Bishop TD Jakes - Leadership Legacy and Loneliness with Dr Richard Roberts - Potter's Touch

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hello everybody, and welcome to Jake's Divinity School, and also
welcome tonight to the Chancellor's Virtual Public Masterclass. We're so
honored that you would join us tonight for this very
special presentation. Bishop TD Jakes will have an interview with
his guest tonight, doctor Richard Roberts. The title is Leadership,

(00:34):
Legacy and Loneliness. This topic, I believe is a very
important topic for such a time as this COVID nineteen.
Many people are thinking about the future. There is so
much death and so many challenges around us that it
reminds us of our own mortality and also reminds us
of the need to leave our footprints in the sands

(00:54):
of time, so that the future posterity sake requires that
we invest in such a way that prepare us that
we can leave something significant for the future. So tonight,
we're honored to have veterans of leadership and statesmen in
the church, and we're glad that you've joined us tonight,

(01:15):
So sit back and relax and enjoy the conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
I'd like to.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Invite each of you to consider giving to Jake's Divinity School.
Our vision is to form innovative leaders for ministry in
the Church and society. We have been at this for
a year now and already we have a graduating class
of ten students who are graduating with the Master of
Arts in Strategic Leadership. We're very proud of our students
and the work that they are doing and the work

(01:41):
that they will do, and we want to invite you
to be a part of the vision. You can text
to give tonight at any point during this master class.
Text JDS give and your dollar amount to two eight
nine five Ozho. Again that is, JDS, give your dollar amount.
No amount is too small or too large so far

(02:02):
as that is concerned, but text it to two eight
nine to five.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
That's Jake's Divinity School. JDS, gift your dollar amount to
two eight nine to five.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Thank you so much again for joining us tonight. And
I want to open us in prayer. And after the prayer,
we're going to have a video introduction of our of
our Chancellor's guest tonight and the next voice you will
healing here is that of our Chancellor, Bishop TD Jakes.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Let's pray.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Father, thank you for tonight, thank you for this opportunity,
and all who have gathered for this very important conversation.
We're excited and we're looking forward to how you pour
into our hearts to prepare us for leadership, prepare us
that we may leave our footprint in the sands of time.
In Jesus name, we pray Amen. All right, now, we're

(02:50):
gonna throw it to the video and the next voice
you're here is that of our Bishop, Bishop TD Jakes.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Doctor Richard Roberts has dedicated his life to ministering the
power of Jesus Christ around the world. Richard has ministered
the crowds of over two hundred thousand people in a
single service. Doctor Roberts is a chairman and CEO of
or Roberts Evangelistic Association. He and his wife Lindsay hosts
The Place for Miracles, a half hour daily interactive broadcast
that reaches out to millions worldwide. Richard also served as

(03:19):
president of or Roberts University for fifteen years. Since twenty ten,
he founded the Richard Roberts School of Miracles to help
e quit Christians with hands on experience in applying God's
healing power. Doctor Roberts has also authored a number of books,
including Your Road to a Better Life, Unstoppable, increase. He's
a healing Jesus when all hell breaks loose and thrive,

(03:40):
eliminating lack from your liar. Please give a warm welcome
to doctor Richard Roberts.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Welcome, Welcome. This is a warm welcome on behalf of
all of our students and all of those that are
all doing tonight. We want to welcome you doctor Roberts,
who are pleased to have you here with us.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
Bishop Jakes, It's an honor and a privilege to be
with you tonight. You and I have known each other
and been friends for many many years. And I thank
God for you, and for Serena, and for all the
Jake's family, and particularly tonight, thank God for the Jakes
Divinity School, now in its first year. I hear, according
to doctor Harrish having your first graduating class. I know

(04:21):
what that means. Congratulations exactly.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Coming from you, that's quite a compliment, and thank you,
thank you so much. I'm going to share a story
with you. I don't know if you you might remember this,
you might not know this. Several years ago, when my
hair was black exactly.

Speaker 4 (04:43):
I'm just grateful I've got some I was still.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
In my thirties and I had heard your father speak
many many times, but I got the privilege of inviting
him to my church, and your mother came along, and
both him and your mother, Evelyn was there, and your
mother and my mother became friends and exchanged notes between
the two of them. And I can't help but think
that somewhere over the balconies of having our mothers and

(05:08):
fathers are grinning down on us tonight, that we're still
here and still serving the Lord.

Speaker 4 (05:14):
I'm so glad to hear that. Thank you for that story.
By the way, I was supposed to be doing this
tonight in my office, but we are in the middle
of an ice and soon snowstorm here in Tulsa, So
I'm in the basement of my home. So I apologize
I don't have good lighting, but it is what it is.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
I'm with you. I've turned my house into a studio.
I've been here so much. I've got studio lights, no
place to sit out. But we're excited, you know, to
those of us that are to those of you that
are listening at us tonight, we want to approach our
conversation in three different dimensions. We want to start out

(05:50):
talking about leadership at a time that there's such a
deficit and a demand for leadership today. To all of
you that are in any capacity of leadership, seeking any
capacity of leadership, or feel call to any capacity of leadership,
this is going to be a huge opportunity for you
to take notes, for you to draw information, for you

(06:11):
to be exposed to someone who has done it on
so many different levels. And then we're going to go
from talking about leadership to legacy and what we have
in doctor Roberts. He represents three generations of preachers that
go all the way back to right after Azusa, so
we should have a really, really good perspective on all

(06:34):
of that. He has a multicultural background, being a Welch
to sent and a Cherokee Indian I believe and yeah,
am I right?

Speaker 4 (06:43):
You've done your homework.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, And then he's also going to go from teaching
us about leadership to legacy, and from legacy, we're going
to talk about loneliness. The call that's on our lives
to be leaders often comes with loneliness and how do
you deal with that? And how do you cope with that?

(07:05):
And how do you better move? So let's get started.
We got a lot of ground to cover. I'm so
excited to have you here. What are some of the
things you experience with leading the staff? You had, the staff,
the faculty, the board, you had, all the people and
all the students. What are some of the things that
you learned about leadership.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
Well, of course, Bishop, I learned a great deal from
my father. I served under him in a number of
different roles as far back as when I was twenty
twenty years of age, coming up as his assistant and
then an aid to him, and then in years beyond
that as vice president of the university, and then executive
vice president, and then, as you know, in nineteen ninety three,

(07:50):
I was elected the second president of the university that
my father founded, and I served for fifteen years. Leadership
is lonely, they say, it's lonely at the and it's true.
There's a price that must be paid, and you may
or may not know. But in my early days, one
of my mentors included Catherine Coolman, and she used to say,

(08:12):
no one knows the price that I have paid in
order to be where I am today. And until you're
in that position, you don't know the price. When you
have a vision and a calling, you get buffeted, you
get hit, you get struck, you get knocked down, and

(08:33):
you deal with people who may or may not share
your vision. They want the job, but they don't necessarily
share your vision. And you have to be extremely careful
of people that you hire and that you associate with,
because you have a vision. There can be only one leader.
Anything that has two heads is a freak, and you

(08:54):
have to have a leader who is committed and who
is willing to pay the price. I watched my father
do that for many, many years, and I learned that
through him. And you know, I tell people I've got
I've got four degrees in my life. I've got a
bachelor's degree, I've got a master's degree in practical theology,
i have a Doctor of Ministry degree. But i have

(09:15):
a fourth degree, and that's from the school of hard knocks.
You're right growing up under my father's ministry.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
When you think about leadership, and we talk a lot
about spirit feeled leadership and being lived by the Holy
Spirit and that sort of thing, how important that is.
But I have found that in addition to being lived
by the Holy Spirit, we still have to lead in
this present world where there are laws and regulations and

(09:42):
banks and requirements, and how do you how do you
think to those tonight who are trying to hearken to
the voice of God and don't really understand that you
have to hearken to the voice of God, but you
also have to educate yourself to the laws surrounding whatever
you you're trying to do and be able to balance

(10:03):
His mandates with their requirements. Can you speak to that
a little for.

