1971
A Historic Moment:
Reaching the World Through Television
“Hello, everybody. I’m Kenneth Copeland and this is the 'Believer’s Voice of Victory!'”
When Kenneth and Gloria Copeland were unsure how God was going to get the ministry of His uncompromised Word on television, they trusted God to show them. They talked about it, and meditated the Word. But they never talked unbelief. They just knew they had a commission from the Lord to preach on every available voice—and television was certainly available.
Then one weekend, on the way home to Fort Worth from a trip to Arkansas, Kenneth and Gloria stopped for breakfast. They ordered their food, prayed, then as they ate, began to discuss going on television.
Suddenly, things changed.
God’s plan for the television ministry dropped into Kenneth’s heart, and snapped in place like a piece to a jigsaw puzzle. He looked at Gloria and knew from the look on her face she had heard the same “snap.”
“Gloria,” Kenneth said, “tomorrow is Monday. Let’s go home and get on TV.”
“OK,” Gloria said.
And they knew Jesus was saying, 'OK, let’s do it.'
Small Beginnings
The television ministry at KCM was officially launched May 27, 1979. Leading up to that, in the early ’70s, were five tapings of "The Word of Faith" in 1971, and then 50 tapings of "The Prayer Group," which aired between 1972 and 1978. The programs opened with a traditional hymn, but what followed was unexpected and refreshing: “The WORD will energize your faith, and faith will energize your prayers,” declared a young Kenneth Copeland.
By May 1979, those early programs had grown to become "Believer’s Voice of Victory," a one-hour Sunday broadcast, taped during Kenneth Copeland Ministries’ Victory Campaigns and meetings which were taking place across the nation.
But God obviously had greater expectations for KCM and its TV ministry.
In 1988, God repeated something He had said to the Copelands in 1967 that put them on a course toward destiny. Then, He had said: 'I told you that I was coming so soon that I wanted this uncompromised message of faith on every available voice. I have not changed. I have not released you from that assignment.'
God added a new and seemingly impossible direction, giving them an assignment that would be the biggest step of faith they had ever taken: 'I want you to begin airing daily, 30-minute broadcasts through which you will teach believers who they are in Christ Jesus. Bring them from religion to reality.... Use these programs to teach, not preach. Continue your weekly broadcasts on Sunday and do your preaching there.'
2 : BVOV
