- Born:
- December 6, 1936, Lubbock, Texas, U.S. (age 89)
Kenneth Copeland
What is Kenneth Copeland known for?
What is Kenneth Copeland’s net worth?
Kenneth Copeland (born December 6, 1936, Lubbock, Texas, U.S.) is an American televangelist and member of the Word of Faith prosperity gospel movement that teaches that faith and donations to the church are divinely rewarded with health, wealth, and happiness in this life. He is the founder of Eagle Mountain International Church Inc. in Tarrant county, Texas, and is among the wealthiest pastors in the United States, with an estimated personal net worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Early life and marriages
Copeland was born to Vinita Pearl and Aubrey Wayne (A.W.) Copeland in West Texas. His Baptist parents raised him in the church, and his mother was particularly devout. He had early aspirations to be a pilot, inspired by watching activity at a nearby United States Air Force airfield. He began flying in 1959 and kept this love of flight throughout his life. It would also later open doors to his future at Oral Roberts University.
His first marriage, to Ivy Bodiford in 1955, ended in divorce in 1958. The couple had a daughter, Terri, in 1957. During this time, he had a brief stint in the music industry: His version of “Pledge of Love” became a top 40 hit in 1957, and he performed on the television show American Bandstand. He married Cynthia Davis in 1958, though that marriage also ended in divorce. In 1962 Kenneth Copeland married his third wife Gloria Neece, who would remain his partner throughout the decades as they built their ministry.
Conversion and Oral Roberts
Copeland has cited a 1966 car crash for inspiring his return to school and dedication to the ministry. He had been driving with Gloria and their two children, Kellie and John, along a Texas road on Halloween night when the family’s car was involved in a wreck. The family escaped with only minor injuries, and Copeland believed that God had spared his family and committed his life to serving God. At the time, the Copelands were in significant debt, but they quickly embraced what they called the “prosperity promises” in the Bible, believing that redemption through Jesus Christ also redeems believers from financial hardships. They later reported becoming debt-free within a year.
In 1967 the family moved to Oklahoma, and Copeland enrolled, at age 30, as a freshman at the recently founded Oral Roberts University (ORU) in Tulsa. While a student at ORU, Copeland’s earlier experience as a pilot landed him in the cockpit of Oral Roberts’s own plane, where he served as copilot for the evangelical team and had direct exposure to Roberts’s evangelical work. Roberts, himself rising as a televangelist in the 1960s, was an early proponent of prosperity gospel theology and preached “seed-faith,” proclaiming that money donated to his ministry would return to the donor sevenfold. He became an important mentor to Copeland, whose later ministry expanded on these teachings. Indeed, this period marked the beginning of Copeland’s lifelong emphasis on prosperity theology, which would become central to his preaching and ministry.
Copeland Ministries
In 1967 Kenneth and Gloria Copeland felt called to found a ministry “to preach the Gospel to the nations.” Several years later in 1973, this calling began to take shape with the foundation of two cornerstones of their ministry: the newsletter Believer’s Voice of Victory, which eventually evolved into a monthly magazine, and Kenneth Copeland Evangelistic Association, which would formally become Kenneth Copeland Ministries (KCM).
KCM expanded its reach across the United States and into Canada in 1975 with the launch of a radio ministry, starting with 10 stations and quickly expanding to 500. The following year the ministry opened its first international office, KCM Canada. KCM’s television presence began in 1979 with weekly broadcasts. Over the following decades, Kenneth Copeland expanded this presence significantly. In 1989 KCM launched Believer’s Voice of Victory, a daily television program that has since reached millions of viewers worldwide. Building on this growth, KCM launched its own faith-based television network in 2015, with programming focused on faith, divine healing, relationships, and finances.
