MOVERS AND SHAKERS SERIES...
Tommy Lee Osborn was born on December 23, 1923,
on the small family potato farm, in Grady County, Oklahoma. He was the seventh
and youngest son of thirteen children, born to Charles Richard Osborn
(1883–1966) and his wife Mary (née Brown) (1885–1951). His father, also a
seventh son, was a nonpracticing traditional Baptist, "That's supposed to
mean something," Osborn once commented, adding "Turns out, it did
mean something." His parents were musicians, as were several of his
brothers and sisters, and Tommy Lee started making music at a very young age.
Growing up in the latter half of the 1920s, he saw his large family struggling
through the depression years.
In 1930, when Osborn was six years old, his father moved the family to Skedee, Oklahoma, in search of another, more profitable farm. At a church in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, he met future televangelist Oral Roberts, who would become his lifelong friend for over 70 years, until Roberts's death in 2009. Osborn frequently went with Roberts to help with evangelical meetings. Roberts did most of the preaching, Osborn did everything else, including playing the accordion and the piano for the musical part of the meetings. Osborn had experienced a Christian conversion in 1937, at the age of 13, when his older brother took him to a Pentecostal church in Mannford. Gradually, each of his six brothers moved out of the family home until TL was the only boy still living with his parents and helping his 60-year-old father on the potato farm. He admitted that he was reluctant, even scared, to ask his father's permission to move out and begin traveling. Finally, while sorting potatoes in the cellar, he plucked up courage to make the request and was greatly surprised when his father said "yes."[5]
In 1939, aged 15, Osborn was milking the cows
when he began to cry. He fell on his knees, praying and asking God what was
happening. The Lord, he said, called him to be an evangelist, while he laughed
and cried at the same time, overwhelmed by what was happening to him. He
dropped out of high school after completing eighth grade and hit the road with
E.M. Dillard, a traveling evangelist. Osborn was responsible for organising
evangelistic meetings and was also in charge of youth services in the evening.
He traveled with Dillard through three states. The last one was California, and
he met Daisy Washburn, in Los Banos, California at one of the meetings. It was
1941 and he was only 17 when he fell instantly in love.[6][citation needed]
On April 5, 1942, Osborn married graduating high school student and farmer's girl, Daisy Washburn Osborn (born September 23, 1924 in Merced, California). He was 18, and she was only 17. Shortly thereafter, they set out on a life of ministry and missionary travel, including a trip to India when Osborn was still only 21. In time, they carried the Gospel of Christ to tens of millions of people all over the world, declaring it with faith and confidence.[7] However, that early mission in India, preaching at Lucknow, was not fruitful. Their ministry lasted less than a year in India, and they returned home because of critical family sickness. In 1947, the Osborns had their only daughter, LaDonna Osborn (b. March 13 of that year; she was raised accompanying her parents on the platforms of global mass miracle evangelistic crusades.
The Osborns first gained public notice shortly
after returning from India, as evangelists on the Big Tent Revival circuit in
the United States and Canada. There, they preached to audiences often numbering
over 10,000, in open-air meetings and under large tents in settings such as
fairgrounds and stadiums. Other young contemporary evangelists, including Oral
Roberts, Billy Graham, Jack Coe, R.W. Schambach and A.A. Allen, were also on
the circuit. The Osborns emphasized the love and compassion of God, rather than
the "fire and brimstone" commonly used by evangelists of the era, and
they practiced supernatural healing in their meetings. The Osborn's egalitarian
ministry philosophy was also not accepted by many conservative audiences.[8]
By the early 1950s, their emphasis began to shift
more and more toward international missions. They held large crusades in Latin
America, Asia, and Africa and crowds grew rapidly, at times exceeding 100,000.
After Osborn's crusades in Thailand in 1956 and Uganda in 1957, Pastor Fred
Wantaate of Makerere Full Gospel Church said that "after that crusade in
Mombasa, the fountain of the river of Pentecostalism spread in the heart of
East Africa".[9][10] Around that same time, he met another future televangelist,
Marilyn Hickey, eight years Osborn's junior, with her new husband, Wallace. The
young couple traveled around in her husband's car, conducting tent revival
meetings in various towns. Together, Osborn and Hickey prayed for the sick and
she became a guest speaker at his conferences. He was lifelong friends with her
family until his death just four months after Hickey lost her husband, Wallace.
Over the course of the next five decades, Osborn
and his team traveled to more than 70 countries and reached millions of people.[citation
needed] They created prolific quantities of evangelistic and training
materials, some of which were translated into more than 80 languages.[citation
needed]
Osborn's wife of 53 years, Daisy Osborn, died in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 27, 1995, at age 70. Thereafter, he continued to travel
and conduct crusades around the world for another 15 years. Osborn died on
February 14, 2013, at the age of 89.[citation needed] According to his
daughter, LaDonna, he had been in good health until his body began weakening
just a few days before he stopped breathing.[citation needed] He was interred
next to his wife at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Tulsa, Oklahoma (the same
cemetery where Oral Roberts had been interred nearly four years earlier).
Osborn was survived by his daughter, three of four grandchildren and three
great-grandchildren.[citation needed]
LaDonna Osborn continues to operate the ministry
founded by her parents, including leading international crusades in the
developing world every year. His grandson Tommy Ray O'Dell, has also followed
in his grandfather's footsteps and has a ministry focused on evangelism and
education in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Like his grandfather, he often draws
large crowds and it has been claimed that miracles have taken place in his
services
BOOKS
3 Keys
to the Book of Acts (1960)
Biblical Healing (1954)
Faith
Speaks (1982)
Frontier Evangelism with Miracles of Healing (1955)
Healing
The Sick (1951)
Health
Renewed: The Source of Sickness and God's Redemptive Plan (2012)
How to
Be Born Again (1977)
If I
Were a Woman (2011)
In His
Name (1981)
Legacy
of Faith Collection (2011)
Miracles: Proof of God's Love (2003)
One
Hundred Divine Healing Facts (1983)
Outside
the Sanctuary. The Case for Soulwinning (1969)
Receive
Miracle Healing (1984)
Soulwinning. A Classic on Evangelism (1963)
The
Best of Life (1986)
The Big
Love Plan (1984)
The
Good Life (1994)
The
Gospel According to T. L. & Daisy. Classic Documentary (1985)
The
Message That Works: What We Have Told Millions in 73 Nations for 53 Years
(1997)
The
Power of Positive Desire (1996)
The
Purpose of Pentecost (1963)
There’s
Plenty for You (1986)
You Are
God’s Best (1984)
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