Oral Roberts University is launching a Doctorate of Ministry with an Emphasis on Global Evangelism. This is a unique opportunity for evangelists to receive an accredited degree at the highest academic level from the leading Spirit-Empowered university in the world. Today I talk with Dr. Ray Martinez who leads the Doctorate of Ministry program at ORU about the benefits evangelists will receive when they enroll in this program.

More information on the Doctorate of Ministry at ORU: https://oru.edu/_sandbox-programs-25/cotm/graduate/d-min-in-doctor-of-ministry.php 

Connect Directly with Dr. Ray Martinez: wmartinez@oru.edu or call him at: +1-918-495-7091

Summary: 

Oral Roberts University (ORU) is launching a unique Doctorate of Ministry program with a concentration in Global Evangelism, which is the first of its kind at the doctoral level [12:02]. This program is well-suited for evangelists who want to further their academic training and ministry effectiveness [5:02].

Some key highlights of the program:

• It is designed for individuals who have been in ministry for some time and already hold a master’s degree [5:02].
• The program aims to help students advance their ministry goals and equip them with practical tools and insights from experienced faculty who are also ministry practitioners [5:58].
• Students will have the opportunity to customize their Ministry Research Project (dissertation) to focus on topics relevant to their evangelistic work, such as the theology of healing or effective mass crusade evangelism [14:41] [18:45].
• The program has a hybrid format, with short on-campus residencies and the majority of coursework completed online, making it accessible for students serving in various locations [19:46] [20:12].

Overall, this Doctorate of Ministry in Global Evangelism program at Oral Roberts University is uniquely positioned to equip and empower evangelists to further their impact in reaching the lost around the world [2:58] [7:51].

Transcript: 

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest, me, Dr. Ray Martinez. Thank you for joining me on the Evangelism Podcast.

Dr. Ray Martinez (00:12):
Thank you so much for having me. It’s such a good opportunity to be with you. Love your ministry, love what you’re doing around the world. So great to be with you today.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:19):
Well, thank you. We are on the campus of Oral Roberts University.

Dr. Ray Martinez (00:24):
Come on!

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:24):
Dr. Ray Martinez leads the Doctorate of Ministry program here at ORU. I did my Doctorate of Ministry here a few years ago and it has really helped me in my ministry to help me to articulate what I believe about evangelism. And we have a very exciting announcement today and we are very excited about this. Or Roberts University is going to be offering a Doctorate of Ministry program with an emphasis in Global Evangelism.

Dr. Ray Martinez (00:59):
Correct.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:59):
And this is one of a kind program that no other university that I know of right now is offering something at this level, at the doctorate level, having an emphasis in evangelism. Tell me why is ORU so excited about offering a degree on evangelism?

Dr. Ray Martinez (01:19):
Well, I think really it comes down to the history of this place. I mean, this is, and I just said this the other day and I was sharing this with you before we got on the podcast today, that I was talking to a group of people last week about this very thing, and they were asking me why global evangelism at Oral Roberts University? And I said, I’m just going to simply say three words to you, emphasis on the first two words, oral Roberts University. This is a university built on a foundation of evangelism to the world. I mean, you think about oral and what he was doing in his day, reaching the masses, reaching the world with the gospel. I had the privilege of having a pastor on campus with me over the summer and I was giving him a tour. And we went up to the prayer tower and we were looking at the prayer tower and just walking around from the prayer tower, you can see the entire campus, including the city plex where the old hospital that oral built.

(02:21):
And the pastor was just stunned. He was just looking at everything. He going, wow, he built this. And I was like, he built it on the word of God, that God spoke over his life to build a university that would, and I love the mission here that would send students to where the light is dim and the voice of God is heard small. And that mission is what oral started here at this university, but we’re carrying that mission forward and that heart of evangelism. So why global evangelism in a demon program at Oral Roberts University? Because we are best to have a program for global evangelism than at the university. Started by, in my opinion, one of the greatest evangelism that has ever lived.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:18):
Or Roberts was absolutely an amazing evangelist doing tent crusades all over America and then innovative going into television. One of the first evangelists to do nationwide television programs and his emphasis was evangelism. And one of the professors here has done research on the early founding of ORU. And in the first announcements, oral Roberts University was actually going to be a school of evangelism. And then it got expanded into now it’s a full university. And today, or Roberts University is the premier spirit empowered university in the world. And it’s so beautiful coming on campus here because the presence of the Holy Spirit is so powerful. The professors are guided by the voice of the Holy Spirit. It is really a special place. And Dr. Mal Monroe used to say that OU is a place where you can get your learning and keep your burning. Sometimes when people go into an academic setting, they start to read skeptics and they start to read things that from academic sources that would make them lose their emphasis on the power of the Holy Spirit, but or Robert Susan Adversity is a place that believes in the power of the Holy Spirit and what better place than a place that believes in the power of the Holy Spirit than to talk about evangelism.

