neighbors over for a meal, invite others from church to come as well. When you set out to communicate the gospel to whomever, don’t just focus on your target audience. Think about inviting and including others. Be conscious of the other person at the table. Think about your listening children. Remember to bring along brothers and sisters, the gifts God has given, and experience the mutual encouragement that comes by doing evangelism in community.
