Billy Graham on the founding of Gordon-Conwell

be known for its curricular innovation for the quality of its faculty and institutional strength and for that one quality so essential to a good theological school devotion to the cause of Christ and to his ministry in the world we're privileged at the seminary to have a rich heritage our school is really the combination in 1969 of too much older traditions the Conwell was in Philadelphia and Gordon Divinity School was on the what is now the Gordon College campus twenty-five years ago Billy Graham was the driving force which brought together the Conwell School of Theology and the Gordon Divinity School together with Harold Jonathan gay and J Howard few he had a vision to create a great theological school that was fully committed to the evangelical tradition he's so cherished and then one day Harold Dakin gay who was a longtime wonderful friend called on the phone and he said Billy I've been called to go to Gordon College as president and it's time that I left Park Street Church and do something like that and I said Harold you helped found full of theological seminary I said why don't we have a school on the East Coast a great evangelical theological school and he said well that wouldn't be a bad idea I said the trouble is you don't have any money and you don't have many students and I said we've got it all in Philadelphia and he said do you think we ought to have that school in Philadelphia I said no I think it ought to be in Boston because I said Boston is where the intellectual life of this country revolves around in Joan of 1969 the legal instruments will sign finalizing the merger of Conwell wit Boyd it's more than just a merger I think it's the creation of a new theological adventure and I think a rather important one in the history of theological education [Music] Cisco is committed to a classical theological education that finds its focus in biblical exposition and biblical preaching Jesus said that you will know the truth and it's the truth that will set you free and gordon-conwell provides a tremendous learning opportunity for students to come in and understand the truth themselves and in understanding it then be able to communicate it to those who are hungry for a hopeful message the quality of my education that gordon-conwell has been excellent class is really astonishing they were much more difficult than I expected I I really I walked in here with the arrogance of a business major thinking not a bunch of liberal arts people this is going to be no big deal and I work way harder on this degree than I did on anything else I've done it is a rigorous academic schedule but the good thing is it's all focused everything focuses around that central theme that God's Word is inerrant but it's also able to change people's lives I think Gordon Conwell has always been a school that has had a deep desire to serve the world in love than to take the inheritance which is ours in Christ and work it out practically because even the academic aspects of Christianity ultimately are practical Christ's life was practical yet it was also very theological so you can have the tools to understand the heavy theology and then practice it and you're taught that here [Music] gordon-conwell has been a tremendous environment for me to learn how to communicate the gospel because it's it's gotten me in touch with with my own Lord and Savior but also helped me to understand even just people and and how they how they act and how they think through the the variety of relationships the Lord has blessed me with here all the students have told me seniors have told me that they changed more and the three years here than they did the rest of their life I feel sometimes that I have learned just as much outside of the classroom as inside the classroom through the relationships that I've formed being challenged by others and being sharpened in my faith we have in the cafeteria discussions and debates and all sorts of topics and I think that's just open to me a great many windows into how other people live and where they're coming from I don't think there's an institution in America that has a finer faculty than you have here I think they're the best Faculty of any of angelical school in America yeah some of the professor's here let a big fire under you and it's very stimulating because they're throwing out these new ideas and forcing you to rethink issues or to think about issues you hadn't thought about before so that opens a lot of dialogue I feel that our faculty here are outstanding not only in terms of their academic achievements and in their teaching but the fact that they often have time to take students under their wing like myself to mentor them to encourage them to pray with them and to strengthen their confidence the relationship between faculty and students is essential at gordon-conwell we believe beyond the intellectual development there is the formation you mentioned to which we are committed one of the things that really struck me was that I saw these professors teaching us about the Bible and about a Christian lifestyle but I also saw them living it it teaches you that it can be done and you go on from here that others have lived a lifestyle of integrity they practice what they preach go forth and do likewise [Music] but today I want to ask this question what kind of a future do we face as you enter the ministry God has given you what kind of world will you be facing for to put it another way what can we expect about the times in which we live maybe the first generation that we've had in a long time in which the wisdom of the father's will not serve the children well now that the Bible of our fathers will serve their