Speaker 4 (10:09):
Me, Yes, I can.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Bishop.

Speaker 4 (10:12):
It's very important that we understand the Bible says that
we are too. We are mandated to obey the laws
that are in place from time to time in our nation,
So that is of a paramount importance. It's extremely important
that we obey the law. And I think some of
the reasons why those who are young in ministry have

(10:32):
gotten into trouble is somehow they thought they were above
the law and they could do certain things without getting
into trouble, or that perhaps that secret might not be known.
My experience is what's done in the dark is usually
shown in the light. You have to you have to
be extremely cautious, and also you have to use your creativity,

(10:52):
and you know you have lawyers that help you and
one thing that I always said to our lawyers is
I want to make sir that everything that I do
is completely legal, completely legal. Now, that does not mean
that there are things that you can do that protects you,
but nevertheless, it's extremely important, and especially when you're talking

(11:13):
about accreditation, and accreditation is a very important thing in
the American educational situation. We were a credit under the
North Central Accrediting Association, which accredits colleges and universities in
our area of the country, and their rules are extremely stringent,
as you well know, yes, and so I was always
very careful and very cautious to make certain that we

(11:34):
were the win of the bounds of the law at
all times.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
You know. One of the things you brought up that
sometimes people try to be above the law, and then
I think sometimes we sit around a table with lawyers
and CFOs and accountants with CPAs and so forth and
so on, and we don't always know what is being
said or don't ask questions, and we'll try to act

(11:57):
like we know more than we really know. You know,
how important is it to get at least extracted enough
of their knowledge in your head that you know your
way around a little.

Speaker 4 (12:08):
Bit well, it's extremely important, and it's you should never
be ashamed to say, could you stop and explain that
one more time? And especially when you're dealing with attorneys,
I would say to them, could you please take that
out of the legal ease and speak English so that
a country boy like me from Oklahoma can understand. And
I wouldn't leave the meeting until I got a consensus

(12:30):
of what I was hearing, and then I would say,
let me repeat it back to you to make sure
I understand. And then I would have others around the
table age and other who helped me around in the
meeting say now is this your understanding? This is my understanding,
and they would tweak a little bit. No, doctor Roberts,
this is not exactly what he meant. Well, then explain
to me. I want to make certain of when I

(12:50):
leave this room that I have all the information, because
you can't make good decisions if you don't have good information.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
Absolutely, you know, in the old school church days, there
weren't many boards around the church, and when we did
start establishing boards, they were generally relatives. The RS shies
away from you having control parties and positions on your
board or predominantly on your board. And then as I

(13:19):
got into the corporate world I was used to being
around pastors say generally put people on the board that
they feel they can trust and feel safe. But the
CEOs in the world, they want people that they can
trust in are safe. But they're also looking for people
on the board that can contribute influence, can extend the

(13:40):
integrity of the brand, can add some value so that
your board is strong. Sometimes you are awarded loans and
grants based on the strength of your board, not just
the strength of your balance sheet. So when you start
thinking about accessorizing, whether it is a business, a church,
or university, with the board, what did you look for

(14:04):
in board members? And how did you manage the need
to have a certain degree of loyalty with a certain
level of competence. It's a little different thing to find.
You can you cannot buy loyalty, and yet and yet
you have to have competence. So how do you manage

(14:24):
all of that?

Speaker 4 (14:25):
Well, Bishop, I think the most important job of a
board member or a regent or a trustee or whatever
role you'd call them. I think the most important job
they have to is to elect the CEO or the president.
I think that's their number one job, to elect the leader.
And beyond that, I think the most the second most

(14:46):
important thing is their commitment to the vision. Now, what
I tried to do. I tried to bring men and
women for a possible for nomination on our board that
I had a long history with people who were committed
to the vision, not someone who was coming in to
make a big change, because we knew what the goal was.

(15:08):
And unfortunately, in my case, I inherited some board members
that did not quite share the vision. And I had
to deal with that. And I'm sorry to say, but
it's you know, tonight's a good night to just open
up and be honest. I had to deal with some
of that, and I had to go to several board
members and and and say, look, this is not what

(15:29):
our calling is. Don't come and try to change what
God has called. We're not talking about a secular business here.
Sometimes you can change things like that. But when you
have a calling, when you hear the voice of the
Lord speaking to you what to do, you must stay
with that calling. So commitment is important. Loyalty is important,
and you're very right, you cannot buy loyalty. But when

(15:51):
you deal with people that you've known for a long time.
That's good. Now, I've seen people make mistakes of saying, well,
this guy has a lot of money, let's put them
on the board. I think that's one of the worst
things that a company or a ministry could do just
because someone has money. Yes, money is important, of course
it's important, and you want them to have the right

(16:11):
image and all the things you just said, but it's
certainly not the most important thing.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
You're right, you know, when you think about those relationships
and those trusted people you've known a long time, and
their expertise and their competence, it was culture shocked to
me as a pastor. We have a tendency to work
with people that we are feeding, and we spend so
much time with people that we're feeding that we don't

(16:36):
necessarily develop the relationships with people that are leading. And
so when you get ready to put together a board,
you end up putting people on the board that you
are actually feeding, that were members or touched by your
ministry and your life. But sometimes they love you, but
they can't add anything to you. And I have had
to learn that I have to come away from the
relationships and friend up. As they say, build relationships with

(17:01):
people that have the influence to make the impact so
that you can continue to do what you're doing on
the level that you're in. And I know that must
have been difficult for you as you served at or
you between the needs of the students, the needs of
the staff, the needs of the people under you, and

(17:23):
yet you had to reserve some time to have relationships
with people who were presidents of banks, who own companies,
who had resources. How did you divide your time between
the responsibilities under you and the responsibilities to reach at
least around you or above you.

Speaker 4 (17:44):
Well, that's a great question.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Bishop.

