hingesofhistory

Photo record of Youth Revival Reunion

I have just posted a photo record of the Oct. 18-22 reunion of leaders of the youth revival movement at Baylor University. I shot from 125 to 240 photos each of the five days. I assembled them on my new MacPro, so I posted them on my .MAC site. The address is lengthy to type in your browser, so just click this link: http://web.mac.com/brotherblotz/iWeb/Youth Revivals Remembered/

I'll write more about it soon. This week of reunion was almost as life-changing as the experiences of the 1940s themselves. At least, it brought back all the emotions and made us all long to see "an old match light a new flame."

Rededications that stuck

Typical of teens during the revivals of the 40s, I "went down the aisle" many times in response to invitations to "rededicate my life." Many because I would keep returning to some of the mistakes that prompted those rededications.

Two, prompted by different problems, were unforgettable. They stuck.

One was during a service at a pre-school Baptist Student Retreat in 1946 just before I enrolled as a barely-17-year-old freshman ministerial student. I was fighting a spiritual tiger that could have made me turn and run. Don't believe me? I left my trunk in the dorm unpacked because I really pondered the possibility of changing my mind before I registered or took a single class.

One service, a speaker -- I'm sorry I can't remember who -- told a story about a person that had made a certain pledge. The impact of the words blew away the rest of the message from my mind, but this time, the powerful emotions didn't drive me down the aisle. Instead, I went to a quiet spot, took out my pen (that was already loaded with green ink) and carefully lettered those words into the front flyleaf of my pocket New Testament:

"I resolve so to live like Christ on Baylor's campus that if I were the only Christian there, others would come to know Christ through me."

I signed it and added: "Latham Springs, Fall of '46"

I didn't turn and run. I stuck. So did the pledge and the decision that prompted me to write it. Soon I was carrying that New Testament in the country community of Pendleton, where I became pastor. Then, on 127 youth revivals extending into my seminary days.

You can see a reproduction of the pledge, above, and others, including a back flyleaf that records the autographs of my special friend, Pat M. Neff, then president of Baylor, Warren Hultgren (with whom I served in thirteen youth revivals), Eunice Parker (Associate Director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Student Department and team member at Calvary Baptist, Beaumont,in the first youth revival I served in 1948, my very first summer of campaigns), Browning Ware (teammate at First Baptist, Port Neches) and friends Weston Ware and Milton Cunningham. Also, there's another flyleaf page where I started my lifelong habit of recording "zinger" from sermons and conferences along the way.

The New Testament itself will be one of the relics of the youth revival era that will be placed in the Heritage Room of memorabilia at Truett Seminary, adjacent to the campus of Baylor University. I just hope that other students who glance at it will find it as meaningful as it has been to me for the span of sixty years.

The second experience involves a visit to a service at a city-wide youth revival held at Fort Worth's Will Rogers Auditorium. That did involve an aisle walking after a powerful service. But the glue that made it stick wasn't the choir or the sermon but the words spoken by Charles Wellborn, who was the receiving preacher at the aisle I walked. He stuck out his hand before I said a word and with those steely eyes that penetrate your soul said:

"Do you really mean it?

And in that instant, after I had just said to myself as I stepped into the aisle, "Here I go again," I answered, "Yes!"

I did. And the spiritual roller coaster was over. It took.

Cole Park 60 years later

Last Monday (Oct. 9, 2006), a few old friends gathered for lunch at Chili’s on Knox Street and then reconvened a few blocks away at Cole Park. Cole Park might not seem much like holy ground to you, but it was to BO and Dick Baker, Bob Feather, Russell Dilday, John “Bubba” Wood, Jack Griever, Bob Cooper, and me. (Pat Wood and Carolyn Feather were there as our photographers).

Cole Park was the site of the great Dallas City-Wide Youth Revival in 1946, the first "official" city-wide meeting held outside of Waco. It was the one that gave every participant in the youth revival movement the confidence that what happened in Waco could be duplicated across America and around the world. It was the revival that showed that what we had seen at Baylor was not man-made. As Bruce McIver termed it in the title to his history of the movement, we were “Riding the Winds of God.”