(04:42):
And so this is going to be a degree at the highest level of ministry that the doctorate of ministry degree is designed to be for people who are in ministry. Talk to me a little bit about the demon degree and how it equips people to be effective in the ministry that God has called them to.

Dr. Ray Martinez (05:02):
Yeah, so when you’re looking at a doctoral program of any sorts, what you’re looking at students who are coming with ministry or history under their belt. And so in the doctorate ministry program, we’re looking at students who have been in ministry for a period of time, have a master’s degree. It’s one of the requirements to get into the programs that you have a master’s degree in what we would consider a ministry context. Because what we’re doing is we’re not removing you from your ministry context, rather we’re coming alongside of you and helping your ministry go further. And so really that’s kind of where I see my job being, is coming alongside ministers and saying, what’s the goal? Where do you see your ministry in five years? Where do you want to go? When they determine that route, I get to come alongside them and help advance that journey further to go even further down the road to consider, have you considered this?

(06:12):
Have you considered that? And really what you do in a doctoral program, what you experienced is you experienced, again, professors coming alongside that help shape and again, move the ministry further down the field. And in that matter, I think it’s important to understand too that when you’re talking about the doctor of Ministry program here at Oral Roberts, you’re not just getting professors who just have the academics under their belt. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a knock on anyone. You’re getting professors that are also practitioners. And so you have professors who are, they’re not just telling you ministry from theory, they’re telling you ministry from years in the pastorate or years on the evangelistic field, years on the mission field. And so they’re taking that academic and that practitioner part and putting it together and giving it to you. And so again, this is what we’re helping students who consider, Hey, I want to enter into a doctorate ministry program and whatever concentration you’re wanting to enter into, specifically for us, we’re looking at the global evangelism.

(07:25):
Again, it’s how do we help you become a better evangelist? How do we help you go further down the road so that when you, again, five years from now, when you look back, you go, wow, the ground that I covered with those guides that came alongside me in the journey, the ground that I covered was far more than I expected to cover. It’s far more than what I imagined could have been covered. And again, that’s what we do. We’re really looking at ministers and saying, we love your story. We love what got the calling and anointing upon your life. How can we help you go further faster?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:05):
Yeah. I remember when I did the demon degree, it put tools in my hands to help me be more effective at ministry. It helped me to articulate my theology, things that I believe, but it helped me to define and to articulate that in a very succinct way so that I can be precise and sharp in how I minister. And then just being around so many great men and women of God was extremely inspiring in my life. And I like what you said about how the professors here are practitioners. They’re not just theorists, they making ministry theory, but they actually have hands-on experience. And so that’s why I think launching the evangelism concentration right now is you are called for such a time as this because you actually have a history of evangelism. You worked for one of the great evangelists here in America, RW Schambach, and helped him to organize events. And so what were some of the things that you learned from Dr. RW Schambach about ministry that now you’re bringing into your teaching?

Dr. Ray Martinez (09:12):
I would say one of the greatest honors and privileges I’ve had in ministry was working under RW Shamba. I love Brother Shamba. And again, you said Dr. Shamba, if you were to ask him, so what title would you go by? He would say Just simply Brother Shaba. I absolutely loved working under Brother Shamba and his daughter Donna Shaba. Wonderful, wonderful people. Of course, we know Brother Shamba went on to be with the Lord a number of years ago. But the thing that I witnessed within his ministry that has so shaped my life, there’s so many things that I could speak on, I could speak on. When people saw Brother Shamba, they saw power in the pulpit. I mean

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:05):
Power. Yeah. I remember hearing him preach as a little kid and he’d say, you don’t have any problems. All you

Dr. Ray Martinez (10:09):
Need is faith in God. I know. I remember one time, this is a funny story and I’ll keep it really short here. The first time I had seen a true person, a true person that was truly possessed by a devil, a true casting out of that devil was under Brother Shabas ministry. And I’ll never forget, he cast this devil out of this girl. And I jokingly said to him the next week, I said, brother Shaba, you cast the devil out. One of these girl that came through the prayer line. And he was like, you have to tell me which one. And as I explained it to him, and he was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said, brother Shaba, I swear you cast the devil out of her. And I think seven left me. And he got a good laugh, a good chuckle out of it, man, of such power, such power.

