11 Facts About Roe Messner

Ronald Roe Messner was an American building contractor who built more than 1,700 churches, including several megachurches.

Roe Messner later billed PTL for work never completed on the Jerusalem Amphitheater at Heritage USA, thus playing a behind-the-scenes role in the downfall of the PTL Club.

In Bakker's fraud trial, Roe Messner testified for Bakker's defense, asserting that Jerry Falwell had attempted to take over PTL and its associated cable television network by dispatching Roe Messner to the Bakker home in Palm Springs, California to make an offer to "keep quiet".

In 1996, Roe Messner was convicted of bankruptcy fraud, having claimed to owe nearly $30 million to over 300 creditors in 1990.

Roe Messner was sentenced to and served 27 months in prison.

Roe Messner published Church Growth by Design, another book on church building, in 2003.

Roe Messner's ashes were interred in the Messner family plot in Waldron, Kansas, immediately next to Messner's mother.

Roe Messner was first diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1996.

Roe Messner died in Wichita, Kansas on March 24,2025, at the age of 89.

Roe Messner is reported to have been the biggest church builder in the United States.

Roe Messner supervised construction of the churches but was not the architect.