children well but what our fathers did in days gone by to reach their culture and their times we won't work in the future it's the Great Commission of the church go ye therefore into all underlying all will preach teach baptize make disciples we at gordon-conwell have taken up the challenge of making disciples for over 20 years my father served on the mission field in Afghanistan and upon retiring it was his desire to continue serving the Lord and he discovered that by coming to an institution like gordon-conwell he could magnify himself hundreds of times in the students that he worked with and it gave him great pleasure over the years to do that and now I see that the fruits of that all over the country Gordon Conwell students taking positions of leadership the deep concerns for missionary outreach around the world worldwide evangelization has always been at the heart of our school from its earliest years right down to the present well one thing I'm very pleased about is that we're not living with our heads in the past not merely attempting to fulfill a call from the distant past but to serve the world as it exists around about us today it is the time of upheaval in the church and in the world but there's a second thing that I want you to remember it's a time of great opportunity in some ways that is the worst of times but in other ways it's the best of times for God is at work never before have we had the technology to spread the message of the gospel throughout the world as we have today technology is going to bring major shifts in how we teach and how we learn and how we communicate it is important for a seminary of the future to be able to access information and the new technology that is emerging is equipping us to better access this information who are learning and teaching purposes we're going to be able to do some things that we just never dreamed satellite hookups and networks are going to allow us to teach to a lot of different people with with different language barriers and different other kinds of things and really prepare people to present the gospel anoon [Music] I see Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary assuming a pivotal role in the future in fact I see it already having a pivotal role because it's one of the few seminaries that that are truly evangelical and truly committed to the advancement of the gospel throughout the world the major hurdle that would prevent the institution for from achieving its vision would be the lack of adequate resources by resources I mean money qualified students and qualified faculty as well as the best teaching and learning resources the reason we need to balance a student aid money so badly is that every year for the last five years we have had over a hundred qualified students apply and accepted what kind of loan but unable to come because of having it being able to finance their education it's important to build the resources to continue what we're doing here our global mission and efforts in their mom with people that we graduated from from the Orient and Europe plus the number of people that we graduated through our inner-city programs and other kinds of things have really begun to make a great impact this is a challenging moment for the seminary as we look in our society its social institutions are fragmenting under the impact of complexity and the change that we all face and this is true for the church and true for seminaries in a world which is so oriented toward ourselves our rights our Authority our desires our esteem our concerns we need to be reminded as we try to do here at this school that God is the center of life and that all of life must be oriented around God's purposes Gordon Kahn was not in Utopia it's not a heaven on earth so to speak it's a real place it's a place where there is community where there's Christians gathered together for a purpose that's to study and to learn and to become prepared to go out into a world that needs to hear what we're being taught I believe the prime need of the Allen the churches is evangelism biblical evangelism before we can have an evangelistic pulpit we must have an evangelistic heart we must see the world as a lost world and Jesus Christ as the only hope John Knox prayed give me Scotland or I died we need that kind of zeal and we need that kind of clarity in our thinking and our Proclamation thank you and God bless you [Applause] [Music] it was in June of 1969 that the trustees of Gordon Divinity School and the trustees of the Conwell School of Theology in Philadelphia signed the final instruments that merged to great educational traditions that signing formed Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and today with this commencement we inaugurate the 25th anniversary celebration of that marvelous event as we look back over these 25 years we are mindful of the faithfulness of so many people that have contributed to the strong foundation for this institution we are mindful of the hundreds of students that have benefited from their education at gordon-conwell and today serve in nearly 70 countries of our world in every state of our nation we celebrate this 25 years of ministry in theological education there is one who contributed significant leadership at that time and throughout these 25 years it was his vision for a strong school of evangelical study to be on the East Coast it was he who worked hard to see that a Board of Trustees was appointed to lead this institution it has been his vision over these years for the finest of faculty to be employed and for the best qualified of students to matriculate in addition to his vision through these faithful people of the seminary he has also been responsible for seeing that