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.
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