BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

the more irritated he became. My big mouth? Jerry fumed all the way home. I'm the only person in that church who listens to all his tapes! At home, Jerry stormed into the house and pulled one of Brother Copeland's tapes o• the reel-to-reel tape player. He walked outside and pitched it down the street, watching it unroll as it went. Then he ran inside and grabbed another tape. But the Lord spoke to him. The answer to your problems is rolling down the street. "What?" Jerry gasped. I'm going to give you supernatural recall of everything you've said. Like a play-by-play in sports, the Lord replayed Jerry's words over the previous few months. "All my needs are met through Christ Jesus!" he declared on many occasions. "How are we going to make it?" he'd asked Carolyn on many others. "We're going under." Instantly, Jerry realized he'd been multiplying his words of faith with an equal number of words filled with unbelief. My problem, Jerry admitted, is my big mouth. He ran outside, picked up the tape, wiped o• dirt and gravel, then began to rewind it. For the next few months, Jerry put a guard on his mouth and listened to the tapes again and again. The next time Kenneth Copeland came to Shreveport, he called Jerry out of the audience. "Jerry," he said, "God has shown me that someday you and I will become a team. It's your responsibility to believe God for His perfect timing." Jerry sank back into his seat, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of him. Kenneth Copeland said that we would be a team! How many times over the past few months have I dreamed of just following him around? He shook his head to clear it. This was the God he'd been running from all those years? "Brother Copeland phoned me and said he would pay my expenses if I would go to California. There was a man named David Malkin who was winning hundreds of hippies to the Lord. Brother Copeland wanted me to learn soul-winning. He said I could stay as long I needed to stay. "July Fourth weekend 1970, there were 140,000 drug addicts and hippies gathered at Pismo Beach in California. Our ministry team consisted of 113 converted hippies, David Malkin and me. I didn't know how to relate to them. I'd never done drugs or lived the hippie lifestyle. "The Lord told me that it wasn't knowledge of drugs that would win them. It was knowledge of Him. In 13 days, hundreds gave their lives to Christ. We baptized them in the Pacific Ocean. "In the summer of 1970, Carolyn and I packed all our belongings and moved to Fort Worth, Texas," Jerry recalls. "Brother Copeland's ministry was in its infancy back then. The total sta• consisted of A.W. Copeland (Brother Copeland's father), a bookkeeper, a secretary and me. I was the road crew, the tape duplicator, the carpenter and the general mechanic. After two years, Brother Copeland asked me to preach the morning service. From then on, I preached with him." In October 1973, the Lord started dealing with Jerry about launching out on his own in ministry. Jerry resisted the idea. After all, hadn't God prophesied through Kenneth that they would be a team? Why split the team? You'll always be a team, the Lord said. This way you can cover twice the territory with the same message. Finally, Jerry told Kenneth what the Lord had said. "As much as I hate to lose you," Kenneth said, "I know it's God." They both agreed that the team would not be split up. "I knew that once I stepped away from Kenneth's ministry I would have to believe God for not only my salary, but for all the finances to meet the needs of a new ministry," Jerry recalls. "I told Kenneth that I would work for him through Dec. 31, 1973. But I asked that after November, he not pay me. I figured I may as well start believing God sooner rather than later." On Jan. 1, 1974, Jerry Savelle Evangelistic Association was born. During the next few years, Kenneth and Jerry covered twice the territory with the same message. Then, in 1976, Kenneth asked Jerry to start preaching Jubilee meetings with him. "We'll both study Leviticus 25 and Luke 4," Brother Copeland explained. "Whatever The LORD shows you about 'Jesus Our Jubilee,' you'll preach, and whatever He shows me, I'll preach." A Perfect Lead-In Jerry sat through Kenneth's first sermon on "Jesus Our Jubilee" and marveled at the power of the Holy Spirit. Kenneth's sermon was the perfect lead-in for Jerry's. Kenneth finished with one verse of scripture, and Jerry's sermon started with the next. It didn't just happen once. Over and over, the sermons they had prepared separately wove together like a tapestry, presenting a clear picture of Jesus. This, the Lord said, is teamwork. They preached about Jubilee through 1976 and 1 4 : B V O V It didn't just happen once. Over and over, the sermons they had prepared separately wove together like a tapestry, presenting a clear picture of Jesus.

• Cover