generous resources are provided to the institution and so we gather today to hear from our leader mr. Billy Graham it's my joy to present to you mr. grant [Applause] thank you very much for that introduction dr. Cooley it's a great privilege for me to be here it's a privilege to be back in New England where I spent so many weeks and months tramping up and down New England years ago to almost every town and every village in New England preaching the gospel sometimes on street corners sometimes in little churches sometimes in auditoriums sometimes in stadiums but always at universities and colleges and I had some wonderful experiences in these universities and colleges I remember the first time we went to MIT and the place was filled with about seven or eight thousand students and I was scared to death and I don't have been out of school a few years myself and dr. Aachen gave was going to present me and I told dr. Hawking J I said Harold I said you get up and use all the big words you know so they'll know that somebody among us knows something well when he got finished I didn't understand what he had said and I got up and stumbled through the message and but we went to Harvard and Yale and the Dartmouth and University of Massachusetts to all these schools throughout New England we've done that three times we've toured all those schools and had question and answer periods and met with faculty and had questions that I think might even stump this faculty back here though I don't think so I don't think any question could stump them because I think they're the best Faculty of any of angelical school in America and so I say dr. Cooley distinguished members of the faculty and staff my fellow members of the Board of Directors honored guests and friends that are visiting here and most of all members of the class of 1994 and your spouses and Families I've been told that this is the best class that's ever been graduated from this institution I've been told that about two or three people and I just arrived so if I stayed longer I'm sure that many more would be saying the same thing some years ago I was about to give a commencement address at a Christian college and we were just preparing to walk in and I asked the president I said how long should I take he said well if you take 12 minutes that'll be 2 minutes too long I hope you don't keep a stopwatch on me today because I might take 10 or 12 or 14 or maybe 18 I agreed with that but I have seldom been able to hold myself to 10 minutes at graduation except the University of South Carolina wants us gave the commencement address there and I took 8 minutes because the President had till now shouldn't have more than 6 to today I know that those of you in the 1994 graduating class have many emotions as you come together for the last time on this campus for some of you your primary emotion is gratitude gratitude that seminary is fine they oval but it's natural to look today at all that has happened to you during the time you've spent here and I hope that you'll look back word with gratitude as we've already heard from mr. Barrington a moment ago gratitude for the experience and the friends you've had here gratitude for the things you've learned and the faculty that's taught you gratitude most of all for God's working in your life during your time here you aren't the same person you were when you came here for God has been shaping and preparing you for the responsibilities that he has for you in the future but commencement is also a time of looking forward to focus on the future as well as the past we're commencing in one sense for some reason I always look forward I have a very difficult time looking backward I have a hard time trying to tell stories of victories and defeats of the past I'm trying to write my memoirs and I just have the most difficult time trying to do some of those things my mind keeps jumping forward to the things I want to do to the things I think God would have me to do and to the things that I would like to do before my time is finished on this earth perhaps you know where you plan to be in the next two weeks a months or years and you may be nervous about what you're going to find there or for some of you the future is uncertain and you may be a bit anxious about it after Jesus had told his disciples to go to all the world with the gospel he added this promise and always I will be with you to the very end of the age and that's God's promise to all of us for the future but today I want to ask this question what kind of a future do we face as you enter the ministry God has given you what kind of world would you be facing or to put it another way what can we expect about the times in which we live first of all it's a time of great upheaval in the world I have the privilege of travelling all the time and I've had the privilege of travelling through 85 countries and this year I've been in Japan and China North Korea and new Koreans that are here and it was North Korea I didn't get to South Korea and I've been twice to North Korea in the last year and had an interesting time at Kim il-sung University that was the last University I addressed was it Kim il-sung University and that's the only University in North Korea they have a number of colleges but only one University and they don't know anything about what you and I know about because it's the most closed society in the world there's never been a country like North Korea that I know about in history where they don't know anything about what's going on in the rest of the world because they're completely closed off but for some strange reason known only to God he has opened the door for us to go twice and proclaim the gospel to the students to churches they