The First Baptist Church of Morehead City, North Carolina was conducting its 1961 fall revival. The Rev. Corbin Cooper, Pastor, and Rev. Carey Steele, Evangelist, visited with Paul and Mary Willis after the Friday night meeting. The visit was to last into the early Saturday morning hours. Later on Saturday morning, after the ministers had left, Paul drove his car to a nearby deserted road and there, in the parked car, asked Jesus Christ to be his Savior. He not only received assurance as to salvation but the call to minister the gospel to the world.
He immediately began to fulfill that calling on his life. The next morning he made his public profession of faith at the First Baptist Church. That evening he shared his testimony with the elders of the Mormon Church at Harkers Island, North Carolina, where he had not only been a member but part of its priesthood. His testimony of experience being rejected, Paul united with the First Baptist Church. He had been baptized as a Mormon at age eight but did not believe that the rite had the Christian witness he wanted, so he elected to be baptized again as a testimony to his new birth in Christ Jesus.
Paul assumed the duties of devotional leader for the couples Sunday School class at First Baptist. Through the Men’s Brotherhood he began preaching at the city port to migrant workers in the fields and in various churches in the area.
On April 16, 1961, First Baptist Church formally recognized his ministry and licensed Paul to preach. He began by ministering each week with a newly formed mission near Battle Ground Park in New Bern, NC. Six months later, Battle Ground Baptist Church was officially formed and their young minister was offered the office of Pastor. Through Rev. Cooper’s guidance, Paul declined the call and proceeded to get a much needed education by joining the student body at Campbell College, Buies Creek, NC. Paul could not, however, completely leave active ministry, so on his last Sunday at Battle Ground Park Church, he accepted a call as Student Minister at the Piney Grove Baptist Church, Pollocksville, NC, four and a half hour’s drive from the college.
Piney Grove Baptist was a small rural church that had a continuous history pre-dating the Civil War. The congregation was made up of members of several families that had interrelated during the entire history of the church. It was a congregation that could absorb all of the mistakes made by a young student pastor and not be affected or changed by the mistakes. The ministry was not without its dynamic experiences, including a misdirected air drop on the church building by the 82nd Airborne one Sunday morning during the preaching service.
The ministry at Piney Grove was a very fractured period for the Willis family. Mary and the three children lived in Benson, NC, Paul attended Campbell College at Buies Creek, and on the weekends the family traveled to Morehead City where Paul worked in construction on Saturdays and to Pollocksville where Paul taught two classes and preached two services each Sunday. Sunday nights the family would return to Benson and Paul would be back in class at Campbell on Monday mornings. Paul was ordained at First Baptist Church of Morehead City at the request of Piney Grove Church by Dr. E. Norfleet Gardner (pastor of First Baptist Church, Dunn, NC and recording secretary of the State Baptist Convention of NC). After eighteen months of ministry at Piney Grove, Paul received a call to the Harmony Baptist Church of Bunnlevel, NC.
Harmony Baptist Church is located twelve miles from the Campbell campus. The Willis family moved into the parsonage—located next to the church building. Both Paul and the church were to see sweeping changes in the next seven years. During Pastor Willis’ ministry, attendance increased and a new church building and educational building were erected. While serving as full time pastor, Paul completed the BA Degree in Religion from Campbell, the MDiv from Southeastern Baptist Seminary, and the CPE Certificate from the School of Pastoral Care of the NC Baptist Hospital and the Bowman Gray School of Medicine. He then returned to Campbell to fulfill a second major in Sociology.
In 1970 Paul accepted the call to become the pastor of the Northside Baptist Church, Greensboro, NC. The church immediately began a period of growth. Two pieces of property were added to the church, a small house was turned into additional nursery space, additional parking was provided and the sanctuary was revitalized. Attendance doubled over the next two years. Paul and Mary also experienced growth during this time—exciting spiritual growth. Mary received assurance of her salvation and the baptism of the Holy Spirit and Paul began to operate in some Charismatic gifts. The rapid changes were too much for the older members of the church and so the deacons terminated Paul’s ministry of pastor.
Paul was in Wilmington, NC preaching at a Baptist church when he received word that a door had opened to minister in Greensboro. The Quaker Theater had been leased for Sunday mornings, provided the ministry could furnish lighting and sound system and have the theater ready for the afternoon movie. Paul continued to minister through the Evangelistic Association as the Lord opened doors throughout the eastern United States, but he always returned to the theater ministry on Sundays.
The office and study of the Evangelistic Association was located in the hay loft above the Willis’ horse stables. Carpeting was nailed to the walls to control sound so that a weekly radio broadcast, “The Christian Word,” could be prepared. A quarterly magazine for national distribution, also called The Christian Word, as well as Paul’s first two books, Abiding Power and Visions of the Victory, were created in the hayloft office. The Holy Spirit opened doors of ministry and Paul preached on the “100 Huntley Street” television program in Canada, “The 700 Club” of CBN television and the new “PTL” television ministry. The local newspaper, The Greensboro News and Record, headlined the ministry in the Quaker Theater as a “Box office hit with standing room only.” Paul was named in Who’s Who in North Carolina for the year 1975.
The ministry moved from the Quaker Theater to the larger Terrace Theater and rented a building on Carolina Street from which it operated the evangelistic ministry, a Christian bookstore, and a cable television program called “The Prayer Circle.” The name of the ministry was changed from the Paul Willis Evangelistic Association to Christian Word Ministries and teaching centers began to be established.
The Christian Word fellowship meeting at the Terrace Theater grew to near capacity and the people were sensing the need for more church organization and structure. Paul was also feeling the need for a more permanent relationship to a church body and the desire to assume again the office of pastor. Recognizing the impossibility of renting permanent space for the church, Paul began looking into purchasing land suitable on which to build a church building and mission center. In 1980, convinced that it was God’s plan for his life, Paul set up the organization as an independent/charismatic church. The name had been given to him twice in prophecy—once in the theater ministry and once from a missionary/evangelist from South Africa. The church would be called the Cathedral of His Glory!
Christian Word Ministries purchased 26 acres of land on the corner of Lake Jeanette and New Garden Roads in Greensboro. God provided a miracle that allowed the organization to acquire land for $200,000 that was valued at 1.5 million dollars and with only a $20,000 down payment. A house on the property was converted by members of the church into office space and a meeting “lodge” that would seat 150 people. The fellowship continued to use the Terrace Theater on Sunday mornings until the new church building could be completed. Then, the Terrace Theater decided to divide the theater auditorium into smaller theaters making it too small for church services. On Saturday evening, September 29, 1984, the Cathedral of His Glory presented Phil Driscoll in concert in its new 2300 seat sanctuary.
The building of a large local church, however, did not diminish Paul’s vision for a world outreach. In the same year, he led a group from the church to Haiti where a medical team from the Cathedral ministered to thousands of needy people — clothing was donated and distributed to orphaned children and Paul preached the gospel. Members and teams from the Cathedral have also ministered in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, England, Guatemala, Germany, Guinea, Honduras, Hungary, India, Nicaragua, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland, Mexico and Yugoslavia.
Paul has served on the board of Saint Ministries International, formed by Phil Saint, one of the world’s best-known missionaries and now gone on to heaven.
The Cathedral of His Glory and Dr. Willis are supporting Ministerios de Su Gloria, based in Nicaragua, directed and founded by Rev. Ron Coffer, Vice President of the Cathedral of HIS Glory. This ministry has over 100 churches in Central and South America and has established Bible Colleges, Medical/Dental Clinics and the child outreach program, Save A Generation.