70th Anniversary Celebration

What a fantastic week and 70th Anniversary Celebration at Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary. For 70 years students have entered the halls of this school to go forth all over the world to serve Christ and people. No doubt without its foibles, BBC has gone through times of sanctification like every institution will and must. At the end of the day though, thousands and thousands have walked here, learned here, grown here, and have been used by God in Springfield and around the world.

Friends, what God has done through this place and the effect on people groups all around the world is worth celebrating. Not a person, an administration, a faculty, or even a Fellowship should receive the glory – only our Great God is worthy of the glory for the great things He has done in and through this place.

BBC’s 70th Graduation Fellowship Week

My dad attended and graduated from BBC in the late ’60s, alongside my mom. Over the ensuing years, he would often have reason to come back to BBC during the May Fellowship Week. This particular week annually finishes the academic school year with several days of preaching, business meetings for the Baptist Bible Fellowship International, and culminates with the graduation ceremony.

Although we may have missed one here or there, it seems as if we attended all the Graduation Fellowship Weeks growing up. Even yesterday evening as my twin brother Craig and I walked up a sidewalk on Kearney Street with David Sisco, I remembered a particular incidence when we walked that same sidewalk so many years ago with the Hendersons, BBC’s third president. In fact, now having completed my 22nd year of teaching on the faculty at BBC, I have worked for four of the seven presidents of the College, while having met all seven of them.

The Best Way I Know How to Describe It

If your family grew up going to an old homeplace, an old farmhouse, or just a place where your grandparents had lived for many years, then you may get what BBC’s Fellowship Week means to the Baptist Bible Fellowship International. As a group of pastors who primarily coalesce around the effort to plant churches and spread the gospel throughout the world, BBC has been a shared piece of real estate on 628 East Kearney Street for 70 years. This piece of real estate over those years has become our old homeplace. Year after year after year, many members of the worldwide family come home to fellowship, do family business, make memories, be encouraged in the faith, and rejoice in what God is doing around the world.

Before the internet, streaming, and conferences of every type, pastors desperately needed Fellowship Week. Tired from a full day of ministry on Sunday, many pastors would pile in vehicles and drive all night to be in Springfield on Monday morning for the 9:00 AM start of the week’s meetings. I remember our family driving late into the night out of Bowling Green headed to Springfield. As a young child, the drive across western Kentucky and southern Missouri on the two-lane highways US 68 and 60 seemed long. Day would turn into night. The twin bridges across the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and the white pines through the bootheel always gave away the transition from Kentucky to Missouri. We drove as long as we could, stopping over at times in Wickliffe, Kentucky (not the best smelling town in Kentucky), Popular Bluff, and other spots, we would slowly make our way westward.

Springfield Memories

Once in Springfield, we would stay in a variety of places. Not long after it was built, we used to stay in the big white hotel near the interstate. From memory, seems like we did that many times. As an adult, I now know that was the Interstate Inn on Norton Road. Add a Super 8 or two and on occasion the Howard Johnson City and you would catch most of the places we stayed. For sure the most memorable were all our trips back and forth to Marshfield, Missouri where we stayed either in the home of Ival and Linda Robinson or in their mission’s house of the church. We have many fond memories of Marshfield, the Temple Baptist Church, and our dear friends the Robinsons.

I recall eating breakfast at the Maple Inn when we would come. In fact, as a very young boy, we would run into leaders of the Fellowship there having breakfast. The place would be packed. G. B. Vick, Noel Smith, R. O. Woodworth, W. E. Dowell, and others often enjoyed breakfast there. The last person I remember seeing there as we got older was Eli Harju. Little did I know as a young boy then that my parent’s professor Dr. Eli Harju would become my own professor, colleague eventually, and dear friend.

There are so many memories of Springfield, BBC, and the Fieldhouse that flood my mind. We would annually sit in or near our same spot. We would be in the upper balconies when we were very young, but over the years our usual spot was on the main floor near the back. Dad and mom knew pastors, missionaries, and other Christian workers all over the room. Our friends from Kentucky would be there. The Thrifts to our right, the Hibbards to our left, and others here and there. Missouri friends like the Robinsons, Oklahoma friends like the McCrackens, and former college buddies with dad like George Crawford. The list just begins here. I could add many missionary heroes like the Bartons, Deals, and Andersons, plus former faculty and dear people like Carl and Elsie Boonstra.

Memories were made – many of them. We enjoyed memorable outings with George Crawford all over Springfield through the years. As kids, his gregarious personality and what seemed like free spending made him a hit with us boys. Visiting Grandma Bess and driving occasionally down to the farm past Nixa. In those days, Ozark and Nixa were long drives from the north side of Springfield. I still remember the first time Ival Robinson introduced us to the brand new James River Road.

These are just the beginning.

BBFI and BBC

In addition to the incredible meetings, great singing, wonderful fellowship, and fun campus, much business took place too. Usually we did not have to hang out when dad would attend the business meetings, representative meetings, and missions rep meetings. But not always. The old High Street building staircases were places to have fun while dad sat in the meetings on the first floor. As a child, I remember waiting in various ways what seemed like for hours while he had to sit in those meetings. Now, I spent all afternoon yesterday sitting in a similar meeting doing the business of the Baptist Bible Fellowship.

I remember being there for the ribbon cutting of the G.B. Vick Library, the groundbreaking for the now BBFI Missions Office, and for seemingly hours mulling around in the BBC Bookstore (our primary source of everything Sunday School material, etc.). Plus, donuts in the hospitality center!

Of course over those years, we watched hundreds graduate. Grace Baptist sent many a young adult to BBC over the years. Sometimes they would either ride to Springfield or ride home from Springfield with us. We would all be packed tightly. Very tightly. (That was back before anyone thought about seatbelts!)

Earl Smith, the Boyds, the Bolands, the Liles, the Harjus, and so many others were household names. Missionary heroes the Gullions, the Hooges, the Bartons, the Homers, the Andersons, the Hughes, the Balls, the Wells, and so many more. We grew up with these people as our heroes of the faith. Add John Rawlings, Jerry Falwell, Parker Dailey, the Dowells, the Hendersons, and others to this list as well.

What’s Next?

What is next for Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary as well as the Baptist Bible Fellowship? Only God knows.

Last night we celebrated the pioneer missionaries of the BBFI and the work of over 1800 career missionaries in over 120 countries since doing evangelism, discipleship, and church planting all around the world. Over 20,000 churches have been started around the globe where literally hundreds of thousands have been evangelized. In addition, the faithful giving of the BBFI supporting churches across the United States has surpassed over $1.1 Billion for world missions. Now these faithful churches all over the world have started sending missionaries from their countries to others all over the world. Not until heaven will we know what God has truly done.

I write this day with a proud heart and teary eyes as I rejoice in all that God has done these past seventy years for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As a second-generation pastor, the third generation of the Carsons have begun BBC. My family was discipled by the Liles and McCrackens. These great individuals were also taught at BBC. As I finish my twenty-second year as a faculty member at BBC, I can’t help but wonder where this story goes from here.

Who is next? What will these graduates do? What impact will the Gospel have through our joint efforts? Will we still be faithful when Jesus returns?

Dr. Sewell teaching class outside.

BBC Campus 2000

Dr. Dailey

Campus Entrance when the property was purchased.

Drs. Dowell, Vick, Woodworth, and Smith eating

Groundbreaking c. 1950

Drs. Harju and Woodworth

Fellowship Week c. 1994