PERRY STONE: Discerning the Voice of God

When Perry Stone was 18 years old, God told him he’d have a ministry someday. He even gave him the name: Voice of Evangelism. Later the Lord added more hints about Stone’s future: a magazine, radio and TV broadcasts, crusades, camp meetings and world-missions outreaches.

When Stone told his fellow teens about his upcoming Voice of Evangelism worldwide ministry, they thought it was a joke because at the time, he wasn’t the voice of anything. Years later, all that and more has come to pass. Stone has a weekly television program, Manna-Fest, that is seen around the world, a magazine, regular crusades and camp meetings and, yes, a ministry called Voice of Evangelism.

“Compared to his peers he had a big vision,” remembers Marcus Lamb, who founded Daystar Television Network and has known Stone since they were both teen preachers in the Church of God. “He also believed in the power of the Holy Spirit with signs and wonders.”

A fourth-generation Pentecostal preacher, Stone is perhaps best known as a teacher of end-times Bible prophecy.

Voice of Evangelism is based in Cleveland, Tennessee, home to Church of God, Church of Prophecy and several smaller denominations, but Stone’s audience crosses denominational lines and includes Baptists and Roman Catholics, Pentecostals and charismatics, and Messianic Jews.

Sid Roth, a Jewish believer, once told Stone, “You provoke me to jealousy, exactly what the Bible says you’re supposed to do because Romans says that the job of the Gentile is to provoke the Jew to jealousy. You’re just performing what the Bible says.”—Diana Scimone