Pastor Gregory Toussaint, 30 years of ministry.
Pastor Gregory Toussaint was born in Haiti, in the commune of Carrefour, a southern suburb of Port-au-Prince, the capital. Until the age of 7, he attended the Indigenous Evangelical Church of Haiti and was enrolled at the Notre-Dame de L’Assomption school in Carrefour. Having moved to Lalue, an upper district of Port-au-Prince, he continued his secondary studies at Collège le Normalien and attended the Apostolic Church of the Faith. At the time, he remembers, there was a Kentucky Fried Chicken in the neighborhood. It was under Duvalier, before the failures of 1986.
When his father left for the United States, young Gregory confided that he oscillated between Protestantism and Catholicism. “My father took us to Protestant churches but since he was no longer present, out of curiosity I sometimes went to visit Catholic churches.” However, he would take the Gospel more seriously a few years later, at the age of 14, after immigrating to the United States.
In Queens, New York, Gregory Toussaint will complete his university studies at York College. At the same time, it was at the same time that he was truly going to turn his life over to Christ. “When I was in Haiti, I went to church just to please my father, but I wasn’t saved yet. I had not personally made the decision to follow Christ,” recalls the man who is today one of the best-known Haitian pastors in the Diaspora.
“But one day, while I was attending a Sunday service, the audience was singing “Jesus will return one morning, at noon or at midnight”, I felt in my heart this firm conviction that I would be lost if Jesus returned one day. one morning, I felt that I was not ready for eternity,” he says.
It was then that the future pastor went to the altar “without there being any call to conversion”. And that was the beginning of a long walk with God that has now lasted over 25 years. After his conversion and baptism, about a year later Gregory Toussaint would begin preaching in various churches in the United States.
“My first sermons were not in church but at home, during family devotions. The first time I delivered a message in church was at a youth meeting. A preacher was needed and as no one could be found, I was called. I then preached on spiritual warfare (Ephesians 6),” he recalls.
However, the young preacher he was then had so much stage fright that he finished his message in less than 2 minutes even though he had written an eight-page sermon. “This is why I no longer write my sermons in their entirety but only a few major points that I develop gradually, according to divine inspiration.”
Gregory Toussaint then pursued his career as a preacher with more confidence. From youth meetings, he moved to Sunday evening services to finally stand behind the pulpit during Sunday morning services. Which is the consecration for a new preacher in his own church. But Gregory Toussaint did not intend to stop there and soon his resounding voice would resonate outside the walls of his Christian assembly. He was invited to preach in various assemblies in New York City and began to make a name for himself. Soon other churches were demanding it. It was the beginning of his ministry as an evangelist which would take him throughout the world. In Haiti, his country of origin, the Christian community delights in CDs of his edifying sermons.
While he was an evangelist, Gregory Toussaint took the opportunity to train. His career as a preacher paralleled that of an academic. He first obtained a Bachelor’s degree (B.S.) in accounting, then during his travels completed a Master’s degree in theology (Th.M) at the Dallas Theological Seminary. At the Theological Faculty of Vaux-sur-Seine, in France, he obtained a Diploma of Advanced Studies (DEA) in New Testament Theology. He also studied philosophy and ethics at the University of Salamanca, Spain. He is currently pursuing a Masters in International Law at Saint Thomas University (Miami).
Evangelist turned pastor
The evangelist began his ministry at the age of 15 but Pastor Gregory Toussaint would begin his 17 years later. Today, he has been running the Tabernacle of Glory for 9 years, which he founded with his wife Patricia at the end of 2006, in Miami. He says he came to pastoral ministry “out of concern to see lives change.”
“After more than fifteen years evangelizing around the world, I sometimes noticed that I could preach for 10 years in a church and I did not see many changes, or at least I was not present enough long time to experience these changes. It was for me a subject of dissatisfaction in my ministry as an evangelist.”
Today, Pastor Gregory Toussaint is delighted to see this desire fulfilled in pastoral ministry. “I have seen lives transformed by the message of the Gospel. Some young people were prostitutes, drug addicts, gang members and thanks to the Word of God, they had a new life. Others were rejected by traditional churches because they had made a youthful mistake. These young people had abandoned the church, but they came to the Tabernacle of Glory because we were careful not to judge them without justifying their actions.”
Among the most radical transformations, the pastor cites the conversion of former “manbo”, Vodou priestesses. Still others were possessed by evil spirits and found deliverance. Some people suffering from incurable illnesses have found healing.