We listened to first-hand, insider stories from BO Baker — BO was the song leader for the meeting as well as one of the six young men who preached — and from Dick Baker, who sang a solo the night BO preached. We went on from there and swapped recollections of other meetings, other miracles, as the “winds of God” swept into many corners of the world. It produced the greatest groundswell of volunteers for religious service in hundreds of years if not in all history, and furnished the forces that have covered the globe with the gospel.

I had my digital recorder going. It's long, so it will take a while if you're not on broadband, but if you'd like to hear that conversation, you can download the WAV file by clicking here: Download cole_park_reunion.wav

But that was 1946. Sixty years ago. What does it have to do with us?

One lesson was immediately evident as I looked around that picnic table. BO has health problems that could shorten his days. Bubba is recovering from heart surgery to repair one artery with 95 percent blockage, another with 85 percent, another with 70 percent, and three ohers that ranged from 20 to 40 percent. Others had other stories of pain and trials, including my own broken heart. All of the above reminded us of the brevity of life.

The lesson? Whatever we are going to do for God, we must do quickly.

Another lesson: It will take a long time for each of us to sort it all out, but I felt a fore gleam of the answer in Bubba’s plea that the Lord might “use an old match to light a new fire.”

The lesson? God isn’t through with us yet, or else we wouldn’t have been there that day.

A week from tonight, I will join a number of others who were part of that great movement in the 1940s and 50s for a reunion. We will take part in Baylor's Homecoming festivities, including a football game, a Pigskin Review, and the dedication of a Heritage Room that will house a history of the youth revival movement along with photos and relics from the era. We'll share a lot of hugs and memories and catch up on what everyone has been doing for the last sixty years.

I'm excited about the fact most of us will speak to the current crop of Baylor students in classrooms of Baylor's Schools of Religion and Music as well as Truett Seminary, sharing what it was like to be caught up in the jet stream of the mightiest work of God in our Century.

Last but not least, we'll pray a lot, for the movement was born in prayer. Those in the know trace its beginnings to the fervent prayers of roommates M.D. Oates and Reiji Hoshizake for the youth of Waco. And we will join Dr. John Wood -- Bubba -- in his prayer that "an old match may light a new fire."

I could wish that it would happen while we're there. Do it again, God. Do it again.

Campus Crusade 30 Years Later

One of the hinges of my history has to be my encounter with Campus Crusade. That era will figure into anything I write or leave behind regarding my three decades of editorial cartoons. In the midst of that span I had more than one breath-taking plunge on the roller coaster, the most devastating of which was having to shut down my public relations and advertising service, Ministry of Ideas, and bury my dream of spending my life helping churches and religious organizations communicate the gospel in a more effective manner. Little did I know that within two years, that "failure" would lead me to become vice president of Mayes International, Inc., where my presence helped cinch a fund-raising contract with Campus Crusade for Christ.

I'll write more about how that came about in a later post. But what brings it to mind today is an email from a friend who quoted from a devotional by Crusade's founder, the late Dr. Bill Bright. What caught my eye was not the forwarded email (frankly, I delete most of those, especially when the subject line says "Fwd: Fwd: Fwd."). What captured -- and thrilled me -- was the summary comment tagged onto the end of his devotional. It was a current update on Campus Crusade's work around the world:

"The late Dr. Bill Bright was Founder and President/Chairman Emeritus of Campus Crusade for Christ, an organization which began as a campus ministry in 1951 and now has more than 27,000 full-time staff and up to 500,000 trained volunteer staff in 196 countries in areas representing 99.6 percent of the world's population. In the past 50 years, Campus Crusade for Christ has seen approximately 6 billion exposures to the gospel worldwide. The film, "JESUS," which Bright conceived and funded through Campus Crusade for Christ, is the most widely translated and viewed film of any type ever produced. Since its use began in 1980, the film has been translated into 839 languages and viewed or listened to by over 5.7 billion people in 228 countries. Dr. Bright was also the author of more than fifty books. Dr. Bright recently co-founded Global Pastors Network to "Touch, Teach and Train" a group of 5 million new house churches around the world"

That nearly complete saturation of the world with the gospel was a dream when I got the account, became editor of the campaign plan for "a hundred-million-dollar first phase of a billion-dollar campaign to get the gospel into every country on earth." I think the staff total was something under 3,000 at the time.