built three churches and two of them were really built for us because they knew we were coming and I had the day up we had the opportunity of being the guest of Kim il-sung and I spent three hours with him alone this last time and he won't see any American he won't see any European he doesn't see anybody he gives no interviews to anybody but we had that opportunity how did it come to pass I don't know just God and he's taking the same tact toward my youngest son Ned who does some work in China but he opens the door and he talks very frankly and freely because he knows I suppose that what he tells me I'm gonna pass on to President Clinton and President Clinton sent me both times sent a message with me to him that's another long story but Charles Dickens opened his book as well all of you know the tale of two cities with these famous words that have been quoted over and over it was the best of times it was the worst of times it was the age of wisdom it was the age of foolishness it was the epoch of belief it was the season of light it was the season of darkness it was the spring of hope it was the winter of despair those words Dickens penned about the Revolutionary times in France they could have just as easily been written today we live in a time of great contradictions and great conflicts and these will probably become sharper in the years that you're going to be ministering he said the world was jesus said the world was like a field and it would have both weak and tares or weeds and both would grow up together both growing stronger as time passed until that final day of harvest when they would be separated today we see both the wheat and the tares growing up together both good and evil growing in the world notice they're growing evil two getting worse good is getting better at the same time in the same field first it's true because of the upheavals of our world think of the political upheavals which are convulsing the world right now just a few years ago we thought peace was just around the corner because of the demise of the Soviet Union but now we see conflicts on every continent and we seem to be entering a new age of ethnic and tribal and racial strife the tragedy in recent weeks in Randa is almost beyond belief I've been in Ravenna and I've preached country's the international community seems powerless to stop the bloodshed in the former Yugoslavia join Yemen that has just started that conflict where hundreds of being killed the list is endless well think of the social upheavals that are bringing unprecedented change to our world from exploding populations to rapid urbanization in our own country I feel that there's a growing social polarization and we're in danger of losing our identity and sense of unity as a country I'll think of the moral and spiritual upheavals of our time this past week Good Morning America and ABC has been discussing the spirituality of America perhaps some of you have watched those programs I've watched as many as I could and they pointed out what my own travels have shown me that there's a great diversity of belief in non-believers in our own country and many cults that are arising we're rapidly becoming a secular society with absolute moral standards being in collapse many Americans get their shifting moral values from the talk shows that have sprung up in the last few years and which take us to the depths of human depravity the talk-show host or guests often becomes a psychiatrist or the clergyman trying to solve problems that they themselves have not been able to solve for for themselves millions of people are deceived by false philosophies and cults or a disillusioned or antagonistic to religion of any kind those of us who are Christians may find ourselves becoming a despised minority or at best ignored as narrow or irrelevant by the time the next century comes the offense of the cross is evident everywhere in the secular world I believe the minister of the gospel in the future will face growing hostility to God's truth not only concerning personal salvation but also the social implications of the gospel I doubt at the tranquility which my father enjoyed will ever return to our world but there's not only as the upheaval in the world is upheaval in the church in some quarters we are seeing a secularization of the Christian faith those of us who are evangelical sometimes say that theological liberalism is exhausted and obsolete and to some extent I believe that is true but in the years to come we may find it taking new forms such as the New World Order that people are not quite sure what that means or the New Age movement that will confront us with new and unexpected challenges but I believe there are also perils from within our own ranks for example evangelicals in danger of becoming divided and contentions over various things including social and political issues I believe Satan would love for that to happen because he likes nothing better than to discredit the gospel and deceive men that have arisen as leaders fall into the traps of Satan in immorality in addition evangelicalism is in danger of becoming a victim of its own success we can so easily become complacent and proud and failed to see the urgency of true commitment we had a seminary professor have lunch with us this past Sunday at our home and I asked him what the difference was between the students of today and those of five or 10 years ago at his seminary he said I noticed that there's more confusion today among my students as they face the future there's only partial commitment many of them are not certain what commitment really is and secondly it is a time of great opportunity not only confusion and upheaval but opportunity it is the time of upheaval