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These media efforts have played a key role in encouraging donations, which are a primary source of funding for KCM. The ministry encourages its “Partners” to submit letters requesting prayer for healing for themselves or loved ones, often accompanied by financial donations. Its other activities include large-scale conferences and disaster relief initiatives. As of 2026 the ministry has international offices in six locations: KCM Canada; KCM Australia/Asia Pacific (1979); KCM Africa (1982); KCM Europe (1982); KCM Ukraine (1994), and KCM Latin America (2015).
In 1986 Copeland moved KCM to Texas and founded Eagle Mountain International Church Inc. (originally Eagle Mountain Church), which serves as the local congregation associated with the ministry. Evangelical and nondenominational, the church broadcasts internationally through KCM and its Victory Channel as well as online. Given its rapid growth, the megachurch moved near Fort Worth, Texas, in 1998, where it occupies more than 30 acres (13 hectares) on a former U.S. Marine Corps air station; the airstrip is now Kenneth Copeland Airport. Since 1993 the church has been pastored by George and Terri Copeland Pearsons, Copeland’s son-in-law and daughter.
In 2018 the Copelands founded Kenneth Copeland Bible College on KCM property in Newark, Texas. The institution offers a two-year Associate of Biblical Studies degree focused on ministry training and biblical instruction. The program is accredited by Transworld Accrediting Commission International, a religious body not recognized by the U.S. Department of Education or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.
Wealth and scrutiny
In the early 1980s Copeland was the recipient of a donation of 1,500 acres (607 hectares) of land near Fort Worth from wealthy oil baron Paul Pewitt. Significant oil and gas reserves were discovered on the property, and in 1997 KCM created a wholly owned, for-profit subsidiary called Security Petrol to take advantage of those assets without jeopardizing the church’s tax exemption. KCM also leases land to other business endeavors including cattle operations overseen by Copeland’s son, John, and daughter-in-law, Marty.
KCM owns a fleet of private jets, many of which were funded by donations. Copeland defended his use of private aircraft in a widely circulated clip, describing commercial passenger air travel as being in a “long tube with a bunch of demons.”
Copeland’s wealth and lifestyle have drawn significant scrutiny, as many observers view the Copelands’ accumulation of extreme wealth as contrary to Christian teachings that value humility and modesty. In 2007 he was among several prominent televangelists investigated by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee led by Chuck Grassley over the use of church resources for personal benefit, including private jets, luxury homes, and credit cards, raising questions about compliance with tax regulations for religious nonprofits. (Other Christian figures investigated by the Senate panel included Joyce Meyer, Paula White, Benny Hinn, Eddie L. Long, and Creflo Dollar.) Despite Copeland’s general refusal to cooperate with the investigation, no evidence of wrongdoing was reported as a result. The Copelands were later criticized for claiming a religious tax exemption for the 18,000-square-foot (1,672-square-meter) home they built in 1999, on the grounds that it was a parsonage.
Political activities
For most of his career, Copeland’s political engagement was informal but generally aligned with conservative evangelical positions. Although not a central figure in organizations such as the Moral Majority of the 1980s, he frequently addressed social and political issues in his preaching, particularly abortion, religious liberty, and the role of Christianity in public life. Like many televangelists of his era, he encouraged political participation among believers while remaining primarily focused on the expansion of his ministry.
In the 2000s Copeland became more explicitly political, helping to fundraise for Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign in 2008. In 2016 the Copelands were named to Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board, a group of prominent religious leaders including James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jr., and White, assembled during Trump’s presidential campaign. Although Copeland initially stated that his participation did not constitute a formal endorsement, he later emerged as a vocal supporter of Trump’s candidacy and presidency. His political involvement—including appearances, advisory roles, and controversial public statements—has drawn both support and criticism.
Copeland’s later political visibility also reflected a broader trend among charismatic and Pentecostal leaders in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, many of whom espoused Christian nationalism and became increasingly engaged in national politics. Unlike earlier Christian fundamentalist figures who built formal political organizations, these leaders often mobilized followers through media ministries, conferences, and informal networks, contributing to a more decentralized but influential form of evangelical political activism.