Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind

Joyce Meyer is a Christian speaker and Bible teacher who began her public ministry in the 1980s and heads one of the furthest-reaching personal ministries in the United States, as of 2025. She had a difficult childhood, being sexually abused by her father, and her early adulthood was likewise difficult, with a troubled early marriage that ended in divorce. Shortly thereafter, she met and married Dave Meyer, with whom she built a long marriage and a joint model of ministry work. It was in her early thirties that she experienced a transformation in her Christian life, a turning point that set the course for her ministry career.

Meyer started attending church at Life Christian Center, a charismatic church in the St. Louis area. Charismatic Christianity, which shares much of the same theology as evangelical Protestant Christianity, includes an added focus on the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life, often manifested in spiritual experiences and ecstatic abilities (called gifts of the Spirit). Charismatics practice a somewhat more mystical, individually oriented spirituality than do other kinds of Christians, believing and expecting that one’s life will be marked with direct personal interactions with God. Meyer began teaching Bible classes and quickly rose to become an associate pastor at Life Christian Center.