in the church and in the world but there's a second thing that I want you to remember it's a time of great opportunity in some ways it is the worst of times but in other ways it's the best of times for God is at work never before have we had the technology to spread the message of the gospel throughout the world as we have today next year God willing we are going to hold Crusades in hundreds and thousands of cities and towns and villages throughout the whole world we're going to use Puerto Rico as the basis of it and we now have teams of people teaching counselors and ministers in all over the world on every continent and every island and some of these tapes will be going into areas dominated by other ideologies and religions that do not allow the freedom of the gospel but I don't think there'll be a place in the world that the gospel will not be preached next year from Puerto Rico we have the technology to do it we just don't have the money yet in some ways it's the worst of times but in other ways it's the best of times if the tares are growing taller and taller saw the sheaves of wheat I would not want to be alive at any other period of history I think this is the greatest moment to be in the ministry of the Lord that has ever been in the history of the Christian Church it's a wonderful time to be graduating from seminary it's a wonderful time to start your life out I'll continue it it is a time of opportunity in part because of the vast spiritual disillusionment and emptiness everywhere I go I find young people are searching for something they don't know what it is you listen to it on the television or you see it in the newspapers people are searching they want something young people want to be told what the moral parameters are but nobody's telling them nobody's telling them what's right and what's wrong and they want to know there's a desire to know and you are the ones to tell them what an opportunity we have in this country besides all the other countries of the world that are opening to the gospel in every one of our Crusades the majority of people that come our young people the people that respond are young people about 18 months ago a two years ago we held a crusade in the great Olympic Stadium in Moscow and everybody wondered with the people come and would they respond and we went and they did respond the place was jammed to capacity at every service we had to turn thousands away at every service and when the invitation was given the first night over half the audience responded and I told him to go back to their seats I thought they didn't understand what I was saying and so I made it just as clear as I possibly could and they came again and even more it seemed and then outside there were thousands of people watching on a huge screen that had been erected and that was the first of the Crusades that were held in Moscow and we never saw I never saw anything quite like it I've never seen such hunger for the gospel as I saw in the Soviet Union at that time technology has allowed us to reach those type of people and will allow you why you don't remember of course when you go to a church and there's no amplification or you go to a stadium there's no amplification and I read about these evangelists of the past like George Whitefield and John Wesley or even deal muda they didn't have amplification they didn't have those things no wonder we read about the big crowds today in comparison I'm not a great evangelist I'm just an ordinary country preacher from North Carolina but it's this technology that has been provided today in my lifetime that's allowed us to go and do some of these things and we thank God for it but also that same technology is used of the devil to spread his message and he's doing in some ways a much better job than we are the gospel is revolutionary because it's good news for an otherwise hopelessly confused and increasingly evil world the real question however is this in light of both the upheavals and the opportunities of our time what's required of you what kind of a person ought you to be first you must be men and women of commitment have you really committed to Christ committed to a call of God to some phase of his work and might be in the business world it might be somewhere in Africa Asia God has called you and you're committed to it Paul said we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ though I'm freed and belonged to no man I make myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible then he added I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I've preached to others i myself will not be disqualified do you have that kind of commitment i watch these people jogging all the time and I judge them till I couldn't jog anymore and I jerked first I ran four years and then I jogged and then I slowed down to walking aerobic walking and then I slowed down to slow walk and I swim if I can find a pool at some hotel or motel where we stay a pool to swim in I can still do a little of that though I just sort of paddle around but i watch these people and they're doing that for their body what should we be doing for our spirits for our souls in prayer in Bible study in meditation in witnessing Paul was beating his body so that he might not be disqualified thirdly we must be men and women of clarity we need clarity in our thinking and clarity in our message and I want to say this today don't stop studying that degree that you have doesn't mean a thing if you stop studying you come here and learn the sources where you can go to continue a lifetime of study and that is where I want to make a confession I have preached to too many places travel too much and studied too little and if I had it to do over again I would