oral roberts evangelistic association to today
OREA started in 1947 by Oral Roberts, the ministry continues today through Richard Roberts, and involves a many-faceted organization. What started as tent crusades in the United States has grown to an internationally televised ministry; international Pastor’s Conferences; medical missions; the School of Miracles; teaching books, CDs, and DVDs; and the Abundant Life Prayer Group.
The Abundant Life® Prayer Group (ALPG) is one of the primary ways that Richard Roberts Ministries connects with its partners and new friends.
The miraculous healing of a 17-year old farm boy.
At the tender age of 17, Granville Oral Roberts’ life was changed forever by his supernatural healing of tuberculosis. He began his own miracle ministry with his first public healing service in Enid, Oklahoma, in 1947.
Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association established its first official headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1947. (OREA still headquarters in Tulsa.) Oral conducted healing meetings around the world and until 1967, throughout the U.S. also in his “giant tent cathedrals.”
1955 saw the first primetime LIVE TV healing service America had ever known, broadcast from Oral’s tent cathedral. He had been told it was “technically impossible” to bring TV cameras into those services.
Oral established the Abundant Life® Prayer Group in 1958 and it is still offering faith-inspired prayer today. To date, more than 28 million calls for prayer have been answered.
With the approval of the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association Board in 1962, Oral Roberts broke ground on a 500-acre university campus. Through enthusiastic Partner financial support, Oral Roberts University was built and began classes in 1965. Now operating separate from Oral Roberts Ministries, God’s mandate is still being fulfilled today.
ORM’s first national television special aired in 1969, featuring Mahalia Jackson as the main guest. From 1969 to 1975, several more TV specials were broadcast, with an array of Hollywood talent participating, including stars of the day such as Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, and many others.
Of Oral’s 133 books, 32 booklets, and several commentaries on the Bible, his milestone book, The Miracle of Seed-Faith, first published in 1970, changed the thinking of believers everywhere about giving to God and receiving from God. Its message of the power of God’s principle of seed-sowing, expecting a miracle, and receiving a harvest continues to minister to the Body of Christ today.
Oral took a bold step in faith in 1981 with the building of the City of Faith Medical and Research Center. It made a tremendous impact on people’s understanding that God heals through both prayer and medicine.
Richard Roberts, Oral’s youngest son, also felt the call to minister. At the age of 19, he began playing an active role in the Ministry alongside his father. Dr. Richard Roberts took over the reins as Chairman and CEO of Oral Roberts Ministries in 1993.
In 1997, Richard and his wife, Lindsay, began a weekly interactive TV show, The Place for Miracles (still airing daily, M-F). To date, The Place for Miracles has received over 157,000 calls from viewers reporting miracle testimonies.
Born of Jordan Roberts’ vision for feeding hungry children in times of crisis, Hunger Needs a Voice® (HNAV) was founded in 2007 as a humanitarian outreach of Oral Roberts Ministries, with Jordan as its Director. Children and families in need from all over the world have benefited from the food and other resources it has provided.
Oral’s “darling wife Evelyn” went home to be with her Lord in 2005. Oral joined her in heaven in 2009. Their legacy lives on as Richard and Lindsay through Richard Roberts Ministries fulfills Oral’s goal to reach as many people as possible with the foundational principles of healing, seed-faith living and the Holy Spirit, and to continue to get the message out that God is a Good God and He desires to save, heal, and deliver all who call on His name in faith.
In 2010, Richard founded the Richard Roberts School of Miracles which offers online Bible courses to help equip Christians with practical, hands-on experience in applying God’s Word and His healing power in their own lives and in the lives of others, especially emphasizing how Christians can enjoy a life empowered by the Holy Spirit.
The Healing Network (launched in 2023) is where you can feel the anointing and the miracle power of God—It’s all healing…all the time!
If you are dealing with a sickness and the doctors have said there’s no more they can do…with God, nothing is impossible…and The Healing Network is here to encourage you and build your faith! You will find live healing programs, faith building classes, all of Richard and Lindsay’s programs, as well as Oral’s classic sermons and even more from our archives.
Richard has ministered God’s healing power in 39 nations spanning six continents. Today, Richard focuses on his Greater Works international pastors conferences where he teaches and trains pastors in underdeveloped nations to take the full gospel with miracles, healing and signs following to their villages, cities, and nations. Jesus said in John 14:12, “… he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.”