(11:03):
Those of us that worked for him and knew him would say he had power in the pulpit because he walked in humility, a man of great humility outside of the pulpit, absolutely loved working for him. And again, one of the things that just witnessing or watching in the evangelist face things, obstacles, having worked with him for a number of years, watching the evangelism facing, how do I get the word out? How do I move forward? I continue to reach more and more and more. Those are some of those basic insight tools that I learned on the basic side of things, of course, there’s a whole other dynamic of character development ministry shaping that working for him. The number of years I did in my life

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:02):
Now, I think this global evangelism concentration, which ORU is going to be offering at the doctor to ministry level is something very unique. A lot of different universities, great universities around the United States, they offer doctor to ministry degrees for pastors or people that are going into counseling, people that are called to work in hospice ministry, work in hospitals, that type of thing. But there is very little that is offered specifically to the evangelist. And so this degree is going to be shaped specifically to help those who are called by God to be evangelists. And I think this is beautiful because God is raising up the gift of the evangelist in the body of Christ right now. The harvest fields are ripe. There are people all over the world that are ready to come to Jesus. And so we need evangelists who are well-trained and that can be academically accredited at the highest level.

(13:09):
And especially as we go into different nations around the world, this is important because there’s some nations where they take credentials very seriously. And if you have a doctorate, it actually opens up doors. And that’s one of the things I’ve found is that it has given me more credibility. It has opened up doors for me in ministry beyond what I could have done if I hadn’t gotten an academic degree. And so from your perspective, if someone is actively involved in evangelism, they’re preaching crusades, they’re going, what would it benefit them to come and to learn here at Oral Roberts University?

Dr. Ray Martinez (13:45):
Well, I think you touched on several of those things. You touched on the credibility factor because it really does, it helps with that credibility. But then again, you also touched on it earlier where you had talked about the sharpening of the tools. Oftentimes we find ourselves believing something but not being able to define the thing that we believe. And that’s what you experienced while you were here. It was, okay, we claim that we believe this, this and this, why we believe this, this and this. For example, we were talking off camera before about one of our courses in the theology of the Holy Spirit and healing. And I just want to focus on the latter part of that. When we talk about healing and why we believe in healing, oftentimes we have that kind of cursory knowledge of healing. We can go to some text and quote text, but sometimes we lack the full breadth of study that’s this grace of God to heal.

(14:56):
And what we do in, for instance, that course is help you define your theology of healing. What is your theology of healing apart from the two or 3, 4, 5 Bible verses that most people have memorized in that what is the depth? How does that theology go deep? And so those are just a few of those tools that we use in helping you get there. And one of the things that I think is unique about our program is, again, and you’re well familiar with the curriculum, you’ve also helped us in writing several of the curriculum pieces towards the global evangelism track, but in that concentration, so if you entered into the global evangelism concentration all along the journey, so you’re going to be taking a few core courses that are here with the university core to all of us. One of those actually is that course I just mentioned, the theology of the Holy Spirit and healing. So you’ll take a few of those core courses, but also simultaneously, while you’re taking those core courses, you’ll be taking concentration courses that are very specific to your concentration, those being those towards global evangelism.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:11):
So that’s courses like history of Evangelism,

Dr. Ray Martinez (16:14):
History of evangelism,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:15):
The ministry of the evangelist, the

Dr. Ray Martinez (16:18):
Communicating,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:19):
The gospel, communicating the gospel, which will help you to learn how to communicate the gospel.

Dr. Ray Martinez (16:24):
Yeah. And so those are a few of those concentration courses that you’ll take. But at the same time, you’re taking all of those courses, you’re also taking writing courses. And the writing courses are helping you define what we call it, the Ministry Research Project, which is basically the dissertation, if you will, for the doctor of ministry program. And so a lot of times for some people that can be, they get really stressed about, I’m going to have to write a hundred plus page document. That seems a little bit intimidating. Well, what we do in the program is we embed chapters within the writing courses. So you’re writing while you’re researching all along the way, so that when you get to the completion of your program, so after you’ve completed all of your coursework, you enter into a phase where good portion of your dissertation, if you will, the ministry research project has already been written because you’ve been writing it along the way, and you’re really able to customize that.

