When pastor Myles Munroe died on Sunday in a plane
crash in the Bahamas, his faithful were already starting
to gather at the 2014 Global Leadership Forum hosted by
his organization, Myles Munroe International. The
conference, the ministry has announced, will go on
without him: “This is what Dr. Munroe would have
wanted.”
For hundreds of conference-goers who traveled to the
Bahamas to hear Munroe and other Christian leaders
speak, what was supposed to be an inspirational week
has turned into a memorial for an extremely influential
evangelical leader. Munroe was supposed to give the
opening address at the conference, which began Monday;
he and several other ministry leaders were on their way
to the gathering in the private plane that crashed on its
approach to the island of Grand Bahama.
Bahamian Prime Minister Perry G. Christie’s statement
about the accident hints at just how much influence
Munroe wielded in his home country. “He was
indisputably one of the most globally recognizable
religious figures our nation has ever produced,” Christie
wrote . “His fame as an ambassador for the Christian
ministry preceded him wherever in the world he
traveled, whether in the Caribbean, North America, Asia,
Europe or Africa.
“He was a towering force who earned the respect and
admiration not only of Christian adherents but of secular
leaders both here at home and around the world.”
As is the case with many charismatic evangelical leaders,
Munroe’s success as a pastor allowed him to build
considerable influence and industry. In the Bahamas, the
60-year-old Munroe was the senior pastor of the Bahamas
Faith Ministries International Fellowship. He was also a
best-selling author and popular speaker and was well
known in American charismatic circles, even if his name
might not be as familiar as that of American Bishop T.D.
Jakes, with whom Munroe often appeared.
Munroe’s sermons often addressed leadership,
relationships and personal growth. In a devotional on
Munroe’s site, the pastor says: “The greatest tragedy in
life is not death but life without a purpose — life with the
wrong priorities.”
-Culled from The Washington Post
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