Dr. James Kennedy
From the very first issue of JOY! Magazine Dr Kennedy was a regular contributor and an enthusiastic supporter of this ministry.
In 1960, as the new Pastor of the fledgling Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (CRPC) congregation, James Kennedy read the words of Jeremiah 33:3: “Call unto Me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” He then said to his small flock: “You know what? I believe we can change the world!”
Despite remaining the pastor of this congregation for nearly 5 decades, James Kennedy had a major world-wide impact for Christ. Dr D. James Kennedy was certainly one of the greatest Christian leaders of the 20th Century.
A man of the world
Dennis James Kennedy was born 3 November 1930, and was converted to Christ in 1953. Sleeping late on a Sunday morning, his radio alarm went off and a preacher’s booming voice invaded his slumber: “Suppose you were to die today and stand before God and He were to ask you, ‘What right do you have to enter into My Heaven?’ – what would you say?”
At that time James Kennedy was a dashing, successful dance instructor – a man of the world – and he had no answer to such a startling question. But he wanted one.
Converted and called
James Kennedy soon discovered that the answer was to surrender his life to Christ and to trust Him alone for forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life. Shortly after being converted to Christ, he was called into the ministry of the Gospel. He began his pastorate at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church on 21 June 1959. He recalled that he soon had that group of 50 members down to 17. He was very discouraged about his call to the ministry when he received an invitation to conduct a series of Revival meetings in Decatur, Georgia. There he was trained in personal evangelism.
Evangelism Explosion
On his return to Fort Lauderdale, he started to train individuals in one-on-one evangelism. In 1962, when one of the trainees succeeded in leading someone to Christ, the vision for Evangelism Explosion was born. Today, Evangelism Explosion is in every country of the world and its trainees have had the privilege of leading many millions of people to Christ.
Crediting that radio programme for bringing him to Christ, James Kennedy founded WAFG (90.3 FM) in 1974 as an outreach for Christ to the South Florida community. Dr James Kennedy’s daily radio programme, Truths That Transform, has been carried over 700 radio stations across America, and the Coral Ridge Hour weekly television broadcast has been carried by more than 400 television stations and broadcast to 156 nations. The Coral Ridge Hour reached 3.5 million viewers each week.
Dr Kennedy was also a major best-selling author of 50 books, including: What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?; What If The Bible Had Never Been Written?; The Gates of Hell Shall Not Prevail; Sceptics Answered and Evangelism Explosion.
By Dr. Peter Hammond
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