American Pentecostal televangelist, musician, author, and educator Tommy Lee “T.L.” Osborn was born on December 23, 1923, and passed away on February 14, 2013. His Christian ministry was centered in Tulsa, Oklahoma. During his sixty years as a preacher, Osborn presented Good News Today, a religious television program.

Early Life

On December 23, 1923, Tommy Lee Osborn was born in Grady County, Oklahoma, on the family’s potato farm. Born to Charles Richard Osborn (1883–1966) and his wife Mary (née Brown) (1885–1951), he was the seventh and youngest of thirteen children. Osborn once remarked, “That’s supposed to mean something,” adding, “Turns out, it did mean something.” His father, a seventh son as well, was a nonpracticing traditional Baptist. Tommy Lee began creating music at an early age, and his parents, along with a number of his siblings, were also artists.

He witnessed his huge family going through the depression years as he was growing up in the second half of the 1920s. Osborn’s father relocated the family to Skedee, Oklahoma, in 1930 when he was six years old, in pursuit of a more lucrative farm. He met future televangelist Oral Roberts at a Sand Springs, Oklahoma, church. Roberts would be his companion for more than 70 years, until his death in 2009. Osborn often accompanied Roberts to assist at evangelical gatherings. Osborn handled everything else, including playing the piano and accordion during the meetings’ musical portion, while Roberts conducted the majority of the preaching.

Osborn handled everything else, including playing the piano and accordion during the meetings’ musical portion, while Roberts conducted the majority of the preaching. When Osborn was thirteen years old in 1937, his older brother introduced him to a Pentecostal church in Mannford, where he became a Christian. TL was the only boy left living with his parents, assisting his 60-year-old father on the potato farm, after his six brothers gradually left the family home. He said that he was hesitant—even afraid—to approach his father for approval to leave home and start traveling. He finally found the nerve to ask while sorting potatoes in the cellar, and he was astonished when his father responded, “yes.”

Ministry

When Osborn was fifteen years old in 1939, he started crying while milking the cows. He knelt down and prayed, begging God to explain what was going on. He claimed that although he was overcome by what was occurring to him, he simultaneously smiled and sobbed as the Lord invited him to be an evangelist. After finishing the eighth grade, he left high school to travel with traveling evangelist E.M. Dillard. In addition to overseeing evening youth programs, Osborn was in charge of planning evangelistic gatherings.

He went through three states with Dillard. The final one was California, where he met Daisy Washburn during a meeting in Los Banos, California. He was just 17 years old in 1941 when he fell in love.

Osborn married Daisy Washburn Osborn, a farmer’s girl and high school graduate, on April 5, 1942. Daisy was born in Merced, California, on September 23, 1924. She was barely 17, and he was 18. They soon embarked on a life of ministry and missionary travel, which included a visit to India when Osborn was just 21 years old. With faith and confidence, they eventually spread the gospel of Christ to tens of millions of people worldwide.

Preaching at Lucknow during that early mission in India, however, was unsuccessful. They served in India for less than a year before returning home due to serious family illness. LaDonna Osborn, the Osborns’ only child, was born on March 13 of 1947, and grew up with her parents on the platforms of international mass miracle evangelistic campaigns.

Soon after their return from India, the Osborns became well-known in the United States and Canada as evangelists on the Big Tent Revival circuit. There, in venues like fairgrounds and stadiums, they preached in front of crowds that frequently exceeded 10,000 people, both outdoors and under big tents. Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, Jack Coe, R.W. Schambach, and A.A. Allen were among the other young modern evangelists who were active. The Osborns performed supernatural healing in their meetings and placed more emphasis on God’s love and compassion than the “fire and brimstone” theological style popular among evangelists of the time. Additionally, many conservative audiences did not embrace the egalitarian ministry ethic of the Osborns.

They started to place an increasing amount of focus on international missions by the early 1950s. Crowds gathered quickly, often surpassing 100,000, during their massive crusades in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. “After that crusade in Mombasa, the fountain of the river of Pentecostalism spread in the heart of East Africa,” according to Pastor Fred Wantaate of Makerere Full Gospel Church, after Osborn’s crusades in Thailand in 1956 and Uganda in 1957. At about the same time, he met Marilyn Hickey, who would go on to become a televangelist, and her new husband, Wallace. Marilyn was eight years younger than Osborn.

The young couple conducted tent revival meetings in several cities while traveling in her husband’s vehicle. She became a guest speaker at Osborn’s conferences, and the two of them prayed for the ill. He passed away only four months after Hickey lost her husband, Wallace, but they remained lifelong friends.

Osborn and his crew visited more than 70 countries over the following fifty years, including Kenya, where Apostle Dr. Joe Kayo was born again in 1957 as part of his Crusade (Joe Kayo would go on to become a significant pioneer of the Pentecostal movement in East Africa) and reached millions of people. They produced vast amounts of training and evangelistic materials, some of which were translated into over 80 languages.

Daisy Osborn, Osborn’s wife of 53 years, passed away on May 27, 1995, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at the age of 70. After that, he spent an additional 15 years traveling and leading crusades all over the world. At the age of 89, Osborn passed away on February 14, 2013. LaDonna, his daughter, said he had been healthy until a few days before he stopped breathing, when his body started to weaken. At Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Memorial Park Cemetery, where Oral Roberts had been buried almost four years prior, he was buried beside his wife. His daughter, three of his four grandsons, and three great-grandchildren survived Osborn.

LaDonna Osborn still runs the ministry her parents started, which includes spearheading annual international crusades in underdeveloped nations. Following in his grandfather’s footsteps, Tommy Ray O’Dell, his grandson, has a ministry that focuses on education and evangelism throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe. Similar to his grandfather, he frequently attracts sizable crowds, and there have been reports of miracles occurring during his services.

Published Books

The following are some of his books:

• Healing The Sick (1951)
• Biblical Healing (1954)
• Frontier Evangelism with Miracles of Healing (1955)
• 3 Keys to the Book of Acts (1960)
• Soulwinning. A Classic on Evangelism (1963)
• The Purpose of Pentecost (1963)
• Outside the Sanctuary. The Case for Soulwinning (1969)
• How to Receive Miracle Healing (1977)
• How to Be Born Again (1977)
• In His Name (1981)
• Faith Speaks (1982)
• One Hundred Divine Healing Facts (1983)
• Receive Miracle Healing (1984)
• You Are God’s Best (1984)
• The Big Love Plan (1984)
• The Gospel According to T. L. & Daisy. Classic Documentary (1985)
• The Best of Life (1986)
• There’s Plenty for You (1986)
• The Good Life (1994)
• The Power of Positive Desire (1996)
• The Message That Works: What We Have Told Millions in 73 Nations for 53 Years (1997)
• Miracles: Proof of God’s Love (2003)
• If I Were a Woman (2011)
• Legacy of Faith Collection (2011)
• Health Renewed: The Source of Sickness and God’s Redemptive Plan (2012)