Michael Youssef To Step Down, Focus on Other Ministries
Dr. Michael Youssef announced that he will step down as pastor of The Church of the Apostles in Atlanta to dedicate his time to his global media ministry Leading the Way.
“Now that God has raised up my son Jonathan to lead The Church of The Apostles for its next stage of growth, I will be devoting my full attention to Leading the Way,” he said. “I am deeply thankful to the Lord and know that the best is yet to come. I am also deeply grateful to The Church of The Apostles’ leadership for inviting me to remain in the church as the founding rector emeritus, thus helping to ensure continuity.”
Known for his television and radio broadcasts, which air more than 18,000 times a week worldwide, Youssef has led The Church of The Apostles for nearly 40 years, from its first meeting of 28 adults in 1987 to a thriving congregation of more than 3,000 members. He founded The Church of The Apostles with a goal of “reaching the lost and equipping the saints.” It later became the launching pad for Leading the Way’s global ministry, which now uses every available media platform to reach millions of people in 28 of the most-spoken languages.
Youssef plans to expand Leading the Way’s digital ministry, take his nationwide AWAKE America prayer movement to new cities, launch the next wave of Finding True Peace evangelistic commercials, host high-impact evangelistic events across the Middle East and reach into restricted areas with biblically based resources and programming.
Through it all, the heartbeat of his ministry remains the same: to passionately proclaim the uncompromising truth of God’s word and see millions of lives transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“I want to take as many people to heaven with me as possible,” he said, “but we don’t know how long the door is going to remain open to proclaim the gospel in the places where we are ministering. So, I’m really putting my foot on the accelerator now. We would love to walk through those open doors as long as God keeps them open. Because if we go to sleep, we will have missed a great opportunity.”
–Alan Goforth