(17:30):
And so as a global evangelist, if your thrust, if you will, is in healing, for instance, since I mentioned that subject, you could take that ministry research project and do a deep dive into the theology of healing. And so that when you produce at the back end of this degree, you get done with your coursework and you’re done with your research, and now you have that completed MRP altogether or the Ministry of Research project altogether, you now have all the makings to write. Let’s say you’re running to write a book on healing. You have all the makings. All you got to do is retool that MRPA little bit, the ministry research project, you keep referring it as Mr. P is the short term. We refer to it around here. You retool that MRPA little bit and now you have your book for healing. But if again, if ministry focuses on healing or your ministry focuses on, again, through global evangelism, maybe it’s mass crusades in Sierra Leone for instance, you could really do a deep dive into very specific areas. And oftentimes, again, take that MRP retool it and you have your book or

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:50):
Yeah, I did my ministry research project on the effectiveness of a crusade in Brazil that we did, and I asked a bunch of questions and evaluate everything and found out that Mass Crusade evangelism can be effective and came out with academically saying, we have proof that this can contribute to leading people to Jesus. And basically that MRP becomes a contribution to the literature in the worldwide academic world, which is really important. So let’s talk about the logistics because you take classes on campus, but it’s not the type of thing where you have to move to campus for an entire semester. What does the program actually look like logistically,

Dr. Ray Martinez (19:46):
Right. And so I think that’s one that a lot of people have. They have this question because when you go to our website and you look up information about our program, it says residential or on campus is how our program is listed. Now, when we say residential or on campus, we don’t mean residential on campus 24 7

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:09):
For the entire semester or less multi-year

Dr. Ray Martinez (20:12):
Period. That’s not what we mean. So by residential, what we mean is that this degree program has a residential component to it, and that residential component kind of, well, it looks like this in the fall, it’s one week of courses in the fall and in the spring it’s two to two and a half days worth of courses in the spring for year one and year two. So year one, it’ll be one week in the fall, two to two and a half days in the spring year, two one week in the fall, and two to a half days in the spring, that is the residential component.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:52):
And then after you complete the time on campus, then you would do your paper and you can do that long distance,

Dr. Ray Martinez (21:01):
Right? So that was that one week on campus, the way it looks is so that semester you’ll have two classes for instance. So you’ll have two classes in the fall while you’re taking those two classes. Again, you’ll start off those classes. You’ll usually have typically some reading assignments to do and a few papers to do or paper to do. And then you come to campus for a week and then you’re with your professor, they go through lectures.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:33):
You actually get to meet your professor face-to-face the other students and have that interaction, which I think is really important in learning. Some learning nowadays is all online, and sometimes you miss that personal connection.

Dr. Ray Martinez (21:44):
And that’s the good thing. And you mentioned that earlier too. You meet people that are in the same vein as you. They’re seeking the Lord, they’re flying at this high altitude of ministry and they have the same passion that you have for both the move of the spirit that’s happening and the academic study of it as well. And so you meet people from all over the world, really. I mean, when you come to ORU, the world is right here. You meet people from all over and you

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:24):
Even get to go to chapel service. Now, the thing that I really like about this is that you would come to campus for that one week time period, and then you go home and the rest of the course is online and interacting and writing papers and doing study on your own time. And so the advantage to that is that someone from Australia or from South Africa or from Europe, from Asia could come and be in this program and they’d only have to come to Tulsa for one week and then they can go back home, continue their ministry, and then come back the next semester for a few days. And so they would come for those four weeks over a two year period, and then you would have a time after that to work on your project.

Dr. Ray Martinez (23:14):
And

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:15):
So you could be done with this degree in two and a half to three years or longer if you take longer to write your project.

Dr. Ray Martinez (23:24):
Yeah, it all depends on your writing skills. And so we make no promises on that because when you get to the end, you have to finish up that writing. But again, you have so much of it already completed. You have the,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:35):
But someone can come and be a part of it, even if they’re from Europe, don’t have to move here long term.

Dr. Ray Martinez (23:42):
Absolutely. And we love that because want to keep you in your ministry context and I think your project, you had brought up a point about your project too, of how you did the Mass Crusade in Brazil to talk about the effectiveness of it. That’s another one of those type projects where you can do your project and do a crusade so you can use a crusade that you’re doing as a space of study. And so now you can do assessments on that crusade that you’re doing. Again, to add to the literature, and again, we don’t want to pull you out of your ministry context, we want to keep you in your ministry context because it benefits you as you go through the program.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:24):
Now, you mentioned that one of the requirements is to have a master’s degree, and so not every evangelist has a master’s degree, but maybe they want to work towards eventually getting a doctorate. I understand that OU now has a master’s program that prepares people to go into this doctorate program. Tell us a little bit about that and what it’s called.