Speaker 4 (17:47):
Not being a church, I did not have to face
that situation that you would face in a church in
the fact of feeding people like you're talking about. We
tried to bring array of people on our board, not
only from the United States, but also from Canada, where
we have strong ministry support, as well as from the

(18:08):
United Kingdom and even as far away as Sweden because
we had two other affiliate universities, and I tried to
bring people that were in a cross section of life.
We had doctors, medical doctors, We had dentists on the board,
we had business people on the board, entrepreneurs, but we
also had a considerable number of pastors as well as

(18:29):
men and women who were on television with high profile ministries.
And the reason was because I wanted them to promote
the university. I wanted them to send students. I wanted
them to be on television when someone talked about college,
I wanted them to send them there. So I wanted
them to advertise them in their television programs and so on.
So we had a cross section, but we probably had

(18:50):
at least half of our board were men and women
who were in ministry.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
You know the funny thing when you bring that up.
You had strategic alliances for placements on the board. You
had an expectation. You didn't do it from a place
of emotions. You did it from a place of strategy.
And one of the things I really picked that up
actually from the Bible, because Jesus spent more time with
the twelve than he did with the five thousand. Yes,

(19:16):
and they were an odd twelve. You've got tax collectors,
you've got physicians, but they were strategic twelve so that
he could move to and fro in and out. They
were diverse so that they didn't compete with each other,
but they completed each other. And I have always believed
that getting people around the table that have different skill

(19:37):
sets other than your own, it's very, very helpful in
moving forward the agenda of the organization. I have for
profits not for profits, and I have a church, and
then we have school, and all of them have different
boards and different regulations and different requirements. And I'm just
I'm still a student. You never stopped learning, because the

(19:58):
laws never stop changing what it takes to lead, and
if you get a year behind, you can pay for
it in a dramatic and catastrophic way and innocently end
up in a world of trouble. Because the requirements change
from year to year.

Speaker 4 (20:15):
Well, you remind me of something. One piece of advice
I would always give is avoid people who say I
want to be on your board. That's sort of like
my wife and me. I didn't want her to ask
me to marry her. I wanted to ask her to
marry me.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
Right right, right, right right, And you are married to
their decisions and their judgment and their vote and their power,
and the consequences can be comprehensible.

Speaker 4 (20:45):
Yes, And not only that, Bishop, but something else that
I learned along the way, and I took some criticism
for this, but I take it gladly. The gifts of
the spirit operate in my wife, particularly the word of
wisdom and the discerning of spirits, and I would not
consider hiring someone or bringing someone on the board myself

(21:07):
that I had not asked my wife to pray over
and to come into an agreement with me, because she
had had an uncanny knack, if I might say it,
she had an uncanny knack and a good smeller, yes,
and to tell me if someone was a good fit
or not a good fit. And several times I made
the wrong decision because I didn't pay attention. And wives

(21:28):
have a tendency to have that gift more than we
men do, and so I thank God for that.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
I do think a female thing. I think they have
that maternal instinct service not only with the kids, but
with the ability to have an instinct for people.

Speaker 4 (21:43):
Yes, right, And they're more sensitive. They're more sensitive than
we men are. And the discerning of spirits and a
desserning of people, we might say, is a more sensitive
gift to begin with.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
When you look at today, things are changing, They're changing.
People leaders are listening at us, right now from all
fronts or corporate leaders, or people who are leading ministries,
or people who are leading small businesses. There are people
who just wanted to hear us talk. There's some of
everybody listening at us, as well as the students from JDS.

(22:15):
When you look at the times we're living in now,
there used to be brand loyalty. My mother went to
the same grocery store. She bought the same kind of flower.
She believed she got the same kind of eggs every time.
There was brand loyalty. When when you joined the church,
there was brand loyalty. You were raised in that church,
were your grandfather laid the first cit the block, you had,

(22:37):
your children came up in that church. And if you left,
you went to another church that was in that network
of churches. If you if you bought clothes somewhere, you
went to the same place. They knew you. You walked
in the door, they call you by your first name.
All that's gone nons technology, a click of the button
and click from this one to that one to the other.

(22:58):
And even before technology became so prominent and even more
prominent because of COVID, people move around a lot. Staff
moves around a lot people are more focused on their
career than they are on your vision. How do you understand,
I know you do. How do you then in this
environment that we're in today, where it's a very narcissistic environment,

(23:23):
It's not what can I do for the school, It's
not what can I do for the company, It's what
can you do for me? And then if IBM comes
along and they offer me another crumb of bread, I'm gone.
How did you inspire in your team, in your staff
and the people that you look for, loyalty to your vision?

(23:45):
And I think there are people right now who really
want to understand how to inspire people. It's not always
money that does that. How do we get that?

Speaker 4 (23:55):
I think the best answer I can give is you
continually can the vision before them. And I tried to
do that in every sense when I was president of
the university as well as also as a chairman and
CEO of our evangelistic Association, which of course built everything
that you have seen. And I tried to keep myself

(24:17):
focused on the vision, staying true to my calling. You
know you say, well, you've said that once, yes, but
you need to say it continually. My father used to
teach me that unless until you've heard a message seven times,
it really hasn't gotten in you. And until you preach
a message as a minister about seven times, it's really

(24:38):
not in you enough. And you have to continue to
keep the vision. Here I am now. I left the
university as president some twelve years ago, back into the
evangelistic field, which is of course my calling. I was
never raised to be a college president. My father tried
to get four other men to take the job when
he stepped down, and they didn't take it. They all

(25:01):
turned him down. He turned to me and said, son,
you're going to have to take it. I said, Dad,
I wasn't raised up to be a college president. I
only have a bachelor's degree at that time. And he said,
you've you've got to take it because you're the only
one who keep it on healing the Holy Spirit, in
seed faith, the principles upon which I built this place.
And so I said, well, let me at least have

(25:21):
a few years to get a master's degree and then
later my Doctor of Ministry degree, which is kind of
a shingle you need to have on your wall in
the academic setting, but in order to have some respect,
and he allowed me to do that, but I had
I had to learn from the beginning that I had
to keep the vision in front of them. And some
people like that, some people didn't like that. I remember

(25:41):
one faculty member, it was the chairman of a department,
came to me one day and said, I'm so sick
and tired of hearing you talk about seed faith. When
are you going to stop talking about seed faith? I said, well,
the day I stopped paying you, right, you know, because
because it was the principles of sewing and reaping which
built what we have. You're you're kicking against the pricks.
You know, you're fighting against yourself, against what God has

(26:04):
called here. And that's the difficult part of getting people
who are trained in other arenas to come into your
arena and understand where you're coming from. It's a and
I'm not sure I'm doing a very good job of
answering your question. I'm giving you my best shot.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah, you're doing You're doing really good. You know, hindsight
is always twenty twenty oh.

Speaker 4 (26:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
And you've had ups and downs, you had good days
and bad days, you had valleys and mountain peaks. If
you could go back and tell yourself something that would
help you to avoid the low moments in your leadership career.
What do you see as the lowest moments and what

(26:47):
would you tell yourself that that would help you avoid
some of them.

