Who can forget that smile? It lit up a room and TV screen. When Myles Munroe was tragically killed in a plane accident last November along with his wife, Ruth, and six others, his church family in the Bahamas and around the world were not the only ones devastated. Many in the secular world experienced Munroe’s influence and were equally shocked at the loss.
Munroe grew up in an inner-city community in Nassau, capital of the Bahamas, where his church, Bahamas Faith Ministries (BFM), and his global ministry, Myles Munroe International, were based.
If you asked him what his purpose was, he was ready with an answer: “I was born to transform followers into leaders, and leaders into agents of change.” He was an unofficial ambassador for the Bahamas and was invited to more than 80 countries to address government bodies, business leaders, universities and religious organizations.
In 1998, Queen Elizabeth awarded him the Order of the British Empire for his spiritual and social contributions to the national development of the Bahamas. He was also founder and chairman of International Third World Leaders Association, an all-professional global network of leaders focusing on formal leadership development and training primarily in developing nations.
Munroe’s lifelong message was that each person has a purpose and potential, and in fact, that was the subject of his last sermon at BFM the day he was killed.
He often said the first thing a leader must do is identify a successor. After his death, his children, Myles Jr. and Charisa, said that their father had prepared them to live without him should he die. And today they are carrying on their father’s ministry.—Diana Scimone
