Paula White Biography
Paula White is an American televangelist, renowned life coach, bestselling author, and highly sought-after motivational speaker. She is the president of Paula White Ministries and the Senior Pastor of City of Destiny Church and hosts the Christian television program Paula Today.
Paula White Career
White became chair of the evangelical advisory board during the Trump presidency. On January 20, 2017, she said the invocation at his inauguration. She is the first clergywoman to give the invocation and is also a woman. She became a special advisor by President Trump in November 2019 to the Office of Public Liaison’s Faith and Opportunity Initiative. White served as senior pastor of the nondenominational, multicultural megachurch New Destiny Christian Center in Apopka, Florida, from 2014 until May 2019. She previously served as co-pastor of Tampa, Florida’s Without Walls International Church, which she co-founded in 1991 alongside pastor and former husband Randy White.
In 1991, Paula and Randy White, who were married at the time, founded the Tampa Christian Center located in Tampa, Florida. Due to its financial difficulties, the church was unable to provide the Whites with a salary during the first two years. The pair subsisted on handouts from others and government assistance. The church relocated three times between 1991 and 1998 before settling on 2511 North Grady Avenue in Tampa and renaming itself Without Walls International Church. In 1999, the church reported 5,000 weekly attendance while using an outdoor tent for services, and 230 outreach ministries ministered to 10,000 people outside the church.
Later, Carpenter’s Home Church would be renamed Without Walls Central Church after being acquired by Without Walls International Church in 2005 for $8 million. With 20,000 members, Without Walls International Church was the biggest in the region. It was also the seventh-largest church in the US in 2004. A United States Senate committee led by Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa revealed through an audit that After Walls received $150 million between 2004 and 2006. According to the Senate report, the church that White and her now ex-husband ran used tax-exempt ministry funds in a single year to pay for the Whites’ private jet, their waterfront mansion, and over a million dollars in family member salaries.
White did not assist in the investigation, nor did her church. Grassley published a report summarizing the conclusions of his committee in 2011, but he did not take any further action. White succeeded her former husband, Randy White, as senior pastor of the church she co-founded on July 12, 2009. Randy White had announced that he was resigning as pastor due to health concerns. However, he would still be involved with the church in another capacity. After Scott Thomas resigned on January 1, 2011, White took over as senior pastor of the Without Walls Central Church in Lakeland, Florida, effectively serving as the pastor of both locations. Services ended in August of that year when electricity was cut off due to unpaid bills totaling more than $50,000.
She also became senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center on January 1, 2012, a year later. Her ex-husband Randy White took over as location manager of Tampa on June 20, 2012. Due to financial difficulties, Without Walls International put both locations up for sale by 2008, three years after purchasing the Lakeland property. Later that year, the Evangelical Christian Credit Union started the foreclosure process on both properties. The sale of two land lots to the city of Lakeland made it possible for a 2009 settlement with the credit union to change the terms of the mortgage through 2013. When White’s ex-husband Randy White stated in November 2011 that the Lakeland property was about to be sold or go into foreclosure, she was still the senior pastor at the time.
The Evangelical Christian Credit Union began foreclosure proceedings on the Tampa property in October 2012 due to loan nonpayment. Without Walls International asserted in a counterclaim filed at the time that White had brought church-owned audio equipment to her new church in Apopka. The Without Walls International Church filed for Chapter 11 federal bankruptcy protection on March 4, 2014, while White was serving as the senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center in Apopka. The Evangelical Christian Credit Union responded by claiming the church owed it $29 million and referred to the filing as a “litigation tactic” to keep two church locations from going into foreclosure.
Paula White Trump Administration
After watching her television program, White became a personal minister to Donald Trump; the two had spoken over the phone in 2002. He has appeared on her TV show and brought her to Atlantic City on several occasions for private Bible studies. James Dobson gave White credit for winning Trump over to Christianity in June 2016. In addition to serving on Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board during his presidential campaign, White offered the invocation prayer at his inauguration. White has been a spiritual advisor to President Trump since he assumed office, and the two have participated in numerous prayer circles in the Oval Office and other parts of the White House.
White starting a prayer with President Trump on February 27, 2020, during the African American History Month Reception in the Cabinet Room, is one famous instance of prayer. After the black community voiced concerns about President Trump prior to his election, White led a group of black leaders to physically touch the president. This event helped President Trump win over the black community. Black Pastors demanded in 2015 that Trump, who was then running for president, issue an apology for his unfair treatment of the African American community and “also to Mexicans for his inflammatory rhetoric”.
White has maintained a spiritual partnership with Trump, helped along the way by Jack Graham, her own ministry board advisor. She backed Trump’s 2017 decision to acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel’s capital with gusto. White led the passionate prayer, which included speaking in tongues, in the video. It gained a lot of backlash and derision after going viral on the Internet very quickly. She led the opening prayer at the rally before Trump’s speech on January 6, the day before the Capitol attack.
