Glenn Hicks had spent his life in ministry. As a pastor within the Assemblies of God — one of the largest Pentecostal denominations in the world — he had preached about healing, prayed for the sick, and believed that God still intervened in the physical bodies of His people.
Then the day came when he was the one who needed intervention.
The Diagnosis
Stage 4 stomach cancer. Terminal. Stomach cancer is one of the deadliest forms of the disease, with a five-year survival rate for stage 4 that hovers in the single digits. When doctors tell you that your stomach cancer is stage 4, they are not talking about treatment plans. They are talking about time.
Glenn Hicks received that conversation. The doctors were compassionate but direct. The cancer was advanced. The prognosis was grim. The timeline was short.
For a man who had spent decades telling others to trust God in their darkest moments, this was the moment where his own faith would be tested at the deepest level.
The Response
What happened next was not a private, quiet affair. When word spread through his church in Alabama and through the broader Assemblies of God network, prayer mobilised at scale.
This was not casual prayer. This was urgent, specific, faith-filled intercession. Elders came to anoint him with oil, following the instruction in James 5. Prayer chains stretched across states. AG churches around the country added Glenn Hicks to their prayer lists. The kind of denominational network that Pentecostals have built over a century — thousands of churches, millions of people — turned its collective attention to one pastor with terminal cancer.
Glenn's local congregation carried the heaviest load. They prayed daily. They visited. They believed with a stubborn, persistent faith that refused to accept the medical timeline as the final word.
The Healing
Glenn Hicks was completely healed.
The cancer — the stage 4, terminal, single-digit survival rate stomach cancer — was gone. Scans confirmed it. Doctors documented it. There was no medical explanation that fully accounted for what happened.
Glenn did not claim to understand the mechanism. He did not offer a theology of why some are healed and others are not. He offered something simpler: testimony. "I am living proof that God still heals."
The Return
Glenn returned to full-time ministry. He went back to the pulpit. He went back to doing what he had always done — preaching, pastoring, praying for others. But now he carried something that no seminary could teach: the personal, lived experience of being on the receiving end of the very miracle he had always preached about.
His testimony became one of the most powerful stories shared across the Assemblies of God network. Not because it was dramatic or sensational, but because it was verified, documented, and undeniable.
What This Means for You
If you are part of a church community, use it. If your pastor asks the elders to pray, say yes. If your small group offers to lay hands on you, let them. The instruction in James 5 is not ceremonial. It is practical. Call the elders. Anoint with oil. Pray the prayer of faith.
Glenn Hicks did not heal himself. His church did not heal him. God healed him — through the prayers of a community that took the Bible at its word.
If you are facing a terminal diagnosis and you have people around you who will pray, let them. You are not being naive. You are being biblical. And the same God who healed Glenn Hicks is the same God who hears your prayers today.
