The Winans family is gospel royalty. For decades, the name has been synonymous with worship music that moves the soul — Grammy Awards, sold-out concerts, songs that have defined what praise sounds like for generations. Bishop Marvin Winans is a central pillar of that legacy. As pastor of Perfecting Church in Detroit, Michigan, and a founding member of The Winans, he has dedicated his life to worship and ministry.
But cancer does not care about legacies.
The Diagnosis
When Bishop Marvin Winans received his cancer diagnosis, the news sent shockwaves through the Detroit faith community and beyond. Here was a man who had spent decades leading worship, pastoring thousands, and carrying one of the most recognisable names in gospel music. And now he was a patient.
Cancer has a way of stripping everything back to the essentials. The awards do not matter. The record sales do not matter. The platforms and the accolades and the fame — none of it provides any protection. In that moment, Marvin Winans was not a bishop or a gospel legend. He was a man facing his mortality.
The Church That Gave Back
What happened next is what the church is supposed to look like.
Perfecting Church — the congregation that Bishop Winans had poured his life into for decades — poured back into him. The people he had counselled, married, buried, prayed for, preached to, and shepherded now surrounded him with the same love he had given them.
Prayer went up from the congregation. Not formal, once-a-week prayer. Daily, persistent, faith-filled prayer. The kind that says: this man gave us everything. Now we give him back to God and ask for more time.
The wider gospel community joined in. Fellow artists, pastors, ministers — the network that the Winans family had built over half a century became a network of intercession. People who had been touched by Marvin's music and ministry now brought his name before God.
The Treatment
Bishop Winans received medical treatment alongside the prayer. He trusted both the doctors and the God who gave them their skill. He was transparent with his congregation about the journey — the difficulty of treatment, the physical toll, the moments of vulnerability that cancer forces upon even the strongest people.
His honesty was a ministry in itself. For the men in his congregation — particularly Black men, who are disproportionately affected by certain cancers and disproportionately reluctant to seek medical help — watching their pastor navigate treatment openly gave them permission to do the same.
Cancer-Free
After treatment and sustained prayer, Bishop Marvin Winans was declared cancer-free.
The announcement was made to his congregation — the same people who had been praying. The celebration was not polite. It was the kind of eruption that only happens in a church that has been on its knees for months and finally hears the answer they have been begging for.
Cancer-free, to the glory of God.
What This Means for You
If you are part of a church and your pastor is struggling — whether with cancer or anything else — Marvin Winans's story is a reminder that the flow of care is meant to go both ways. Your pastor pours into you. Sometimes you need to pour back.
And if you are the one who is sick, let your community carry you. You have carried them long enough. There is no weakness in receiving what you have spent your life giving. That is not failure. That is family.
Bishop Marvin Winans was healed. And the church that prayed for him became the church that celebrated with him. That is what the body of Christ looks like when it works the way it was designed.