Paula White Ministries
In December 2001, White taped the inaugural Paula White Today broadcast. Nine television networks carried her show by 2006, including Daystar, Trinity Broadcast Network, and Black Entertainment Television. T.D. Jakes is regarded by White as her spiritual father. In 2000, Jakes asked her to give a speech at his “Woman Thou Art Loosed” conference. She also took part in the 2004–2005 and 2008 Mega Fest in Atlanta, which was hosted by Jakes. Darryl Strawberry, Gary Sheffield, and Michael Jackson have all received pastoral care from White. Beginning in 2003, after Darryl Strawberry was released from prison for possessing cocaine, she served as Strawberry’s personal pastor. Darryl Strawberry’s wife at the time, Charisse Strawberry, accompanied White on speaking engagements while working as her assistant.
She is Tyra Banks’ “personal life coach”. She made an appearance on the Tyra Banks Show on October 4, 2006, during an episode about promiscuity. The board of New Destiny Christian Church in Apopka, Florida, declared on December 31, 2011, that White will take Zachery Tims’ place as the church’s senior pastor. Following his passing in August 2011, New Destiny Christian Center had been looking for a replacement. Riva, Tims’ ex-wife, sued the board of directors but soon abandoned the case, citing a hold harmless provision in their 2009 marital settlement agreement.
White became the senior pastor of Apopka’s New Destiny Christian Center on January 1, 2012. The mayor of Apopka has openly acknowledged her charitable efforts in the community with the New Destiny Christian Center. White made the announcement on May 5, 2019, that her son and his wife would take over as New Destiny Christian Center’s senior pastors instead of her. The new name for the church would be City of Destiny. White promised to assist in establishing a university and 3,000 churches.
Paula White Age
White was born on April 20, 1966, in Tupelo, Mississippi, United States. She is 57 years old as of 2023 and she celebrates her birthday on the 20th of April every year.
Paula White Height and Weight
White stands at a height of 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 meters) and weighs 59 kg (130 lbs).
Paula White Family
White was born Paula Michelle Furr in Tupelo, Mississippi, the daughter of Myra Joanelle and Donald Paul Furr III. Her parents ran a craft and toy shop. At the age of five, White’s marriage to Donald Furr broke down. After White’s mother moved her to Memphis from Tupelo, she and her brother fell into poverty as a result of White’s husband’s suicide and their divorce. White’s mom started drinking. Caregivers watched over her daughter while she was at work. According to White, she experienced physical and sexual abuse at various times between the ages of six and thirteen from various individuals. She has stated that she battled bulimia at that time.
When White was nine years old, his mother remarried, this time to a two-star admiral in the US Navy. Her stepfather worked at the National Naval Medical Center, so her family relocated to the Washington, D.C. area. Seneca Valley High School in Germantown, Maryland, awarded White her diploma. In 1984, while residing in Maryland, she became a Christian at the Damascus Church of God. Soon after her conversion, she claimed to have seen a vision from God.
Paula White Husband and Children
White has been married three times. She was married for the first time as a teenager. The year that White converted to Christianity, she got pregnant. She got married in 1985 to local musician Dean Knight, her father, and the two got divorced in 1989. In 1987, White went to the church led by his father, the Damascus Church of God in Maryland. There, he met associate pastor Randy White. Her life changed when she met this third-generation preacher, according to the book Holy Mavericks. After divorcing their partners in 1989, the two tied the knot a year later. From there, White took on the role of stepmother to his offspring. They soon relocated to Tampa, Florida, where they founded the Without Walls International Church. Randy White announced the couple’s divorce on August 23, 2007.
White tells The Christian Post that their divorce was friendly and that they are still friends. Rock band Journey member Jonathan Cain got engaged to White, the woman he had been seeing during his marriage, at the end of 2014, after formally divorcing his second wife. After their wedding on April 27, 2015, White gave birth to his children as his stepmother. Bradley Knight, White’s son from her first marriage, became her church’s senior leader in 2019. She currently has a third husband, Jonathan Cain, and was stepmother to the three children of her second husband, Randy White.
Paula White Salary
White earns an annual salary of about $100,000-$500,000.
Paula White Net Worth
White has an estimated net worth of about $1 Million – $7 Million which she has earned through her career as a televangelist, life coach, author, and motivational speaker.
Benny Hinn and Paula White
White and televangelist Benny Hinn were seen holding hands as they left a Rome hotel in 2010. Though “the relationship is over,” Hinn acknowledged that “a friendship did develop.” They both denied having an affair.
Paula White Books
- He Loves Me He Loves Me Not: What Every Woman Needs to Know about Unconditional Love But Is Afraid to Feel, 2004
- Simple Suggestions for a Sensational Life, 2005
- Deal With It!: You Cannot Conquer What You Will Not Confront, 2006
- You’re All That!, 2007
- Move On, Move Up: Turn Yesterday’s Trials into Today’s Triumphs, 2008
- The Ten Commandments of Health and Wellness, 2008
- Fasting Made Simple: Road Map, Results, and Rewards, 2008
- I Don’t Get Wholeness… That’s the Problem: Making Relationships Work, 2008
- Dare to Dream: Understand God’s Design for Your Life, 2017
- Something Greater: Finding Triumph over Trials, 2019
Paula White Social Media Platform
White is very active on her Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook pages. She has 1.1M followers on Twitter 537.6k followers on Instagram, and 3.5M followers on Facebook.