reverse that process I would study more and travel less and I'd spend more time with my family I have five children 19 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren and I would spend more time with them but as I look at them and see what wonderful people they are I would say they need to spend more time with me because I have a daughter for example if I'm preparing a sermon I call on the phone and I say hi and would you help me on this because she can look at almost any page in the Bible and outline it for you and she's never been to Bible School of seminary or even college but she knows the Word of God she studied it on her knees at 4 o'clock every morning all of her ever since she was in high school and she's absorbed the scriptures in a way that I don't know any I don't know anybody that well anyway I find in my own preaching that I have to work to be simple you know even I know enough to go over the heads of some people but what I need to do is to put the cookies on the law shelf so that even the children can get them be simple and don't be embarrassed you're going to be a Seminary graduate you've got to get out there and let the people know what you've learned and what how much you are be simple and ordinary that's the way Jesus was the common people heard him gladly let's be simple in presenting great truths dr. Cooley and his report to the Board of Trustees this week said recent studies have revealed what is abroad in our churches today as a dissatisfaction with a seminary education that has become less relevant to the churches precisely because seminaries have yet to understand the new demands placed upon them dr. Cooley continued the expectations of a minister have expanded from four or five categories to as many as 15 to 20 abilities of skills classical theological education is losing its value in the eyes of the church alternative educational models and delivery systems are emerging at a rapid pace and with greater claim to serve the needs of the church you've gotten started in your theology but I'd like you to say you have only started I get theological books down all the to everyday and and read them and studied because I I wish I had gone to seminary but I didn't I'll tell you someday why I didn't go I hope that you have it clear in your mind that God has called us first in fullness to be Proclaimers of the message of Christ with its social and redemptive good news and that God has chosen the foolish nosov preaching to primarily convey that message and always make as Charles Spurgeon said make a beeline for the cross in every message the cross and the resurrection and we need a boldness in our presentation of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ because some people are a little bit embarrassed a little bit of shame and that temptation comes but don't yield to it because that temptation is of the devil well I'm not going to tell you what you ought to preach I've got a whole list of things here but you you had to preach the word preach the word expository preaching is the greatest of all preaching in the churches and evangelistic preaching both unnecessary in our preaching and teaching today preach the word and Paul said do the work of an evangelist I believe the prime need of the owl in the churches is evangelism biblical evangelism before we can have an evangelistic pulpit we must have an evangelistic heart we must see the world as a lost world and Jesus Christ is the only hope John Knox prayed give me Scotland or I died we need that kind of zeal and we need that kind of clarity in our thinking and our Proclamation thank you and God bless you [Applause] during these intervening 25 years one of the three founders Billy Graham has maintained a very active and distinguished leadership in the life of our school we now wish to take a few moments to express our appreciation to you mr. Graham for these years of leadership you have prayed for us in a very faithful way you have counseled with us you have joined us in our meetings in our celebrations but above all you have given us careful guidance in forging the vision of the founders and we wish to thank you and to express appreciation to you I would like to do so by reading a portion of the citation of the honorary degree which was presented to you this morning this citation reads he is the most prolific preacher in history having brought the gospel to live more than 180 million people over the course of the past half-century he has counseled presidents and eulogized them he is known and admired in virtually every corner of the globe he has become in the words of one biographer an icon not just in American Christianity but of America itself as a nation he has chastened us comforted us and urged us to find a personal relationship with Jesus Christ he epitomizes the term evangelist taking literally Christ command to go ye into all of the world and preach the gospel to every creature the world knows him as Billy Graham the Evangelist but we know him too as Billy Graham our founder he has been the most dominant figure in the worldwide movement of evangelical Christianity in our century alongside his burning desire to fulfill the Great Commission has been the desire to assist in raising up a new generation of men and women of God who have commitment vision and scholarly competence as he has put it we need people who know God's Word and can teach it and preach it and live it no matter where God places them 25 years ago Billy Graham was the driving force which brought together the Conwell School of Theology and the Gordon Divinity School together with Harold John Hawkins gay and J Howard pew he had a vision to create a great theological school that was fully committed to the