In 1966, Kenneth Copeland had a “Jonah” experience when he was suddenly swallowed up one night in Marshall, Texas. Only God didn’t send a whale to turn Kenneth Copeland around.

“God, who is my Deliverer, was waiting on me in Tulsa,” Brother Copeland recalls of that life-changing incident. “But instead of heeding the call of God to head on over to where I belonged–where my deliverance was–I went the other way.”

For a while, Brother Copeland tried his own pursuits such as working at an insurance company. But he couldn’t get away from the call of God on his life. He just kept thinking, Man, I’m not supposed to be here. I’m in the wrong spot. I’m doing the wrong thing. Every time he prayed, God would say, I want you in Tulsa, Okla., at Oral Roberts University. And Brother Copeland, who never enjoyed school, would respond, “Oh, I can’t do that.”

Then, after attending a Holy Ghost meeting in Houston, someone approached him about being their church’s music minister. Kenneth Copeland accepted, though on the inside he kept hearing, ORU! ORU! Tulsa! ORU!

“I decided we were going to Houston,” says Kenneth Copeland. “I knew it was wrong.”

On Oct. 31, 1966, while driving on Highway 59 through Marshall, Texas, en route to begin that job, Kenneth and his family were involved in a car wreck. His young son, John, was flung into the front, breaking his arm and some ribs. Gloria’s face slammed into the car’s dashboard. Kellie, also a small child, was-thankfully-fine.

“If it hadn’t been for the grace of God, it would have killed us all,” Kenneth later said of the incident.

Sitting in a rocking chair in the hospital following the accident, Kenneth prayed in the spirit, repenting to God. He told God he was tired of running and that he’d been “a Jonah too long.” Something miraculous happened on the inside of him-and Kenneth was touched by the Spirit like never before.

The next day, Kenneth’s parents drove down to get them, since his car was totally destroyed. They took the family back to Fort Worth. “We were driving along,” Kenneth recalls, “and there’s silence in that car. I’m just sitting there praying, thanking God my family is alive.”

Suddenly, from the silence, Kenneth’s father said he had received two extra invitations to an Oral Roberts partner meeting-and asked if Kenneth and Gloria wanted to go. Kenneth asks, “Do you think I’d pass up another chance to go to Tulsa? No!”

At that meeting, Oral Roberts laid his hands on Kenneth Copeland and the vision for Kenneth Copeland Ministries was born.

Shortly after the car wreck Kenneth and Gloria attended an Oral Roberts partner meeting and that’s where Kenneth Copeland received his anointing for ministry.

At the end of the five-day meeting, Oral Roberts laid his hands on Kenneth. Moments later, while sitting in a chair, Kenneth looked up and saw a transparent vision of the people in the meeting. On the inside, their spirits looked weak and starved, but their heads were grotesquely enormous.

“It hit me so hard, I began to weep. I cried and asked, ‘What is this? What’s the matter with these people?’” Kenneth Copeland recalled.

And the Lord replied, These are people whose spirits-even though born again-are so untaught and so unfed with the Word of God, and their heads are so full of religion and tradition, they’re so untaught and their faith is so shriveled, they are spiritually helpless. Then the Lord added, Kenneth, you’re looking at the cream of the crop right here. You ought to see the bad ones…I have called you and anointed you to do something about this.

That’s when Kenneth Copeland learned what he was called to do.

“When Oral Roberts laid hands on me, that was the moment this ministry was born in my spirit.” Then Kenneth added, “Well, to tell you the truth, I think it was in there before. Because the day I was born, they brought me in to my mother and she took me in her hands and the first thing she did…she held me up and dedicated me to the ministry of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, there isn’t any way you can get away from that.”