My role in that campaign was a life-changing experience for me. It would take the rest of my life to tell all the stories. But the most satisfying, the most fulfilling, the most gratifying, is that the "JESUS" film was conceived as a key element of our case statement for the fund-raising campaign. That case statement, a nine-month project spearheaded by Steve Douglass, then Crusade's Executive VP, who served as coordinator, and four members of Crusade's planning team, all of whom had Ivy League MBA's.

In the course of the campaign, film producer John Heyman came to Bill requesting prayer for his dream of presenting a powerful film presentation of Jesus that would merit a significant play in commercial theaters. Try as he would, he could find no one who would risk the kind of money it would take to create a film of competitive commercial quality.

Bill came to me and said, "Doug, is there any way that we could justify using some of our campaign funds to produce such a film?"

"Bill!" I answered. "That is dead center on one of the key elements of our case statement! It is exactly what we described was needed for our 'village strategy' that is so critical to reaching the huge masses that are functionally illiterate." (Our plan team defined 'village' as any population center less than 200,000; and, as I remember, that encompassed about 68 percent of the world's population at the time. I'll try to confirm all these figures later.)

As it happened, Dr. Joe Mayes, founder and owner of Mayes International, had a strong interest in how movie financing with limited partnerships worked. And he was an expert of course in organizing and operating non-profit corporations. He set up the mechanism. We challenged Nelson Bunker Hunt, chairman of our campaign's International Executive Committee, to designate about $6 million of his initial campaign pledge to finance the creation of the film.

One of the key provisions of the arrangement gave Campus Crusade the world-wide rights to the film after it had its commercial theater run.

The thing that none of us could foresee is that which gave the "JESUS" film its explosive global distribution -- the worldwide acceptance of VCR technology, the Internet, and DVDs. In the campaign case statement, we had to assume a strategy that involved two teams working in tandem: one advance team to go to population centers and plan an event, followed by a projection team to actually show the film and set up a plan of follow-up discipleship. Both teams were to use three-wheel motorcycles, projectors were to be kerosene-powered, and projection was to be on foldable screens that, if necessary, could be hung from trees.

We knew what needed to be done. We just didn't know all the wonderful tools God was preparing to speed us on our way.

You can read much more about the "JESUS" film at http://www.jesusfilm.org/.

I'd like to add the story of how I got involved in helping my sis, Doris (Mrs. Marshall) Edwards, an ESL specialist, who created "Window on the World," a 13-week ESL curriculum that uses episodes of the "JESUS" film as its "text." Or maybe this is already more than you wanted to know. Pardon my exhuberance over how God honored our day-by-day search for His will and how far it has gone in thirty years.

The sad thing is that it could have happened much more quickly. In 1976, when I first became involved, Bill's consuming goal was specifically stated to get the gospel into every country on earth by 1980. That's why we went for a billion. That's why I built the campaign plan on a motivation of urgency. That's why we spent almost two years "under the radar" sharpening the axe before even announcing the campaign.

But that's another story. I might tell it later. Stay tuned.

Free Baptists and the Fundy Fight

My very first Baptist Standard cartoon was about a controversy over a report on Texas Baptist educational institutions. But the longest running controversy, of course, was the struggle for the "outs" to oust the "ins" until they took over control of all the Baptist organizations and institutions. They did it, of course, with a well organized political machine and used the free election process by which the Southern Baptist Convention had successfully operated for many decades.

