Sarah Jakes Roberts, a co-pastor of The Potters House in Dallas, Texas, and NASA astronaut Victor J. Glover, Jr. have been named to Time magazine’s 2023 100 Next List. It’s a list the media company said is a possible glimpse at “what society’s future and future leaders will look like.”
While the famous magazine focused primarily on secular influencers for the list, it also recognized these two outspoken Christians for their notable faith-filled contributions to America.
Potter’s House Co-Pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts
Movie studio owner, actor, producer, and philanthropist Tyler Perry, a friend of Jake Roberts since she was a child, penned the short tribute to her in the magazine.
“When your father is T.D. Jakes and you follow his footsteps into the world of ministry, there’s a lot of pressure to find your own voice,” Perry wrote.
“Now, as co-pastor of the Potter’s House churches in L.A. and Denver, that same voice speaks loudly to a generation desperately in need of compassion, teaching, and love. Her lived experience of using the grace of prayer to find a way through personal pain and tragedy resonates deeply with so many. It’s what has allowed her to connect with millions of other women through her incredible ministry and Woman Evolve conference,” he continued.
***Please sign up for CBN Newsletters and download the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***
As CBN News reported in July, Jakes Roberts’ father T.D. Jakes installed her and her husband Touré Roberts as the first-ever assistant pastors to be named to the church’s leadership.
Her story of overcoming shame and finding redemption began when she got pregnant at the age of 13, according to the Religion News Service. She called the nod by Time “another layer of healing to an old wound” and a “full circle moment” in a recent Instagram post.
“A few weeks ago, I learned that @time selected me as one of their Time100Next. I was honored, of course, but it also added another layer of healing to an old wound,” Jakes Roberts wrote.
“In 2001, my dad was on the cover of Time Magazine. A year later, I was the pregnant teenager of America’s Next Billy Graham. I wanted to hide. So, I did. I hid in shame, pain, depression, and fear,” she recalled.
“When I found a flicker of light to clench, it wasn’t because I sought to start a ministry or empower others. I just wanted to believe that healing was available to me,” The Potter’s House co-pastor concluded.
Jakes Roberts’ popularity has soared in recent years with her podcast, a book club and her annual women’s conference. Titled “Woman Evolve” it was held at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas earlier this month.
While she has been hosting the conference for several years, it’s the first one she’s held since her father Bishop T.D. Jakes passed the mantle of ministry to women to her during the final Woman Thou Art Loosed Conference in 2022.
During a recent interview with CBN News, she told what that moment was like for her.
“I felt blindsided because I had no idea that my dad was planning that,” said Jakes Roberts. “And I didn’t really understand what it would mean until I was standing in the moment for him to say, ‘I trust her with your next. I trust her with your life, your destiny. I trust her with your purpose. I trust the grace and anointing on her life.’ But I think it is so fitting of how a man can make space for a woman to really step into the fullness of her destiny. I think of Jesus holding the door open for so many women who otherwise would have been discarded or even ignored and yet he says there’s a place for you here.”
She added, “I think in that moment my father didn’t just make a place for me but he made a place for other women who have felt misplaced, rejected, and abandoned to finally step into the fullness of their identity. Even if they have to do it nervous and afraid. And so, it was so healing and restorative in ways that I didn’t know I needed but I’m grateful that it overflowed into other people’s wounds as well.”
Astronaut Victor Glover One of Artemis-2 Crew and an Outspoken Christian
Ten years ago, Victor Glover, 47, was serving as an aide to the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, when he got a career-changing call from NASA. The space agency wanted to know if he wanted to join the next class of rookie astronauts, according to Time Editor at Large Jeffery Kruger in the 100 Next List. He accepted on the spot.
“The next morning, he received an email from NASA with details about his new position. The subject line was simply ‘It wasn’t a dream’,” the outlet reported.
As CBN News reported in April, Glover, an outspoken Christian, was named as one of the four astronauts who will fly around the moon late next year. He is the first African American assigned to a lunar mission.
The four astronauts will be the first to fly NASA’s Orion capsule, launching atop a Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center no earlier than late 2024. They will not land or even go into lunar orbit, but rather fly around the moon and head straight back to Earth, a prelude to a lunar landing by two others a year later. Their space flight will be reminiscent of Apollo 8’s mission in 1968.
Glover is a naval aviator who flew 24 combat missions in the Iraq War. He previously flew aboard the International Space Station from November 2020 to May 2021, serving aboard the station for 168 days. The captain and former test pilot of the F/A-18 Hornet took along a Bible and communion cups during his time on the ISS.
He also posted a few photos to Instagram while onboard the ISS.
“Took these photos today, I love sunrises and sunsets,” Glover wrote on Instagram. “Can you see the bands of color? They remind me of the scripture in Psalm 30, ‘weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.’ It seems darkest just before sunrise. I wish you all love and light. Goodnight from the @iss.”
A native of Pomona, California, Glover and his wife Dionna have four children. During an interview with the Christian Chronicle in 2020, he spoke about his family.
“God assigned me a few really important things: this life, this vessel, but also my wife and that relationship, the two of us becoming one and then the family that we’ve grown with our four daughters,” the astronaut said.
Last year, Glover spoke to the Abell Street Church of Christ in Wharton, Texas about his time in the Final Frontier, Christian Headlines reported.
Glover told the congregation the ISS crew was composed of people of all beliefs, something he enjoyed, according to the outlet. He and his crewmates sat in the window and “looked at the earth and had philosophical discussions about God” and “everything under the sun,” he said.
Glover recalled how his crew wanted to come together in the evenings after being alone and working hard each day.
“And I tell you what – all of us wanted to fellowship in the evening {after} being alone and working hard all day long. And that human desire to be together, to be with our brothers and sisters, is a thing that I think about all the time,” he said.
Provided this next 10-day moonshot goes well, NASA aims to land two astronauts on the moon by 2025 or so.