evangelical tradition he so cherishes miligrams vision inspired the resources and the people to launch this extraordinary undertaking and despite a worldwide ministry which carried him to the far reaches of the globe he did not abandon it for all of these 25 years he has served on the board of trustees most recently as chairman of the board and now as chairman emeritus we wish to express our appreciation to mr. graham mr. Bennett is going to make a presentation to Billy and we invite you now to the public the officials over in presenting this Billy I would like to read the inscription that you'll find on the bottom of it and it says this is in quotes task is not to bring all the will to Christ but to bring Christ to all the world and I think you know that Adonai armed Judson Gordon quotation and it also says that this gift is in ppreciate for 25 years of leadership and the founding of Gordon Conwell and I think you'll find it most appropriate particularly considering that next March the global mission which is going to be something greater than has ever been attempted and it's going to reach the entire world in one day will take place in San Juan I believe and I think you will see the significance in this gift here when it's unveiled maybe you should go across there and you can get a better look at it thank you very much I recognize what that is it's a map of the world and some of it I've had the privilege of being in but there's a great parts of it I've never been to and hope to go someday but there's one person in the founding of this that I'd like to mention that has not been mentioned and is probably not even known to some of you that have been speaking tonight a number of years ago I had a close friend and advisor he was older than me he was the head of the Christian Endeavor movement in this country he was editor of the Christian Herald for many years his name was Dan poling and he would be his name would be known to many of you as one of the Giants of the last generation of clergy Dan puling called me one day and he said Billy I need your help and I said what about Dan he said well he said I'm on the board of trustees at Temple University in Philadelphia and it has become so big with 40,000 students that the state is taking it over it's no longer going to be a private school but they have found that they really are a theological school they were started as a theological school and out of that theological school came Temple University it was founded by John B Conville Conville and I had known about dr. Connell because he was sort of a hero in the Civil War and he there's a long story that I'm not going to bore you with about Conwell and he said I want you to take this Seminary over I said Dan are you crazy I said that's not my gift at all that's not my call I said I'm an evangelist not of educator he said but the Lord has laid it on my heart and you're the only one that can do it and he said you're going to get a lot of criticism for it but he said I'm gonna give it to you and I said Dan don't talk to me about that anymore he called me about five or six times then he said I want to see you tonight when you get on the train going back to North Carolina and I'll see you at Penn Station well he came to Penn Station and many of you that knew him knew what a forceful person he was and he said you know if you don't take this Seminary they have about they found out I think they had 50 students they had five faculty and they said that the Board of Trustees at temple said we'll give it to Dan poling to give to whoever he wants to and he said if you don't take it he said I don't know what's going to happen now so I prayed about it and thought about it and talked to my wife and neither one of us were in favor of it but Dan was so persuasive and so finally I said okay I'll be glad to take it if first of all all the board of trustees that they now have a resign I said secondly all the faculty resigned and I said I'll appoint a new board of trustees and a new faculty and he took it back to the board at Temple and they were glad to get rid of it no matter what so that's what happened and so I reached over to Australia and got a fella who'd been chairman of our crusade in Melbourne with his PhD from Cambridge to come and be the head of it and we got a faculty together and then we kept about three or four of the board including Norman Claude Claude who's been mentioned here tonight and should be to stay on the board and then we formed a new board and some of them are here tonight as members of the joint board and so then I went to see J Howard pew who had helped us in the starting of Christianity today and the way I'd got to meet mr. Pugh was he sent me he had asked to see me several times I'd never heard of him didn't know anything about the Sun Oil Company I'd heard of Sunoco gasoline but I didn't know that was Sun Oil and he wrote me a letter after I turned him down several times to go spend the night with him and he enclosed a check for $25,000 and he said if you'll come to see me and spend the night there'll be another 25,000 well we were just a starting evangelistic association and so I went by the scene and instead of 25,000 under my plate that night there was a check for a hundred thousand and I said my goodness this must be a very wealthy man and so I called mr. pube when this offer from Dan poling came and I said mr. Pugh I'll accept this if you will back it financially well he always smoked a long cigar but he was a man of God and he was a scholar theological scholar as well as a scholar in petroleum and he talked a little bit and he said well if we keep it here in Philadelphia and we had already started a school for african-americans in Philadelphia