Dr. Ray Martinez (24:44):
Yeah, so we’re really excited about this one. This is just launched this year. It’s called the Master of Arts in Leadership and Global Engagement. Again, incredibly excited about this program. It’s picked up a lot of traction. There’s so many people that are interested in this, and you touched on it just a few seconds ago too. We are in a time in the world where people are hungry. I mean, the harvest, it is truly plentiful right now. I mean, you can’t go anywhere without there being a sense of just a longing for an outbreak of revival in the world. And so it’s no wonder that we’re seeing a lot of traction in this particular program. A lot of students that are really, really passionate about reach in the world, and so again, it’s called a master of Arts in Ministry and Ministry, I’m sorry, in leadership and global engagement. So leadership.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:48):
And so you could do the master’s program and then that would prepare you to eventually go into the doctorate program. But if it’s on your heart to do a doctorate of ministry to attain that level of degree in your life, then I want to encourage you to get in touch with Oral Roberts University and find out the next step of what you need to do in order to get into the doctorate program. This concentration in global evangelism, the inaugural class is going to start next fall. And so this is your opportunity to get in on the ground level with this groundbreaking class that no one else is offering this type of degree anywhere that I know of in the world. And so this is really exciting that ORU is offering this. I think this is going to really help us to raise up evangelists who are both academically prepared and on fire for God as they go around the world telling people about Jesus. And so if someone wants more information about this, you can go to the Aura Roberts University website. You can find out information there. And then can you give us your information so people could directly contact you if they have specific questions?

Dr. Ray Martinez (27:08):
Yeah, absolutely. You can reach out to me directly on my email, and that’s just simply wMartinez@org.edu. Again, that’s wMartinez@org.edu. Or you can feel free to give me a call. My number, it’s 4 9 5 7 0 9 1. I had to write that down. I forget my own extension so many times. Again, that’s 9 1 8 4 9 5 7 0 9 1. And I would love to talk to you if again, we can chat by email or if you wanted to call me directly, I’d love to talk to you about the program and help you get those next steps into getting in, because again, I’d love to see you get in. And if you don’t have, you’re currently saying, well, I don’t have that master’s degree, give me a call. I’ll even walk you through how to get into that master of arts and leadership and global engagement as well, because again, we want to see more evangelists advancing the kingdom of God.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:05):
Yeah, I think this is so valuable because historically I think evangelists are doers. They want to go out, they want to evangelize, and it’s valuable in ministry sometimes to take a step back and do reading, do research to look at what we do, why we do it, and to think about best practices for evangelists. Thinking about what do you do about follow-up? Like every evangelist gets that question, how do you follow up on new believers? Well, this could be your opportunity to develop an entire program for follow up. People ask, how do you when people from different religious groups to Jesus, and so maybe it’s in your heart to do research on how to lead a specific religious group to know more about Jesus. And so this could be something very valuable in your ministry. And so if it’s in your heart to get a doctorate, to have that distinctive of being able to introduce yourself as doctor, it’s important. And if that’s something that God has put on your heart, then I encourage you, come to Oral Roberts University and do this global evangelism concentration. Dr. Martinez, what final word do you have for people who may be considering to come to OAU?

Dr. Ray Martinez (29:25):
Well, I just want to pull on what you just said. If you’re thinking about doing the doctorate, when we talk about the doctorate of ministry, we refer to it as being a doctor of the church. I just had the privilege of sitting with defense last week in which a student so beautifully told me about her journey of the doctorate ministry program and what brought about her MRP, her Ministry research project. And I asked her the question, I said, so what brought this about? What this project? And she said, I sat with the Holy Spirit and I said, holy Spirit, what is it in your church that you want to see fixed and how can I help? And when she said that, I said, that’s exactly what we’re looking for in the doctor of the church. We’re looking for somebody that looks into Christ’s church and says, ask of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, what do you want to see fixed? And how can I help? And that’s what it means to be a doctor of the church. And that’s what we do in the Doctor of Ministry program. We are doctors of the church. We are looking at the church universal and saying, holy Spirit, how can we help?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:50):
Awesome. Alright, well, if you’re called to do a Doctor of Ministry, reach out to Oral Roberts University, find out the next step. We would love for you to be in the inaugural class starting this coming fall, and this is going to be a great program. And we need more evangelists who are raised up, who are academically sound and full of the power of the Holy Spirit. Dr. Martinez, thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast. Thank you so much.

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