50 Years of Ministry

The idea behind the broadcast was simple. Terry has spent decades giving: giving his music, his time, his teaching, his worship and, above all, pointing people toward Jesus. This time, people whose lives had intersected with his were given the opportunity to speak back.

Friends, family members, pastors, ministry partners and fellow worship leaders from different parts of the world had secretly recorded personal messages. Terry would watch every message for the first time during the live broadcast, with his reaction remaining on screen. After each contribution, he was invited to share the story behind the person speaking — and suddenly the program became much more than a collection of congratulations. It became a journey through fifty years of relationships, ministry and memories.

From the beginning, however, the purpose was never to place Terry on a pedestal. The opening of the special expressed it clearly: this was not about celebrating a star, but about recognizing God’s faithfulness through the life of a servant. Fifty years of ministry had not been about building a platform, but about building an altar; not about applause, but about intimacy with God.

Some of the most moving moments came from people who knew Terry before there was an international ministry at all.

Those early voices remembered a young Terry sitting at a church organ in Kentucky and the unusual sensitivity to worship that was already evident in him. One of his early mentors recalled seeing Terry as a boy at the piano, tears running down his face as he worshipped God. Years later, the same young man would become the first music pastor at Evangel Assembly of God in Schaumburg, Illinois, before a ministry journey began that would eventually reach people across the world.

Pastor Ken Groen, one of the most important mentors in Terry’s early life, looked back on the years at First Assembly of God in Lexington, Kentucky. He remembered Terry playing offertories as a young man, moments when the presence of God would become unmistakable, and the church-camp encounter in which Terry received a vision of ministering to multitudes. Decades later, that early promise had become a reality: Terry’s worship and recordings had reached millions of people.

The contrast is striking. Long before I Sing Praises, before the World Prayer Center, before international tours, An Hour With Jesus or New Glory International, there was simply a young man at a keyboard who loved the presence of God.

In many ways, fifty years later, that is still the heart of Terry MacAlmon’s ministry.

One of the strongest themes running through the entire broadcast was that this celebration was not intended to function as a retirement tribute. Again and again, friends spoke not only about what God had done, but about what they believed was still ahead.

Nathaniel Bassey spoke of fifty as a year of jubilee and prayed for new wine, greater grace and greater glory in the next season. Don Moen prayed for new doors and an increased anointing. Paul Wilbur looked ahead to continued fruit. Others repeatedly returned to the expectation that “the best is yet to come.”

That expectation also characterized Terry’s own response. The broadcast gave him little opportunity to prepare polished answers — which was exactly the point. His reactions were immediate, sometimes humorous, often emotional and consistently personal. Names on a screen became stories about decades of friendship. A message from an old ministry companion brought back memories of another nation. A childhood mentor brought him back to Kentucky. His sons brought the celebration home.

By the end, Terry was visibly overwhelmed by the scale of what had been prepared. He described himself as honored, humbled and deeply grateful that so many people had taken the time to participate.

And then came the words that perhaps captured the entire celebration better than anything that had been said during the preceding hour and a half.

After listening to people honor fifty years of his ministry, Terry closed the broadcast by refusing to treat the gifts as his own achievement.

The ability to write songs, play the piano, sing or serve others ultimately comes from God, he explained. Every good gift comes from above, and therefore the glory belongs back where the gift originated. “It all flows from the Creator,” Terry said. The proper response is not ownership, but gratitude for being allowed to be used.

And fifty years does not mean the work is finished. Terry looked forward to “new mountains to conquer,” new sounds and new expressions of God’s glory being released on the earth for as long as the opportunity remains. Then, after an evening devoted entirely to honoring him, he ended exactly where those five decades had begun:

with worship.

“Let’s just keep worshiping the King.”

That is perhaps the clearest way to understand fifty years of Terry MacAlmon’s ministry. The locations have changed. The audiences have grown. Recordings have traveled into nations Terry himself has never visited. Technology eventually made it possible for worshippers across the world to gather around the same piano through An Hour With Jesus. There have been extraordinary highs, painful valleys, restoration, new beginnings and friendships that have endured for decades.

But the destination has remained the same.

Jesus. His presence. His glory.

Fifty years later, Terry MacAlmon is still worshipping — and still inviting others to join him.

To God be the glory. And the best is yet to come.