Stop the exodus
The other reason that pushed Evangelist Toussaint toward pastoral ministry was the desire to curb the exodus of young Haitian-Americans to American churches. “Whether they come from Haiti or were born in the USA, when these young people obtain a university degree, they feel that they no longer have their place in Haitian churches. We noticed that there was a serious communication problem that we wanted to address. Young Haitian-Americans speak English while worship is held in Creole or French. So at the Tabernacle of Glory, we have services in English but also in Creole/French. We have translation devices to overcome the communication problem. We are targeting the second generation of English-speaking Haitian immigrants without neglecting the first Creole-speaking generation.”
Spiritual Warfare
In Haiti and in the Diaspora, the name of Gregory Toussaint is associated with his fiery preaching on the “Jezebel” phenomenon. In 2008 he published the book “Jezebel laid bare” which practically propelled him to the forefront. In his work, he describes Jezebel as a satanic principality whose influence extends throughout the world. A powerful spirit from the dark world. In 2008, during an evangelical crusade at the Rex Theater in Haiti, more than 3,000 people came to hear him speak about the phenomenon. But it all started simply, during a spiritual deliverance session at the Tabernacle of Glory.
“When I started teaching about spiritual warfare in church,” explains Pastor Toussaint, “many people came to me to ask me to pray with them. The more I prayed, the more evil spirits manifested. Once, while we were praying to cast out the spirit of Erzulie from a young woman, she raised her hands to the sky and shouted, “Jezebel, help!” Another young woman would do the same a few weeks later. I wondered what connection there was between Erzulie and Jezebel. So I started studying it from a biblical perspective.”
However, the pastor would have another eye-opening experience about the phenomenon. He says: “Once, when we were chasing the spirit of Erzulie from a young woman, we demanded that this spirit leave not only the young girl but all the Haitians it chains. The spirit replied: “Foolish man, do you not know the History of Haiti? How can you tell me to free all the Haitians that I hold captive when I contributed to the Independence of Haiti, because the Haitian slaves had invoked me and Ogou Ferraille to help them?”
The words of the possessed young woman concerned the reverend and pushed him to undertake research into the Independence of Haiti. In particular, he read books like “Written in Blood” and “The Cathedral of Port-au-Prince” by Rachel Beauvoir. The latter reports that, during the Bois-Caïman ceremony, the ceremony of the slave revolt on the night of August 14, 1791, Erzulie was present.
“So I saw that the mind was not wrong and that gave me an opening on Haiti. I then understood that the problem of Haiti, the problem of Haitian families has a spiritual dimension, I had another perspective of the country’s difficulties. And I was going to launch a crusade against the spirit of Jezebel in Haiti,” says Pastor Toussaint.
Pastor Gregory Toussaint, a “Pastor of the Diaspora”.
The book “Jezebel laid bare” would take Gregory Toussaint to Haiti in 2008. It was the first major activity in the country of origin of the man who considers himself above all a pastor of the Diaspora. “I believe that Haiti has very competent preachers. I don’t really feel that my presence is necessary, but on the other hand in the Diaspora there is a lack of pastors who address the new generation of Haitian immigrants,” declares the preacher.
When the book “Jezebel laid bare” came out in Port-au-Prince, the capital, people waited hours in long lines to get it. Nearly 3,000 people attended the great crusade organized at the Rex Theater which was packed. The following year, Gregory Toussaint and the Tabernacle of Glory were at the Palais de l’Art to organize a three-day fast and crusade that brought together more than 7,000 people. After the earthquake of January 12, 2010, Pastor Greg held, in concert with the Shalom church of Pastor André Muscadin, a third crusade at the Champ de Mars which brought together approximately 25,000 people. And since then he stopped the crusades.
However, Pastor Toussaint is not abandoning Haiti. He sometimes goes to preach in certain churches, he leads seminars at the invitation of churches or Christian organizations. “For many reasons, I only go to Haiti to organize crusades if I receive a direct order from God, and not to do like everyone else,” he explains.
Married to Patricia Toussaint and father of two children (Gregory Jr and Joshua), the evangelist, pastor, speaker and author added two other strings to his bow in December 2012, those of owner and host of an evangelical radio station: Radio Shekinah. Pastor Gregory has also just published his latest work in April 2014 entitled “Overcoming the Terrors of the Night”.
2023
Haitian-American entrepreneur, philanthropist and orator Gregory Toussaint is the titular pastor of . The church, which has 47 campuses, has 25,000 active local members and 50,000 online members.
The Shekinah and Tabernacle of Glory network averages 4 million views per week and amasses over 4 million followers on social media.
His radio broadcasts have reached more than 5 million households in Haiti. His television show “Bishop G Live” reaches 500 million households worldwide.
Bishop Gregory Toussaint is fluent in English, French, Spanish and Haitian Creole. Gregory has degrees in business (BS), law (LL.M) and theology (Th.M., D.E.A). He has been married for 20 years and has two sons. He resides with his family in Miami, Florida.
Link: www.tabernacleofglory.net