Speaker 4 (26:52):
Well, Bishop, I guess the first thing that comes to
my mind is it was not my father's wish to
leave debt, but he did. They marched me down the
aisle and put the medallion around my neck and declared
me as the second President and chief executive Officer of
Royal Roberts University, and they handed me the forty million
dollar debt. I learned what loanliness was all about, and

(27:21):
it was something that I couldn't talk about. I could
talk about it with my board, I could talk about
it with my top staff members, but I couldn't talk
about it in public on television. I couldn't talk to
the faculty that there would have been a mass exodus.
I couldn't talk about it with the students. And it
became very difficult. And it became difficult at home too,
because my wife did not want me to bring that home,

(27:44):
all that frustration and all that pressure and all that stress,
and she would say to me, Richard, stay out in
the driveway until you shake that off. Don't come in
the house until you shake that off. And that really
saved my life, because you know, you come home and
you lash out. You can't lash out where in the
general sense, but you do when you come in the door.

(28:05):
It's misplaced anger. And I had to learn how to
shake that off because it was extremely frustrating, and you know,
you can develop ulcers and sleeplessness. And had it not
been for the joy of the Lord that came into
my life about a year or so after I took
the presidency, I don't know if I could have lasted
fifteen years.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
You know, when you look at that and you start thinking,
there are a lot of people that are trying to go.
In fact, I'll go about it this way. I said
something to your father the time he was at my church.
I said, it must be wonderful to be you. And
he was a very old man then, and he said, well,

(28:46):
why do you say that, And I said, because you
know how your story ends. And I was at that
time in my thirties, okay, and he was a little
older than I am now, And and we started talking
about what I was really looking for from him, was
the uncertainty of youth and the pressure of not knowing

(29:10):
what's ahead of you and what you're going to face
and what you're going to encounter. And a lot of
people are so caught up in the glimpse of the
moment that they don't understand heavy as a head who
wears the crown, the heaviness of debt, the heaviness of
living in a fish tank, the heaviness of having more
demand than you have supply, the heaviness of the expectations

(29:32):
of people being endless and infinite and you being a
limited resource. The heaviness of holding your family together and
your children together, and your business together and your spiritual
life together, all of that resting on you. I was
doing it, but I was a little bit of frid,
you know, and I thought, you know, it looked age

(29:54):
looked like a relief to me at thirty, because he
had come through his mountains, he had come through his valley,
and he could go preach or not go preach for anybody.
And we had an interesting conversation on that regard that
you did. Yeah, he gave me some really good advice,
He really did that that I never forgot.

Speaker 4 (30:14):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Incidentally, uh, let's let's take advantage of this because I
want to get to some other things. Third generation preacher. Yes, okay,
your grandfather dates all the way back to right after
the end of Azusa Street.

Speaker 4 (30:32):
Right.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
Your family has generations of equity, particularly in Pentecostalism. You
mentioned seed faith. Your father authored that message. He was
He was the patriarch of really causing people to really understand.
I remember his book, his famous book that he wrote
on seed Faith and just went everywhere in the world.

(30:54):
And he has done so much to shape the language
of the Pentecostal Cares movement as it relates to many
things that have are commonplace and he doesn't get credit for,
but he really helped to accentuate that his father had
impacted him, then he had impacted you. What does it

(31:16):
feel like to come from a legacy of such faith?
Is it a crown or a cross?

Speaker 4 (31:25):
Yes? Great answer, Well, Bishop, it has its good side
and its bad side too. It has its up and
it has its down. My grandfather was an itinerate pastor
and farmer and preacher who traveled around preaching, plus had
a church. He founded twelve churches in Oklahoma and Arkansas.

(31:46):
He was Methodist My grandmother was Pentecostal, and he had
a booming, loud voice and preached, and she had an
evangelistic call to the healing ministry. And of course they
passed when I was in my twenties, but I knew
them very well. And my father came along, healed at

(32:08):
tuberculosis in nineteen thirty five, called into the healing ministry,
and all I knew was a boy, was the healing ministry.
And of course I went wherever he went. But I
ran away from God as a teenager. And then I
came back to God when I was nineteen, and he
prophesied over me that I would enter into the healing ministry.

(32:29):
And I'd been ill, and he prayed for me, and
I was healed, and I rolled out of bed and
gave my heart to Christ. And that night I was
baptized in the Holy Spirit, and the ministry began. And
some eleven years twelve years later, I did enter the
healing ministry. But they had a profound effect upon my life.
One of the great tragedies today that I see in

(32:49):
young ministers, and those of you who are young in
ministry and desiring to enter into your own ministry. Now
let me give you some advice tonight. Get a mentor,
get someone in your life that you will be accountable to.
Too many young ministers today are not accountable to anyone,

(33:09):
and they're liable to say and do and preach anything
without anyone to hold them accountable. The Apostle Paul said,
we have not many fathers. He didn't say there's not enough,
he just said we don't have many. My father was
a mentor to me, and when he passed in two
thousand and nine, I asked a pastor who was older
than I was, to hold me accountable. I think it's good.

(33:32):
You know, you're never too old to have someone to
speak to speak into your life. I think that's a
critical thing. But getting back to your question, my grandfather
and my father had a profound influence upon my life.
I found something that was true, tried and true that
I believe with all my heart, and I hold fast
to it today. In fact, my father said to me

(33:54):
when he passed, he said, son, the university will begin
to go from its founding purpose after a period of time.
That's what universities do. And he said, you must in
all that you do, stay true to healing the Holy Spirit.
And see faith, because those are the principles that have
built everything that we have done. And Bishop I have

(34:17):
done everything and am doing everything in my power to
stay true to that vision. The Apostle Paul said, he
was true to his vision, and that's what I want
to be like.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
You know, I thought to myself, what an amazing legacy
that you represent, and having had the experiences that you did,
particularly at the time in history, the nineteen eighties, nineteen nineties,
you know, all the way back to your father back
in the fifties, with the tents and the healing lines

(34:50):
and the ministry and the music, and people coming from
miles around to hear him speak, and you being there
right in the middle of history. I thought this strange
question to myself. I thought of the movie Guess Who's
Coming to Dinner? And I thought about who must have
sat around the table when you were a little boy.

(35:12):
Your father coming up in the period with aa Islan
and Catherine Cooleman and those sort of people would have
been his contemporaries. He was old enough to be my father.
You and I are closer to the same age, so
it's a previous generation above us. Take us around the
table or the restaurant table, and name some of the

(35:32):
people that you got to hear talk and what that
was like.