and so we got going and the school grew and then one day Harold Dakin gay who was a longtime wonderful friend called on the phone and he said Billy I've been called to go to Gordon College as present and it's time that I left Park Street Church and do something like that and he said will you back man he said I won't take it unless you back me I said you don't need my backing what could i back your with except prayer he said that's what I mean and so to make a long story short that's the way that developed and he became the president that and then one day we were talking on the phone and I said Harold you helped found Fuller Theological Seminary I said why don't we have a school on the east coast that would be similar to fuller on the West Coast a great evangelical theological school or what I was trying to do is to get rid of my responsibilities in Philadelphia and he said well that wouldn't be a bad idea I said the trouble is you don't have any money and you don't have many students and you don't have much of a faculty and I said we've got it all in Philadelphia and he said do you think we ought to have that school in Philadelphia I said no I think it ought to be in Boston because I said Boston is where the intellectual life of this country revolves around and so I said how about you looking for some property and so he found this property if somebody found it and it belonged to the Roman Catholic Diocese and Cardinal Cushing was a good friend of mine I've made friends with him over a period of years and I went to see him and I said your eminence I said we have this piece of property out here where you've got a seminary but you've only got a handful of students and I said we'll we'd like to buy it from you so he called one of his aides in and he said is it true that we've only got this few students out then they said yes he said I let you know so doc talked and gay and I went to visit him when he called and he said well sell it to you and he sold it to us and mr. Pugh helped pay for and so that's how we came to this area for this school and never dreaming that it was going to grow into the great institution that it's become and as I said this morning I don't think there's an institution in America that has a finer faculty than you have here and I don't think there's an institution in America that has a finest student body then you have in a more beautiful campus than you have and how this has developed and I have to give the credit to Harold Aachen gay and the vision that he had the drive that he had the contacts he had and all of these things but I also have to give credit to George Bennett because George Bennett was treasurer of Harvard University and when he began to get interested in the finances of gordon-conwell and began to put his heart into it the way he did well I began to think well he ought to be treasurer of the Billy Graham Association too and that's what happened that he's still the treasurer of Billy Graham Association and when he stands up and says we need some money at gordon-conwell we've always agreed that we'd help and Alan Emery who said those gracious and wonderful things about me a while ago is my been my closest friend and advisor and counselor all these years whom I love as I love few people in the whole world and then TW Wilson he I won't call his name well I could talk all day but I mean night but I may talk till day time but thank you very much and God bless you and may God and Conwell go on and on and on into the next century with all of these new ideas and innovations I wish I were going to be alive to be in that next century it's going to be a tremendous century if the Lord tarries it's going to be a century of I'm not going to say what I said all that this morning to the commencement but I'm going to ask you to stand and let's have prayer John Huffman who has been our MC pastor the great st. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach California and one of the great preachers of our time and I first met him when he was a little boy here when his father was pastor and I remember walking on the beach with him and holding his hand during that time time passes on and time is short and what we're going to do we should do quickly and urgently let us bow and pray our Blessed Heavenly Father we thank thee and praise thee for all the things that you have done the people that you have brought together to form a team at this great institution we thank you for the memory of all these people whose names we've called tonight others like Duncan Brown people that we could remember and think about that have contributed to Gordon Conwell and the people of the future who you are already going to bring we thank you for this faculty that is gathered here that is such a strong faculty we pray that thou it's bless them all and we pray that that was bless all the students that are planning to come and enroll this fall and may it be the greatest year that gordon-conwell has ever had we thank thee for the leadership of dr. Cooley and the words that were expressed tonight about him we're grateful that you sent us such a man to follow in the footsteps of Harold Ock and gay we thank you for his leadership and we pray that that would bless him and his wife Eileen we continue to pray for all the board the faculty the students we commit the future to thee because the future is as bright as the promises of God for we ask it in Christ's name Amen [Applause]

Channel: GordonConwell

Views: 10,404

Rating: 4.7777777 out of 5

Keywords: Billy Graham, Gordon Conwell, Gordon-Conwell, GCTS, Evangelical, Seminary, Crusades, Founder, Trustee

Id: RGEwomSyNF0

Length: 69min 25sec (4165 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 21 2018