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Oral Roberts passes at 91 in California

TULSA - Many in the world are mourning the passing of pastor, healer, innovator and religious icon Oral Roberts, who died Tuesday (December 15, 2009) in Newport Beach, California at the age of 91 from complications of pneumonia a day after he was hospitalized following a fall at his home in California.

“Oral Roberts was the greatest man of God I’ve ever known,” said Oral’s son, Richard Roberts. “A modern-day apostle of the healing ministry, an author, educator, evangelist, prophet, and innovator, he was the only man of his generation to build a worldwide ministry, an accredited university, and a medical school.”

Evangelist Billy Graham issued a statement stating,  “Oral Roberts was a man of God, and a great friend in ministry.  I loved him as a brother.  We had many quiet conversations over the years.  I invited Oral to speak at one of our early international conferences on evangelism held in Berlin in the 1960’s.  Oral was preceded in death by his wonderful wife Evelyn, who I also knew and loved.  She was a woman of God, and a powerful prayer warrior.  Just three weeks ago, I was privileged to talk to Oral over the telephone.  During the short conversation, he said to me that he was near the end of his life’s journey.  I look forward to the day that I will see Oral and Evelyn Roberts again in Heaven–our eternal home.”

Roberts established Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association (OREA), a Pentecostal ministry, which in turn founded Oral Roberts University in 1963 which Roberts served as the school’s president until 1993 and trustee until his death.  GuideStar reports OREA “produces 52 weekly television and radio programs, and 260 daily television programs to help spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the United States and throughout the world. These programs reach an estimated 800,000 people per week.”

In May 2009, the Oklahoma Legislature honored Roberts with a resolution honoring his life. He spoke to lawmakers of his mission and his legacy.  “I’ll soon be going home to my heavenly father,” Roberts said on this occasion. “I look forward to that with great peace and joy. Leaving behind my legacy to bless people.”

Born on January 24, 1918, the fifth and youngest child of Reverend Ellis Melvin Roberts and Claudia Priscilla Irwin, Roberts grew up in southern Oklahoma. After finishing high school, Roberts studied for two years each at Oklahoma Baptist University and Phillips University. In 1938 he married a preacher’s daughter, Evelyn Lutman Fahnestock.  Leaving college before completing his degree, Roberts became an itinerant preacher, taking over his father’s ministry and expanding it to millions of people in tent revivals, healing the sick and saving troubled lives.  Eventually, the tents gave way to airwaves — broadcasting on radio and television.

In the early 60s, he broke even more ground, building Oral Roberts University in South Tulsa and later built the City of Faith Medical and Research Cente, intended to merge prayer and medicine in the healing process.

Two Roberts children are still living — son Richard, a well-known evangelist and former president of Oral Roberts University (ORU), and daughter Roberta Potts, an attorney.  Oral Roberts was preceded in death by his wife of 66 years, Evelyn, on May 4, 2005, ,and two of his children, Rebecca in 1977 and Ronald in 1982.

Memorial Service will be held at the ORU Mabee Center, in Tulsa Oklahoma on Monday, December 21, 2009 at 2:00PM.

(Sources:  Oral Roberts Evangelistic Assn, Oral Roberts University, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Oral Roberts Minstries, Oklahoma news outlets, Wikipedia)

Schuller group buys 2 faith-based media companies from In Touch

DALLAS – A Dallas private equity firm co-founded by Robert A. Schuller, the former televangelist from the Hour of Power, has acquired two media companies in Atlanta that nearly quadruple its reach to 50 million U.S. households.

Dr. Charles Stanley head of In Touch Ministries

ComStar Media said Monday that it’s buying FamilyNet Television and FamilyNet Radio for an undisclosed amount.  Officials with Atlanta-based In Touch Ministries, Dr. Charles Stanley’s organization and owner of the two FamilyNet companies, have not offered comment as of this article.

“It’s a pretty big leap,” said ComStar co-founder and chief executive Chris Wyatt, who is Schuller’s son-in-law. “No one knows who we are in Dallas, and we run two major television networks.”

Wyatt hopes to change that.  He projects that ComStar’s $5 million in revenue will at least double next year.

Wyatt and Schuller, who is chairman of ComStar, started the company late last year to buy distressed faith-based media companies. Its first fund has a target of $10 million, but the next fund will shoot for $50 million, Wyatt said.

In May, ComStar made its first acquisition, AmericanLife Television Network, which reaches 13 million households, moving it from Washington, D.C. ComStar is moving FamilyNet to Dallas, transferring a handful of employees, Wyatt said.

“What we’re doing is acquiring these networks that are losing money and turning them around,” said Wyatt, who founded social networking sites GodTube.com and Communities.com. “We’re going to combine them next year and rebrand and relaunch everything, and then rebrand our Web strategy. We’ll use the networks to drive traffic online and vice versa.”

Wyatt said he doesn’t know what the new name will be yet.