Speaker 4 (35:37):
Well, Bishop, I got to spend a great deal of
time with men like Kenneth Hagen and John Ostein in Houston.
John was a great mentor to me, and of course
you mentioned Katherine Coolman. I got to spend considerable time
with T. L. Osbourne, in my opinion, the greatest missionary
evangelist of our time. Others had a profound influence on

(36:01):
me that I could mention. I never met A Allan,
although he was I understand. He was in our home
when I was a boy. R. W. Shamback was a
close friend of my father, and brother Brannham. You remember brother,
the name brother Branham.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
He was.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
He was a friend of my father. He was in
our home. Others like that. I never met Jack Coe.
I was too young when he passed. But my father
was a contemporary of his, and men and women like
that were in our home from time to time and
sitting in our living room, and I would be over
in the corner just listening, and especially as I got

(36:40):
a little older and got into my early teen years,
when I was still in junior high and high school.
Those people had a profound influence. I didn't really understand
at that time who they were, but as time went by,
I did. And we would lay out the plans, or
my dad, I should say, would lay out the plans
for things we were going to build on our kitchen table,

(37:01):
you know, lay the plans out, and I would see
the architectural renderings from the beginning, and he would say,
what do you think about this? And I would say, well,
what about this? And what if he did this? And
what if he did this? So I got to participate. Now,
I didn't realize at the time that God was schooling
me anymore than I knew when I was a boy
waiting for him to finish preaching, and he preached long sermons.

(37:23):
He preached for an hour and a half sometimes and
then he would have a prayer line which lasted sometimes
an hour and a half to two hours. And I
couldn't wait for the prayer line because I knew there
was a good chance he was going to call me
up to stand by him. And occasionally he would said, son,
now you pray for them, and you know, I wanted
to be involved in that, and I was, and on
Sunday afternoons in his crusade. The last thing he would

(37:45):
do if you had not had hands laid on you
and you desired it, then he would lay hands on
everyone who had not yet been prayed for. And sometimes
there were five to ten thousand people on a Sunday
afternoon who had not yet been prayed for. And I
would walk those prayer lines with him, sometimes for two
and three hours, laying hands on people, and things like that.
You don't forget. You remember them, and they stick with you,

(38:08):
and they have an influence on you even today.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
You know.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Actually, there's so many things running through my mind listener,
as you talk. One of them is how important it
is to expose your children to what you do and
to raise them up, to take them to work with you,
so to speak. So they're in the atmosphere of your dreams,
they're in the atmosphere of your vision. They felt that,
they smell the air, they felt the touch, and then

(38:33):
it's not as hard to indoctrinate them later if you
have infiltrated their psyche early to be exposed to that
level of the stats say they are ninety percent more
likely to be Christians if they're raised early ages in
the church, and today what we want to do is
dump them, leave them, put them aside somewhere. But your

(38:54):
father brought you along, having you lay hands as a
young man, putting that faith, annoying that spirit in you,
as he and his contemporaries begin to shape that part
of the Pentecostal experience. Right on the bridge of neo Pentecostalism,
going into the charismatic movement when it was exploding. You

(39:15):
talked about Copland, Kenneth Hagen, and all that I can remember.
You go in the bookstore, their books were everywhere, Absolutely everywhere,
you could find things on the baptism of the Holy Spirit,
the gifts of the Spirit, laying on of hands, how
to be healed, how to be delivered. Today when you
go in the bookstore, there might be two or three

(39:37):
books about that. Today, when you go into Charismatic Pentecostal churches,
you hardly ever hear a sermon about the gifts of
the spirit. You hardly ever hear a sermon about healing.
You hardly ever hear a sermon challenging people to be
baptized with the Holy Spirit. What happened to Pentecostalism in
twenty twenty that we have become so far removed from

(40:00):
what defined the pennecostal experience, which transcended denominations. It went everywhere.
The Catholics and everybody were being filled with the Holy Spirit. Yes,
in nineteen ninety. Today even in those churches who still
carry that mantle, they don't carry that message.

Speaker 4 (40:19):
What happened, Well, let me go back to the first
part of your question or your statement you made earlier
about the children. The Bible says that Abraham would command
his children, and I don't mean that in as since
that he's giving orders to his children, but he would
have an influence upon them. And not only did my
father have an influence upon me, but I want to

(40:41):
have an influence on our children. And our children our
three daughters are all involved in our ministry. My oldest Jordan,
sings on our television program. She travels with me. She
is the executive producer of the program and also involved
in our missions outreaches around the world with food and
things of that nature. Our middle daughter, Olivia is in

(41:02):
charge of all of our social media outreach, and our
youngest daughter, Chloe, is involved in research and helps me
with sermons and podcasts and television programs and Facebook posts.
So I'm grateful that all three of my daughters are involved.
And of course Lindsay is involved up to the hilt
with everything that I do, and is a prolific writer herself. Now,

(41:22):
in answer to your question, it seems to me that
we've gotten too busy building our buildings and we've we've
left our base. We have to we have to preach
the Bible. We can't preach what's popular. We have to
preach the Word of God. The Word of God is

(41:42):
never changing. And that's I get back to harping on
this same thing of what I was raised in. I
believe in the preaching of the Word. Men come to
repentance because of preaching. I believe in teaching the Word.
That's why your school is so important. But I also
believe in miracles and signs and wonders. Jesus said to

(42:04):
his disciples, preach, teach, and bring healing to the people.
Anything less than that is not a full gospel. And
I think many today have left the signs and wonders
and the baptism of the Holy Spirit because they feel
like they're inadequate. They feel like they haven't they haven't
experienced it themselves, so how can they teach somebody else.

(42:25):
You can't teach somebody else something that you don't already
have inactive active I should say, in your life. And
you mentioned the early nineties, I can remember my father
and I going to a number of Catholic charismatic experiences
where there were sometimes ten, fifteen, twenty thousand Catholics, and
he and I would teach on the baptism of the
Holy Spirit and then demonstrate how it operates in our life,

(42:48):
and then help lead them into the baptism of the
Holy Spirit. And we've come to a place where where
many preachers they preach the Word right up to the
time they quit. And once a pastor asked my father,
what's the greatest advice you could give me as a preacher?
He said, my dad said, preach less and minister more.

(43:10):
Cut your message, so you have enough time in the
service to minister to the people after you preach, to
follow the Bible formula of preaching, teaching, and healing. What
would happen in America if every pastor this coming Sunday,
after he or she finished their message, if they said,
now is any sick among you? I'm talking about spiritually, physically, financially, emotionally,

(43:34):
in your family, in your business, in your job, in
your ministry, in your marriage. Is any sick among you,
let them call for the elders, come forward, let us
lay hands on you, Let us annoint you with oil
and pray the prayer of faith, because the prayer of
faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise
them up. I tell you what, we would have a
healing revival begin in this land that would spread from

(43:54):
border to border.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
I absolutely agree with you, absolutely agree. I think that
there's two prongs to that problem, though. I think that
there's a feeling of vulnerability where a lot of them
did not come from the rich roots and heritage to
have the word down in them well enough to know

(44:16):
the fundamentals of the faith well and fluently and be
fully persuaded that God is able to do even things
that are not written. The other part of the problem is,
back when you and I came along, you talked about
your father preaching iron iron a half and then laying
hands on people for an another hour and a half.

