The words are taped to the wall in the church’s foyer, greeting Roger Powell Jr. as he enters his weekly Bible study.
What am I here for?
The search for the answer is over for Powell, a University of Illinois basketball player who has figured out his true purpose in life.
He needs to help people, to lead them through prayer and by setting an example with his words as well as his actions.
Powell needs to do all this because he wants to serve God. That’s why he became a minister.
“I’m seeing how the word of God can change people’s lives,” he says.
In early October, Powell received his minister’s license at Mt. Zion Full Gospel Tabernacle, a Pentecostal church in his hometown of Joliet. The license allows him to deliver sermons.
He plans to become an ordained minister, a process that will require additional years of educational and spiritual development.
“It’s a long road,” says his pastor, Rev. Craig Purchase. “This is just a start. But he’s starting right.”
At 21, the Illinois senior has embarked on a journey that will last a lifetime–an eternity, as far as Powell is concerned. He has never felt so fulfilled yet so eager to learn more.
Almost every Monday, Powell makes a short drive from Illinois’ basketball practice at the Ubben Practice Facility to Twin City Bible Church for a two-hour Bible study with a campus group called Get Free Ministries.
There he joins other Illinois students and area residents to pray, sing and interpret readings from the Bible. Sometimes there is passion evident in Powell’s outstretched arms and his charismatic voice. Other times his tone is more serene. His heart is always in it.
He is inspired, and others find him inspiring.
“Anytime someone takes a big step in their life, you have to admire it,” teammate Deron Williams says. “I’m proud of what he’s doing.”
Powell’s role as a third-year starter for the fifth-ranked team in the nation is entwined with his faith, like everything else in his life.
Last spring he told Illinois coach Bruce Weber he’d found his calling, and Weber wasn’t surprised. Powell has been active in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes throughout college and frequently quotes Scripture to his teammates and coaches. His favorite verses are inscribed on his gym shoes.
Weber encouraged Powell to pursue his religious studies. In addition to his class work at Illinois, Powell is taking a course on the Old Testament at the Urbana Theological Seminary.
Next month Powell will receive a bachelor’s degree in speech communication from Illinois and will begin courses in religious studies at the university in January. He will pursue a master’s degree in theology.
Powell sees basketball as an avenue that enables him to reach people and deliver his message.
“It’s something I have to do,” he says. “God has given me this platform to do it on. I’m going to do my best.”
Looking back, Roger Sr. and Cherry Powell aren’t surprised by their son’s devotion to his religious beliefs, but his decision to leap into the ministry stunned them.
“We were pleased,” his mother says, “but with him still being so young, it kind of threw me and still does.”
Roger Jr. and older sister Tara grew up attending Mt. Zion Full Gospel Tabernacle and were regular participants in Sunday school, the church choir and Bible camps in the summer. Cherry Powell remembers her daughter sometimes complained about going, but Roger Jr. never resisted.
“You would think that he would have followed her and also protested,” his mother says. “But `follower’ would never be his name. He was always the leader.”
Sometimes he led the wrong way and found trouble.
Powell says he was thrown out of elementary school four times as a child for misbehavior. His mother says he was actually kicked out three times. She saw a fourth dismissal coming and pre-empted it by enrolling him in a Catholic school.
His misbehavior was a defense mechanism, he says. Jealous classmates ridiculed Powell because he enjoyed church and because his father had been a star athlete who was active in the community.
Roger Sr., who was a standout at Joliet Township High School and played at Illinois State from 1972-76, helped construct a basketball court for the town.
“The kids thought I was a goody-goody boy,” Roger Jr. recalls. “I had to act tough.”
Fights seemed like an everyday occurrence. If a teacher told him not to throw rocks, Powell hurled the biggest ones he could find.
Catholic schooling steered him away from the teasing, and Powell began to shed his troublemaker image.
By the time he graduated from Joliet High in 2001, he was popular with his classmates and was one of the school’s top students and athletes.
He starred on the basketball court, but Powell took just as much pride in becoming a member of the National Honor Society and singing in the school’s musicals.
His pastor recalls a thoughtful side to Powell. He remembers a promise Powell made.
“Whereas a lot of children would say, `I want to go to Disney World,’ Roger said, `I want to build a church,'” Purchase says.
His experiences as a young boy and as a teenager are important to Powell.
“God was molding me for my ultimate purpose–the ministry,” he says.
By the time Powell began his freshman year at Illinois, his connection with his faith had weakened.
“I found myself falling away as I grew up,” he says. “When I got to college I had no one telling me about spirituality.”
He still attended church, but he had other, more pressing priorities in the classroom and on the basketball court. He also had newfound independence.
Powell sought what many other young adults in his position seek: success on the basketball court, an active social life and the freedom to make his own decisions. He couldn’t wait to turn 21, the legal drinking age.
Every now and then a conversation with his mother, and her mention of faith, motivated Powell to seek guidance from the Bible.
By last spring, Powell found himself turning to the Bible more and more, searching for meaning in the readings. Gospel rap and Christian songs replaced trendy music.
He wondered if God was calling him closer. He shared his thoughts with his family and his pastor, and they told him to continue praying and thinking.
“I prayed a whole night,” Powell says. “I said, `God, take over.'”
After several weeks, Powell pledged his life to the ministry.
“He’s answered the call,” his pastor says.
Powell’s life hasn’t been the same since. He’s 21, but drinking, like swearing, is out of the question. He spent the summer teaching Sunday school and reaching out to children.
The behavior problems he once had are now life lessons he passes on.
“I can say to little kids, `I was bad. Now look where I’m at,'” Powell says.
Powell delivered his first sermon in August.
“I could feel it in my gut that it’s what God wanted me to do,” he says. “The coolest thing now is when I preach, my life is in alignment with what I’m saying.”
He can be found on the basketball court one afternoon, an undersized 6-foot-6-inch forward succeeding against taller and stronger players, and on campus the next morning handing out leaflets for the Bible study.
And he still wants to build a church, figuratively and literally.
“I used to figure I’d go to the NBA, donate a bunch of money and God would be happy,” Powell says. “Now my plan is to put the Kingdom of God first and minister to people.”
Is there room for basketball in his life? Should he forgo his dream of a pro career and devote all his time to the ministry? He asked himself those questions last summer and then asked God for the answer.
The response came when he least expected it. A woman approached him one day and reminded Powell of a talk he had given to young athletes at the YMCA in Joliet.
In his talk, Powell had told the kids about the importance of faith and cited verses inscribed on his shoes.
Not long after, the woman told Powell, her son had a new outlook on religion. If it was acceptable for Roger Powell, a basketball star, to be religious, it was acceptable for her boy.
“It was an answer from God,” Powell says. “`Keep doing what you’re doing.'”
