What is Empowered21?

“Build Me a University. Build it on My authority and on the Holy Spirit.”

These are the words God spoke to Oral Roberts as he envisioned ORU. Fifty years later, the university continues to hold true to its founder’s mission—the foundation of Oral Roberts University is the Holy Spirit.

“We take that revelation seriously at ORU, even in the 21st century,” said ORU and Empowered21 president William M. Wilson. “We are still passionate about being a university built on the Holy Spirit. Empowered21 is just one small way that we are demonstrating our commitment to the Holy Spirit’s work in the 21st Century.”

In 2006, more than 50,000 believers from more than 100 countries convened in Los Angeles for the Azusa Street Centennial, a celebration of the Pentecostal charismatic movement. At the helm was Wilson, who at that time served as the executive director for the International Center Spiritual Renewal.

Wilson was appointed to the newly formed ORU Board of Trustees in 2008, where board members were working to clarify the mission of the university in the 21st Century.

“Ultimately this process and conversation would turn into what has become known as Empowered21,” Wilson, who also serves as a global co-chair for Empowered21 said. “In many ways the Azusa Street Centennial was a reflection on 100 years and looking back, and then we started a process of looking forward. What would it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit in the 21st Century? What would that look like, what should it look like and what vocabulary would we use to describe that experience?”

Those questions were answered through a series of 17 conversations among more than 500 people on five different continents. Three groups were the focus of these conversations: ministry leaders and senior pastors, young leaders and scholars.

In April 2010, ORU hosted “Empowered21: The Global Congress on Holy Spirit Empowerment in the 21st Century” to present the findings of those conversations. Empowered21 drew more than 10,000 people from 95 nations to focus on the future of the Spirit-empowered movement around the world in the coming generations.

As the conference came together, Empowered21 leadership quickly saw this was becoming much more than just an event.

“We thought that the event here at ORU would be the end of the process,” Wilson recalled. “We found that about three or four months before the event, a huge amount of interest started happening around the world to do things like this in different regions.”

Regional leadership teams, or cabinets, began forming globally, and Empowered21 took off across six continents. In July of this year, the 13th Empowered21 cabinet was established in India.

“Empowered21 has grown to be larger than any one individual or even any one group of people. And it’s become the largest relational network in the Charismatic-Pentecostal movement,” Wilson said. “It has become quite a large network of believers, all focused on the future, the Holy Spirit, the next generation and unity.

“We are serving the entire Spirit-empowered movement from charismatic Catholics to non-denominational Christians to historic Pentecostals, uniting them together for a fresh outpouring of God’s Spirit in our generation.”

Caleb Wehrli, a 2000 ORU graduate and member of the Empowered21 cabinet in Asia, has seen firsthand the excitement and impact the movement is making on the body of Christ.

“It’s amazing to see not only the emphasis of the Holy Spirit, but also the unity it is bringing within churches around the world,” Wehrli said. “It’s great to see people grabbing hold of this vision and running with it. And it is not just impacting one nation; it is impacting the world.”

Last year, when Wilson was named the fourth president of Oral Roberts University, Empowered21 returned to Tulsa, Okla.

“The university serves the Empowered21 network; E21 does not own the university,” Wilson said. “Empowered21 is a service initiative where we are sowing into the kingdom, the work of the Holy Spirit and our generation.”

Empowered21 now gives ORU students exposure to ministries and leaders of the faith around the world.

“ORU is very much part of helping this generation connect with their spiritual fathers and mothers, and vice versa,” Wilson said. “As a student there should be some excitement that the student’s perspective of the work of the Holy Spirit is being brought to leaders globally on a regular basis.”
“We celebrate our academic excellence and our academic progress. But we are also committed that the academic excellence is in an environment that is filled with the Holy Spirit, and that the real dynamic of ORU with whole person education includes the power of the Holy Spirit in our students’ lives.

“For an alumnus, I think that it’s an exciting fact that after 50 years, we’re still committed to the mission of ORU. We’re very clear on this, and we’re not ashamed of it.”

For more information, visit Empowered21.com