(44:36):
Sometimes you got out of church at eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock,
you know, late at night. People stayed today today if
you have the internet, yeah, if you're not finished by nine,
you know, there's a great exodusity. Even they won't even
wait for an altar call, which says that we have

(44:57):
lost our first love. We used to love that part
of the service, the healing, the deliverance, the altar work
that you know, one of the greatest honors I had
was a chance to pray with somebody on the altar.
And they didn't let you do that easily, you know,
the church mothers and everybody had to check you out
before you get But that's all we got to do.

(45:18):
We didn't get to preach, but we could come alongside
and pray for them as you talked about earlier, and
there was a fervency and a fire for God. And
I wonder, especially when I travel overseas and I see
how they will walk for miles to come to hear
something that we won't drive to. And it brings the

(45:42):
question has America lost its love for God? And not
just America but other countries around the world. Are we
slipping away off our base? All of us?

Speaker 4 (45:53):
Bishop, It's a wonderful question. You take my thoughts to
the call of God that has come on me lately,
the newest calling. Some four years ago, the Lord spoke
to me and said, your time of healing crusades is
at an end. And I said, to the Lord, what

(46:13):
do you want me to do? I've for forty years,
I've had mass crusades all over the earth. You saw
in the little video you did. That was in Kenya
where we had two hundred thousand the last night and
probably twenty or thirty thousand people gave their hearts to
the Lord that night, and tremendous thousands of healing miracles.
I said, Lord, what do you want me to do?
I'm an evangelist in the healing ministry. The Lord said,

(46:33):
I want you to spend the rest of your life
ministering to underdeveloped nations pastors, teaching them on healing, the
Holy Spirit and see faith. He said, I want you
to go to India. And the last three years I
have been numerous times in India. I've laid hands on
some four thousand, almost five thousand Indian pastors, rural pastors,

(46:55):
not from the cities. I'm talking about pastors in villages,
in the mountains, in the hazard, in the jungle, where
they have no Internet, they have no resources, and they
have really no know how to do what they are
called of God to do. Many of these pastors had
no clue whatsoever that they could pray for the sick.
And I spent three days with them numerous times now

(47:18):
teaching them how to pray for the sick. Now they're
praying for the sick every week, and I'm getting testimonies
of healings and miracles. We've got to go back to
our first love, which is preaching, teaching and bringing God's
healing power. Many people make the mistake of thinking, when
you say healing, you're only talking physical. Well, certainly that's
a part of it, but we need healing in everybody,

(47:39):
in every area of our lives. We need healing. We
need a closer walk with God. We need healing in
our emotions because we're struck down with depression and discouragement
and fear and worry over COVID and all all this.
And we need healing in our marriages and in our businesses,
and with our family and in our relationships. So healing
in the totality of its meaning. We need to get
back to the healing ministry of Jesus because that's what

(48:02):
set Jesus apart. There were a lot who preached and taught.
He's the only one who preached and taught and brought
heal right, right, that is so you're going to be preaching.
He fired me up here that room. But you're firing
me up to night.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
You know. I'll tell you a quick story, h I
have worked with several heads of stayed down through the years,
Republican and Democrat, from George Bushabille Clinton, President Oboba, all
the way up up the line. One of them, on
one of my visits UH to Washington, said to me,

(48:40):
whenever you're in the city, you should you should call
and let us know, and if I can, I'll clear
thirty minutes or so and sit down and talk with you.
And I said, okay, But I thought, I said okay,
But I thought, yeah, right, you know your put in
the world. Would somebody like you want to talk to

(49:04):
somebody like me at random, as busy as you are
and as complex as that job is. That is a
I want to say, a horrific job.

Speaker 4 (49:14):
It is. It's not what I would want.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
Yeah, I love myself too much to run for office,
but I left out of there. I never did it.
And later I listened at them talking on a talk
show about how lonely they were in the White House
with surrounded by people and adjutants and attendance and the

(49:40):
trainees and students and apprentices and all of that, and
yet it was so lonely that when they get out
there just glad. Most of them are just glad to
be out. Yes, pastors surrounded by people, but are secretly lonely.

(50:00):
You talk about being running the college at or Roberts
University and serving there all that years, and I mean,
you know, everybody knew your name, everybody knew who you were,
everybody knew or Roberts University. I mean, what your father
started building was unprecedented because though he emphasized healing, he

(50:23):
was also building a hospital. He merged medicine with miracles
in a way that was light years ahead of his time.
Only a few people are even doing that now, where
they believe in alternative medicines as well as medicine and
combining peritude. That it's rare to see anything like what

(50:43):
he was trying to do in those early years. And
yet with all of those buildings and all of those
people and all of those students talk to me about loneliness.

Speaker 4 (50:56):
Well, it's again, it's lonely at the top. And I
understand what the presidents that you mentioned felt like. I
know the loneliness that my father felt. I'm sure that
Jesus must have had loneliness. I'm sure the Apostle Paul
must have had those lonely times in his life. I

(51:18):
understand that I've tried to surround myself with my family
and those who are on the same page with me,
because when the buck stops with you and you make
a decision, not everybody's going to agree with you. In
the academic setting, they say that the typical college president
in America stays in office for about six to eight

(51:41):
years and that's about all that he or she can stand. Well,
I understand that I stayed in the saddle for fifteen years,
and perhaps I stayed a little too long. I know
that I had a longing to go back into the
healing ministry. I did not want to break my father's heart.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
Living.

Speaker 4 (52:00):
I did not want to step aside at that point,
but I yearned to get back into the healing ministry.
And I used to say this, and some people got
really offended at me when I said this. I used
to say that the university is my Leyah, but the
healing ministry is my Rachel. I was born for the

(52:20):
evangelistic healing ministry. My father prophesied over me when I
was nineteen that when I entered the healing ministry, which
I did at thirty, that I would not primarily lay
hands on people like he did, but that there would
be a power that would come through my chest and voice,
and God would manifest the Word of knowledge because I
would be on TV far more than he was, and

(52:43):
I would not have the ability to lay hands on
people because it'd be too many people. And that was
one of the great tragedies of his life, that he
couldn't always lay hands on everyone that was there because
of the size of the crowd. And so that has
happened to me. That's the call on my life. I
longed to get back into the healing ministry, and I

(53:03):
was lonely during those years at the university because I
had to set my healing ministry aside. But the Good
Lord allowed me twelve years ago to go back into
the healing ministry again, and I am fulfilled in doing
that because that is the reason that I was born.
And yes, yes there are lonely days, but also there

(53:23):
are times when you know, as my dad would say,
if you were here tonight, he would say, you know
that you know that, you know that, you know you
just know that, you know that, you know, I know
that I am where I am supposed to be, just
like you know exactly where you're supposed to be in
the school and the church and all your endeavors. And

(53:44):
when there's a knowing, when you know in your heart,
then you can stand the loneliness.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
You know when you have those moments. Because I often
tell people that Adam had God and he was still lonely. Yeah,
because somebody said it's not good for man to be alone.
He had God. What a lot of church people try
to when you ask him about loneliness, they deflect and say,
I've got the joy of the Lord.