I grew up in an era when most people didn't know who was going to be placed in nomination for SBC president until they arrived at the convention. The good candidates bubbled up to the top through many years of service on the associational, district, and state convention levels. Many a convention had a choice between good, better, and best, all of whom had proved themselves in faithful service and support of denominational programs. The new way was to pick one candidate, notify all the trusted leaders who that would be, and then rally busloads of supporters to go to the SBC for the election sesson. It made for record-busting convention attendances, but once the ballots were cast, the attendees at subsequent sessions rattled around like two peas in a boxcar.

One prominent architect of the takeover, a Florida pastor, was asked about a matter of business that was on the docket for the upcoming convention, "How do you think your people will vote on this?" He replied, "They'll vote the way I tell them to vote or they won't go as messengers!" That was in the back of my mind as I drew the "Free Baptists" cartoon that appears in the accompanying Photo Album. Comments? Do you have a story that illustrates or contradicts my observations?

Think snippets and sidebars, not epics

A couple of dear friends responded quickly to my call for help, but back-pedaled a bit because the task loomed too large. Let me clarify: I'm not asking here for historical epics or lengthy essays. Think snippets and sidebars. You can add a quick comment right below one of my blogs. Your reminiscences could well spark a longer collaboration, if you're interested in that. But let me clarify what I'm looking for by quoting what I wrote one of those friends:

"The "blog" is just a means of soliciting input on the items that I put up for bait. The book might have few sales. But it is the complete, searchable database of cartoons, editorials, historical sidelights, and personal stories that will be a lasting legacy. We owe it to the generations to come. The present generation of leaders many times have rewritten history and are doing a poor job of preserving the past. They have no understanding or appreciation for our roots. And that's not just a Baptist thing, it's a generational thing characteristic of other denominations, Christian groups, and our society as well.

"What I'd like from you are brief snippets and sidebar stories about the things you sensed as well as what you saw in this era of change. You wrote the facts as you went along. But your X-ray vision penetrated the facade. You heard their words in interviews but you also read their attitude. And I know those sharp ears listened to the bookstore-exhibits-and-hallway conversations that told you what was really going on.

"And I will guard anything you want held confidential and honor any requests for anonymity, if you want it that way. But let's leave this legacy."

What "events" and "issues" do I mean?

Just to give you an idea about your input and comments I seek from those who were players (or victims) of the changes of this era (1968 through 1998) -- I am cross-indexing my cartoons for the interactive CD-ROM/DVD research tool into such events as Watergate, Space Race, Viet Nam, 60s Riots, Cold War, just for starters. Issues for indexing purposes are matters like Emergence of Woman Power and Lay Involvement (and the countering CEO/Pastor Concept), Information Age, Worship Styles, Religious Right, Sanctity of Life (Abortion Issues), Fundamentalist Takeover, and many others. The people, organizations, and institutions are too numerous to mention. You get the idea. These are starters and are suggested topics for your comments and stories. The final product needs to be a searchable, interactive database that will help one locate any editorial cartoon, editorial, historical note, and personal comment or story by event, issue, date, or name.

If you were there, I want your help

For more than thirty years -- 1968 through 1998 -- I took weekly “snapshots” of the moving currents of change during a critical era from a unique perspective. I used a pen and brush instead of a camera. It was my job to exaggerate or understate, laud or lampoon, puff or pan the subjects in editorial cartoons in The Baptist Standard and other religious newsmagazines.

The value of these cartoons is not just that they chronicled almost a third of the last century. Their value lies in the fact that these thirty years spanned a time of cataclysmic, hinge-of-history changes. If you were a part of that era or were impacted by it, I need your stories, comments and encouragement.

I intend to showcase here and in my website, www.brotherblotz.com, some of those cartoons. And I will give you a look at some of the events, issues, and people that they portray. Comment, criticize, commend. All input is appreciated. But let's work together to preserve this history.