Last month, Schuller kicked off a pilot for an AmericanLife TV program called Everyday Life, which also will run on FamilyNet, Wyatt said. It was Schuller’s first TV appearance since leaving the megachurch founded by his father, Robert H. Schuller, in Orange County, Calif., in a family feud and stepping down from the Crystal Cathedral’s Hour of Power TV program last year.

Earlier this year, it was reported that the younger Schuller would start his own television and Internet ministry.  FamilyNet Television comes with a library of classic shows, such as Happy Days and My Three Sons, and original productions, such as Focus on the Family and The Dave Ramsey Show.

(Source: Dallas Morning News)

BIZ UPDATE: Ceo of Republic Airlines brings faith to work

DENVER/MILWAUKEE -  Bryan Bedford decided to bring God to work with him about nine years ago. “We’ve been building a business together ever since,” said Bedford, chief executive of Republic Airways, which acquired Midwest (Express) Airlines earlier this year.

Bedford has infused his Christian faith into Republic’s vision statement and believes it has made the company stronger.

Accoding to the Denver Post, Bedford says he doesn’t try to convert anyone or require faith as an employment litmus test.  But he also says he isn’t shy about sharing his religious faith along with his faith in Republic’s business plan in company newsletters — signing them: “I pray for God’s continued blessings on our families and our airline.”

“This tells you where I come from, what makes me tick, and this is what I believe and what the company value system is,” Bedford said.

Republic’s vision statement says, in part, “every employee, regardless of personal beliefs or world view, has been created in the image and likeness of God.”

Some might reel at the mention, but others say it doesn’t cross the line.  As the statement doesn’t mention Christianity, “there is no reason why that couldn’t have been written by someone who is Jewish,” said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the Denver office of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Silverstein said Bedford has a right to express his values to company employees as long as he complies with statutes protecting religious freedom.

 Bedford said he decided nine years ago to avoid compartmentalizing his life by being one person at work, another at home and another on Sundays.

“I needed to be a whole person in all facets of my life each day,” he said.  There is a big trend globally to build businesses on religious foundations of integrity, character and trust, said Steve Stanley, chief executive of Christian Business Leaders.

The Texas-based organization helps develop “spiritual business statesmen out of business leaders,” Stanley said, “where their public and private conduct is guided by the same principles and values.”

University of Denver Buie Seawell, an ethics and legal-studies professor and a Presbyterian minister, said he’s uncomfortable with mixing business and religion, that principles such as respecting co-workers are “universal values.”

“God would be pleased if we did that without doing it in his name,” Seawell said.

Bedford said in a recent newsletter that he was sure the vision statement reference to God was getting a “fair amount of debate.”

“Gasp . . . He talks about God in public and to his employees,” mused Bedford, 48.

There have been a few complaints, Bedford said, but he also has heard from 300 Frontier employees whom he described as grateful for his words.  epublic recently acquired Frontier Airlines, headquartered in Denver.

Bedford doesn’t limit himself to religious views. He also writes on issues that don’t directly affect the airline.

Several years ago, Bedford created what he calls a “community dialog” in Republic’s home base of Indianapolis when he wrote about abortion.

“This is more than words on a sheet of paper,” Bedford said. “God is an important contributor to our business, and there is more going on here than flying airplanes.”

On Internet pilot forums, where Bedford is referred to as “Rev. BB,” some pilots question how Bedford’s “cutthroat” business practices jibe with his expressions of religious faith.

Bedford dismisses the comments.  “Business is competitive,” he said. “I think Scripture quoters — and I’m not — would refer to parables about using your talents, that we each have gifts and are called on to use these gifts to our fullest potential.”

Who is Bryan Bedford?

Title: President, chief executive, Republic Airways, since July 1999; board chairman since August 2001

Previous positions: President, CEO and director of Mesaba Holdings, July 1995-July 1999; served as president and CEO of Business Airlines; senior management positions with Express Airlines, Westair Holdings, Aspen Airways and Continental Express

Education: Bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance, Florida State University

Background: Pilot with commercial, multi-engine and instrument ratings; certified public accountant

Personal: Age 48; married to Maria for 19 years; father of eight children, ages 1 to 16

(Source: Denver Post/Ann Schrader, Internet and press releases )

Christianity Today Announces Lay-offs, Shutting Down 4 Pubs

(EP News)–Christianity Today International (CTI), publisher of “Christianity Today” magazine, is shutting down four publications and laying off 31 workers.  Two of CTI’s well-known magazines, “Today’s Christian Woman” and the “Campus Life College Guide,” will be shut down.  CTI will also cease to publish “Glimpses,” a worship bulletin insert with stories from Christian history, and “Church Office Today,” a bi-monthly newsletter for church administrators.  The moves reduce CTI staff to 108 employees, and is not the first time this year there has been a cut.  In January, the organization shuttered “Marriage Partnership” and “Ignite Your Faith” and sold “Today’s Christian.”

CTI will continue publishing nine print magazines and newsletters, including its flagship Christianity Today and Leadership Journal. The organization traces its roots to evangelist Billy Graham, who founded Christianity Today in 1956.