Speaker 4 (54:11):
It doesn't take the place lonely.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
No, no, no, you know, let's just for a minute,
just be honest tonight that you can have a wonderful
time in the spirit and go back to your room
and be just by yourself. Partially because you have given
out and you have poured out, and they went home.
You gave them the courage that God put in you.
They went home encouraged because you made a deposit. They

(54:37):
don't know that you go back discourage because the virtues
gone out of you. Yes, And when you are when
you are in those moments of loneliness, you know you're
in the path that God. But you you love what
you do, you love life, But it's just a low moment.

(54:58):
What do you say to.

Speaker 4 (54:58):
Yourself, get some sleep and start fresh tomorrow morning in
the natural Bishop, I don't think there is an answer,
but I think that is really good advice. Sleep, of course,
is a natural healer. And I am the way I'm
cut out, the way I'm made is if I get

(55:20):
a good night's rest, I'm on top of the world
the next morning. And one reason is because I decide.
They say in life there's no such thing as in decision.
You either decide or you decide not to decide. And
part of that has to do with knowing who you are.
I know who I am. No one needs to tell me.
I don't need to have accolades. I don't need to
have somebody putting me up on a pedestal or telling

(55:41):
me how great I am, because I can look in
the mirror and tell you when I do good and
when I do bad, and if I don't, my wife
will tell me. So I know who I am, I
know what I'm called to do. So I am self
sufficient in that regard, and the next morning I'm ready
to take them mountain again.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
I'm going to say something that I don't know that
I would have said it at thirty, and if I
said it, I don't know that I would have meant
it fully at thirty, because I think it takes a
time in life for you to really come into the
value of family. You know, there is a certain fulfillment

(56:22):
that I get now, and I think even more after
COVID being in an isolated situation where we are closed
up in close quarters and you're just around people that
you're related to, and you start to value who you
are above what you do. And I had to learn

(56:44):
how to be at home rather than to just stay
at home, to actually be there in the moment, to
really be there, to really be present in the moment,
rather than being here thinking about what I got to
do tomorrow and thinking about what happened wrong today and
thinking about this and that and the other. Even now

(57:06):
I have to speak to myself and say, you're not
in tomorrow and you're not in yesterday. Live right in
this moment where you are right now, and enjoy what's
right in front of you. And it's the simple things.
It's a hug around my knee from a grandchild. It's

(57:26):
the gleam in my children's eye when they tell a joke.
They have these daddy stories they tell about me that
I hope never get printed. I know some of those
stories about me, you know what I'm saying. And to
learn to value people who really love you rather than

(57:48):
to try to build they say. One of the great
things that Michael Jackson, one of his dear friends said
about him, is said, Michael tried to have a personal
relationship for public audience, and it's a poor substitute because
they leave you. And I think to people listening at

(58:09):
us right now, keeping the main thing, the main thing.
Having a few close friends with whom you do not
have to perform. It's very very helpful where you don't
have to be you don't have to be You don't
have to be doctor Roberts, I don't have to be misbecous.

(58:30):
Somebody who calls you by your name and knows who
you are, and those close circle of frieth. Jesus had
an inner circle that I think helps with loneliness, Peter,
James and John And I think that one of the
things that helps us helps me anyway with loneliness. I

(58:50):
have a close circle of a few friends. Don't try
to get too many. I'd rather know a few people
well rather than a whole lot of people loosely. And
then as I grew older, I learned to value the
legacy of my own family and my children and my grandchildren,
and even some of my spiritual children that aren't connected

(59:13):
to me by blood but are connected by spirit, like
Elijah and Elijah. How important is it to have really
quality personal relationships, whether it's family or close friends, in
combating loneliness.

Speaker 4 (59:31):
Bishop my father taught me that if you can count
your friends on one hand, you're very blessed.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
Right.

Speaker 4 (59:38):
But my family, my family comes first, and they know me.
I don't have to walk into the house and be
a star. I'm just Richard, right. I try my best
to be normal, and I've done my best over the
years to be the same when I'm on TV as

(59:58):
when I'm at home.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
Is just me.

Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
If the dishes need to be done. I'm going to
get up and do the dishes. If my wife wants
some scrambled eggs, I'm going to go over to the
stove and I'm going to cook it and pray to
God I don't overcook it, you know. And with my kids,
and when they were little, they would come and sit
on my lap, and now they're grown wonderful women in
their thirties, you know, and they look to me, and
I look to them, and I listen to them because

(01:00:24):
they have great ideas. I think one of the things
that we men don't do as well as we need
to is listen. We need to listen. Our families want
to be heard. They don't always have to be right,
but they're want to be heard. And I think I
think that has a great deal to do with it.
And that's that's true in the general sense too. People

(01:00:45):
want to be heard. They want to know that their
opinion matters. And my wife and I had an arrangement that,
you know, I would listen to what she said. And
sometimes I've done a good job. Sometimes I have not
done as good a job as I need to do.
And she reminded of that I need to listen, and
I need I need to hear hear her out and
not cut her off, which sometimes is my pattern. And

(01:01:09):
I'm seventy two, but I'm trying to learn how to
listen until there's a period at the end of the sentence.
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
But but there there are those times of loneliness that
you speak of, But there's also a time of the
humbleness of just realizing that you're just a human being.
Right we we we tend we tend to put these
men and women in the Bible on a pedestal. They
were just human beings. Abraham was just a man, Moses

(01:01:39):
was just a man, Paul was just a man. And
everybody had a past, right right. David was just a man,
right but he and he had a past, but he
was a man after God's own heart. And and I
think one of the great great things that I had
learned how to do is when I when I goof up,
when I make a mistake, which I do quite often,
is I want to go to the person that I

(01:01:59):
have heard or I've offended. I want to say, look,
I'm sorry, I was wrong. I think that the a
half hearted apology doesn't get much. I hear people say, well,
if I offended you, you're sorry. Well, that's sort of
like you run me over in your car and say, well,
if I injured, you know, I'm laying there dead.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:02:20):
An apology is, look, I'm sorry, I made a mistake.
I was wrong. Please forgive me. I'm going to do
my best not to do that again. That's an apology.
That's like I was in a hotel recently and they
were doing some reconstruction and they said, if our construction
bothers you, well, of course it bothers me. I'm not
going to be able to sleep or you make a
noise in the morning, I say, we apologize, We're sorry,

(01:02:44):
we got to rebuild our hotel. We're sorry, instead of
if you've offended me.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
You know that's powerful, that's very, very powerful. I'm going
to ask you one more question, okay, and I don't
want to take advantage of your time. My grandmother used
to quote this all the time. Every generation gets weaker
and wiser. We have the benefit of learning from our

(01:03:09):
parents and our grandparents, both what to do and sometimes
what not to do. What do you try to give
your children that your father didn't know to give.

Speaker 4 (01:03:22):
To you time good as time. Give my children time,
and I'm not casting off on my dad. Don't misunderstand me.
I had an advantage bishop. There were four children in
our family, and I was the only one that was

(01:03:43):
inclined toward the ministry. And I was the only one
of the four that liked the things that my dad liked.
I liked basketball, I liked football, I liked horseback riding.
I liked hunting, I liked fishing. The things I liked golf.
I liked to go places with him and not casting off.

