Oral Roberts Biography Quotes 3 Report mistakes

Early Life and Formation
Granville Oral Roberts was born in 1918 in rural Oklahoma and raised in a devout Pentecostal Holiness family. His father was a traveling preacher, and the home modeled strict faith and hard work during years marked by poverty. As a teenager he nearly died from tuberculosis; after prayer at a revival service, he later testified, he recovered and experienced a powerful call to ministry. That healing story became the hinge of his life and message, shaping his conviction that God could meet human need through prayer, faith, and obedience.

Early Ministry and Healing Evangelism
Roberts began preaching as a young man and was soon ordained in the Pentecostal Holiness tradition. In the late 1940s he launched tent revivals that drew immense crowds across the United States. Reports of healings, an energetic preaching style, and a message focused on the compassion of Christ distinguished him from many contemporaries. His wife, Evelyn Roberts, was a constant presence and partner, helping organize the growing work and stabilize a family life that would become highly visible as the ministry expanded. He and Evelyn raised their children amid this itinerant calling, including their son Richard Roberts, who would later succeed him in leadership.

Mass Media Pioneer
Roberts moved quickly into radio and then television, pioneering techniques that brought Pentecostal Christianity into American living rooms. By the mid-1950s his televised crusades, hymn singing, and filmed prayer lines created a template for later religious broadcasting. The phrase he popularized, "Something good is going to happen to you", reflected his pastoral optimism. The team that traveled with him included musicians, counselors, and prayer partners who formed a distinctive "healing line" where he laid hands on the sick. Among the many younger figures who passed through his orbit, Kenneth Copeland briefly served as a pilot and student during the formative years of Oral Roberts University, a testament to Roberts's influence on emerging charismatic leaders.

Institution Building: Oral Roberts University and City of Faith
In the early 1960s Roberts turned to institution building, founding Oral Roberts University (ORU) in Tulsa to educate the "whole person" in spirit, mind, and body. Evelyn Roberts played a vital role as a public face of the university and as a counselor to students, while Richard Roberts became increasingly active in chapel services, music, and evangelistic outreach. The campus rose quickly and became known for its modern architecture and Prayer Tower, a symbol of intercession at the heart of the school. In the 1980s Roberts spearheaded the City of Faith Medical and Research Center, a bold attempt to integrate medical science with prayer. Though the complex achieved some milestones, regulatory pressures, costs, and a changing healthcare landscape led to its closure within the decade, and the buildings were repurposed.

Seed-Faith Teaching and Denominational Bridges
Central to Roberts's preaching was "seed-faith", the idea that giving, prayer, and expectation functioned like sowing seed that would bear spiritual and practical harvests. He wrote and spoke about this theme for decades, encouraging partners to support ministry and to trust God in every arena of life. Seeking wider connection beyond Pentecostal circles, he affiliated for a time with Methodism while retaining his charismatic identity. This bridge-building ethos positioned him as a unique figure between classical Pentecostal revivals and mainline Protestant respectability. His public ministry intersected with the broader evangelical world; he was known to interact cordially with leaders such as Billy Graham and to share a television era with figures like Pat Robertson, even as their theologies and methods differed.

Controversies and Public Scrutiny
The very visibility that amplified Roberts's message also drew scrutiny. Critics challenged the verification of healings and the theological implications of seed-faith. Fundraising methods sometimes provoked national debate. In the late 1980s, Roberts famously warned supporters that he believed God would call him home if a fundraising goal was not met, a broadcast appeal that became emblematic of both his urgency and the controversy surrounding televangelism. Later, in the 2000s, ORU faced lawsuits and financial challenges, and Richard Roberts, then serving as the university's president, and his wife, Lindsay Roberts, confronted allegations that culminated in his resignation. These episodes complicated the public narrative but did not erase the scope of Roberts's institutional achievements.

Family, Personal Trials, and Partnerships
Family life, so central to Roberts's public image, included deep joys and sorrows. Evelyn Roberts remained his indispensable confidante and co-laborer through decades of travel, broadcasting, writing, and campus events. Their children's lives were woven into the ministry. Richard Roberts became a prominent singer, preacher, and later administrator; their daughter Roberta developed her own professional path; and the family endured tragedies, including the death of their daughter Rebecca in a plane crash and the loss of their son Ronald years later. Friends and colleagues across the healing revival tradition, including contemporaries such as Kathryn Kuhlman and A. A. Allen in the broader landscape, formed a constellation around Roberts's work even when their ministries were independent and sometimes theologically distinct.

Later Years and Death
In later decades Roberts reduced travel, mentored younger ministers, and focused on writing and prayer emphases. Evelyn's passing in the mid-2000s marked the end of a lifelong partnership that had shaped his public and private worlds. Oral Roberts died in 2009 at the age of 91. By then, he had become a touchstone of twentieth-century American religion: a bridge from dust-road tent crusades to the era of global satellite broadcast, from storefront Pentecostalism to accredited higher education.

Legacy
Roberts's legacy is multifaceted. As a communicator, he helped normalize Pentecostal experience for mainstream audiences. As a builder, he left a university that educated generations of students in theology, business, the arts, medicine, and more. As a theologian of practice, he popularized seed-faith and a confident expectation of the miraculous that shaped the wider Charismatic movement. At the same time, controversies over fundraising, the limits of faith healing, and the strains of rapid expansion ensured that assessments of his work would remain mixed. Through it all, figures closest to him, Evelyn, Richard, Lindsay, and his surviving family, bore direct witness to the private costs and public fruit of a ministry that indelibly marked American Christianity.

Our collection contains 3 quotes who is written by Oral, under the main topics: Faith - God.