(01:04:05):
But my brothers and sisters did not enjoy that so much.
So he did not spend as much time with them
as he spent with me. And I've done my very
best to spend time time.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
With my children. Time.

Speaker 4 (01:04:21):
There's no substitute for spending time with the family.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Yeah, I learned man along the way. I didn't know
that initially giving them things is not as valuable as
giving them you.

Speaker 4 (01:04:35):
They're interested in Dad. Yes, they don't care about the CEO.
They don't care about the president, they don't care about
about the chairman of the board. They care about Dad, and.

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
They want to know who you really are, down to
the core, to the boats because they're trying to figure
out who they are, and.

Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
They want to know you love them and you care
and you listen to them and you hear them out,
and you'll help them.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
Yeah, even if you don't agree with them, they still
need a soft place to fall, as doctor Fields is
where they can express themselves and be heard and not
always be fixed by you, but just heard by you.
I learned so much. That's why I think we do
a better job with our grandchildren than we do with
our children, because we practiced on the first batch and

(01:05:17):
then we really get it good on the second batch
and hand them back to those of you that are listening,
we're coming to the close. Doctor Roberts has been profound
and provocative. He's informed us, he's inspired us in so
many ways. Sitting before us is three generations of legacy

(01:05:39):
of ministry spending one hundred years. The kind of glory
that he grew up in you don't see much of today.
And I'm going to ask him to pray for you
in a moment that there might be a supernatural impartation

(01:06:01):
in your life, in your life, in your marriage, in
your ministry, in your emotions and your health. And I Honestly,
I'm crazy enough to believe that you could get healed
through a stream. That the Holy Spirit doesn't care about technology.

(01:06:25):
It's just he that have an ear. Let him hear
what the Spirit is about to say. And if you
have a need, and you'll open up your heart and
open up your spirit right where you are as he
prays for you, And the wealth of his father and
the wealth of his grandfather and his grandmother all combined
to pray for you. Who knows what God will do

(01:06:48):
in your life? Would you would you be so kind
as to pray? Then I'm going to turn it back
over to doctor Harris, And before you pray, I just
want to say how much we have enjoyed listening at
you talk out loud. How much we have enjoyed the transparency,

(01:07:08):
the openness, the lack of pretense, both the humanity and
the spirituality of what you presented for us helps us
to better understand ourselves. And it's just been a rare
privilege and and honor that you would share with us tonight.

Speaker 4 (01:07:24):
Well, thank you, Bishop, And let me just express my
love to you. I was watching you on TV last night.
You were on last night, you were preaching and I mean,
you were fired up. You were such a blessing to
me last night. I have loved you for many, many years.
I remember when you used to come to our Minister's
conference and set up in the balcony. That's right, I

(01:07:45):
remember those days. I've forgotten that. And you have been
true and tried all through these years. And I bless
you and your ministry and this precious school. I love
your church, and remember the Sunday that I came in
just to hear you preaching. Next thing, I know, I
was sitting on the platform next to you or behind
your wife. But thank you for being my friend. I'm

(01:08:06):
certainly yours. And if I might before I pray, if
I might just tell just one brief story which will
help prepare this prayer that I'm going to pray actually
actually to. First of all, just about two weeks ago
I closed out Brother Kenneth Coplan's annual Minister's Conference, and
there were many healings that night, and I gave a

(01:08:26):
number of words of knowledge. And I got a testimony
this week from a man who was in the control
room taping the event who got his back healed. So
there's no reason why you can't be healed tonight through
this live stream. But one story that I must tell
you a story of my grandfather, Reverend E. M. Roberts
Ellis Melvin Roberts, in the early days of his preaching

(01:08:49):
in rural Oklahoma, down in the PoTA Talk County area, Ada,
Oklahoma area. Oftentimes he would walk to his preaching engagements
and sometimes there was no excuse me, no paving on
the road, gravel and rocks. That oftentimes he would have
holes in his shoes, and when he would get back

(01:09:11):
home from the service, his feet would be bleeding. And
my grandmother, Claudius Priscilla Roberts, would take off his shoes
and socks and put his feet that sometimes we're bloody
in a warm basin of soapy water, and she would cry,
and she would say, how beautiful are the feet of

(01:09:33):
those who preach the gospel that had a profound influence
upon my life? How beautiful are those who are called
into the service of the Lord and my friend. Tonight,
there is no distance in prayer. He's here where I am,
He's there where you are. And the Bible says in

(01:09:54):
Psalm one hundred and seven, verse twenty, he sent his
word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions.
So in the authority of the name of Jesus, I
send the word of God to you. Come against every
satanic attack of the devil that has berated you and

(01:10:15):
come against you and tried to stop you and knock
you out. I curse it. I bind it in the
name of Jesus. And I remind you the Bible says
whatever you bind on earth is going to be bound
in heaven. So I bind that. He also said whatever
you loose on earth is going to be loosed in heaven.
So I loose the power of God into you right now.

(01:10:35):
The name of Jesus be healed tonight, be whole, from
the crown of your head to the soles of your feet,
in the authority of Jesus name. Amen and Amen, Amen.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
Amen, Amen. Receive that, receive that, receive that, receive that,
receive this word, and receive this opportunity, this great and
rare opportunity to listen in to this conversation, Doctor Harris,
if you would close us out, thank you so much
the ship. God bless you, God bless you well.

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
First of all, thank you Bishop for bringing your friends
to Jack Savinity School. It says, if we've said before
a fountain and heard from wisdom of experienced statesman. You know,
Aristotle talks about pro nieces, and pro nieces is a
Greek word that means lived wisdom. I often tell my

(01:11:29):
students that some things are taught and some things are caught.
And I remember growing up in rural South, you know,
on the porch with my grandfather and his friends sitting
there talking and just pouring out wisdom and catching nuggets.
What we've gotten tonight you can't really get out of
a textbook. This is lived wisdom, and it is lived

(01:11:52):
wisdom with deep spirituality. And I think that if we
can continue the legacy that you have poured to us tonight,
our lives and our careers would be strengthened for the future.
So thank you Bishop, and thank you doctor Roberts for
this very important time. And thank you for the prayer
as well, because we all need that. So thank you

(01:12:15):
to all of you who have joined us tonight. JDS
students are here as well as many friends. I want
to remind you that you can support our mission to
eight nine to five zero. You can text JDS give
any dollar amount.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
We appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
Very much, Thank you again, and everybody have a wonderful,
wonderful night.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
Twenty has been a year, a year long fight hell
your mind. When everybody's running away, that's what smart people
run in. And what we have to do is find
people who want to move the country and the world
forward and with a panoramic view of thought. The walls

(01:13:05):
are gone, the limitations are off. It's one thing to
hear the information, but I want to break it down.
As you retool yourself, it's a higher heel to climb
than it was before all of this happened. So this
kind of information is vitally important.