Campus Evangelism +40

Thank You, Mike Vantine for a Memory from 1967

I was at the CE Conference at the LAX Hilton in early September, 1967.  I remember that the Holy Spirit changed the order of events and talks, so that John Allen Chalk gave what was for me the first gospel message I'd ever heard.  I didn't want to go to the conference in the first place, but was invited by Jennings Davis and wasn't fast enough on my feet with an excuse. By the end of John Allen's message I was deeply under conviction and had to do something. I asked Jennings what I should do. "Go forward or get baptized," he wisely said, "I don't know." I said that I wanted to make Jesus LORD of my life and see if He'd actually come in and fix me and run me for a change. I was one of those baptized in the Pacific that night and had a really "psychedelic" conversion experience.

After the conference, at the first evening service at the Vermont Ave. Church of Christ next to the Pepperdine campus, someone suggested that those who had been at the CE seminar may want to stay afterwards to "talk about what we could do to keep what we had gained at the seminar."  We gathered at the front of the building and somehow it turned into a spontaneous time of prayer. A spirit of conviction came so that people were confessing sins and turning to God -- a genuine atmosphere from heaven that was unique to us all. People started getting up, leaving the meeting, and running to the campus to get their friends. Within an hour or so the whole front of the building was filled and the meeting lasted for hours.  This began a series of spontaneous meetings at this building and around campus that went on for about three weeks.  Many more people came to the LORD and were baptized. And, for me it was a time of nearly constant ministry around campus. We were discovering what this new life was about and learning to walk in the Spirit.

The revival ended when someone introduced the honest question about women speaking in the assembly.  This brought in a spirit of strife that we were not able to deal with, which grieved the Holy Spirit. Still, there remained a core of people whose lives were changed, who knew Jesus was alive and well, and that He was now the LORD of their lives.

The following fall, the LORD began to lead us toward the Holy Spirit though a number of people and gatherings, so that by the end of the year in 1968 a bunch of us were traveling down to the Anaheim Christian Center where we received a wonderful incubation in the Holy Spirit with teaching from some of the best in the world: David Wilkerson, Derek Prince, Don Basham, Bob Mumford, Kathryn Kuhlman, Ern Baxter, Sr. Clara Grace, and many more.

Life has been a wonderful adventure and cycle of growth that continues to thrill me with the height, depth, breadth, richness, and sweetness of the inheritance we have been given. It all began with that CE conference where the Spirit of the LORD showed up and you leaders were willing to go with His direction. I can't thank you enough!!  You were part of the revival team that brought new life to the youth of the Church of Christ.

Where are they?

Roy Osborne was one of the most popular speakers at the seminars. He spellbound us all with his insights and teaching. Roy was minister of the Sunset Ridge Church of Christ in San Antonio for many years.

He recently wrote me the following:

"I think I was a bit player in the movement you and Jim were promoting in the 60s.

I am now 84 and retired in 1991 but still teach a class each week and write all my own material. People have requested copies and I now e-mail 225 people in 29 states each week with a copy of my current essay.

I am still going to the Church of Christ but have been able to teach the Sunset Ridge congregation that Christianity is all about the grace of God and not at all about legal rules and regulations.  You see, I am still preaching the same things I did in Dallas in 1968."

At my invitation he added the following:

"I would like to add that I feel the Campus Evangelism did more to loosen the iron grip of legalism in which the church was enslaved than any other one thing.  I believe the young people went home from Dallas with a view that Christianity was about their relationship to Christ, not their relationship to the church.  As these young people matured they became the leaders of today and that is why many of our advances in Biblical understanding and practice have been able to thrive.

I was hung on many a cross as a liberal for preaching the grace of God instead of the rigid rules of the church, but I survived and I would do it again."

To which I say, "Right on, Roy!"

Hope You'll Read the Comments!

I am thrilled to have received comments from Wes and Cary about what they are doing and their challenge to those of us who were involved in CE to get the story out. I hope you will read their posts!

It is comments like theirs that are stirring our hearts anew. Although we haven't quite gotten our arms around how to tell the story of CE, it seems posts and comments on this blog may provide the kernel of something more to come.

I am considering upgrading my subscription to TypePad so we can invite other authors to post in the main section, not just in Comments. Probably ought to go ahead and get it done! I think we may just be getting ready for some major contributions from others.

Thanks for the interest already shown!

For Cary

What led you to your research? What kind of information are you now seeking? Tell us more about your work.

Interesting that you ask about a reunion. On June 11, 2005 a group of us with our wives, Jim Bevis, Charles Shelton, John Allen Chalk, and L.D. McCoy met most of the day in John Allen's office in Fort Worth to discuss just such a reunion. We first discussed an abbreviated seminar similar to the form we used in the 60s, but abandoned that and talked about other formats all the way down to an afternoon/evening reunion event.

One of the biggest considerations was how to spread the word and get "significant" attendance. When it was all said and done, most around the table felt that such an event was not where we were being led. Jim Bevis and I still had a heart for pursuing a reunion, but Jim was beginning to have some health problems and didn't feel up to it. As a last resort I suggested a cyber-reunion which led to this blog.

I submitted a version of the main blog post to The Christian Chronicle and New Wineskins asking them to publish it hoping to touch some who might be readers there. I think the Chronicle has rejected the story saying that such stories are generally solicited by them and not accepted otherwise. New Wineskins has never responded.

So, we're back to this blog which I'm thankful at least two interested people including you have responded to. We've been hoping a network would begin developing which might lead to a get-together.

Any ideas?

Where are they?

Forty years ago during the last week of December, 1966, churches of Christ witnessed an event in Dallas that reverberates throughout the brotherhood even today. The event was the first Campus Evangelism Seminar which brought together some 350 church leaders and students from colleges and universities across the country to learn how to share their faith on their campuses.

Student participants and seminar leaders, challenged by the seminar’s theme, “Solution: Revolution,” sought to find ways to turn traditional “holding” actions into zealously advancing Christ on their campuses. Many lives were changed during the seminar as a result of the stirring speeches about God’s grace and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Bible studies, and an afternoon of personal witnessing on Dallas streets, the airport, train station, and other public places.

Thousands more students from hundreds of campuses discovered their personal faith and how to share it at subsequent regional seminars from Los Angeles to Gainesville, Florida and at national seminars, the last one in 1968 attended by more than 1,500 participants.

The Campus Evangelism movement sprang to life at the 1966 seminar under the oversight of the Broadway Church of Christ in Lubbock,Texas. Jim Bevis and Rex Vermillion, co-directors of CE, were both associate ministers of the church. Charles Shelton who had been minister of the Campbell Church of Christ, San Jose, CA, joined the staff later.

Prior to 1966 Jim Bevis and Dale Hulett, a campus minister in Arkansas, had been inspired to an evangelical effort on college campuses when they attended training at the national headquarters of Campus Crusade for Christ. In those days most members of churches of Christ would not have participated in such efforts outside the brotherhood; therefore, a church of Christ version was visualized.

View archival photos here.

The McGehee Foundation of Jacksonville, Florida generously funded the work of the Campus Evangelism staff which established two pilot projects, one at the University of Florida and the other at Texas Tech University.

Legendary preachers, professors, campus ministers and Bible chair directors, missionaries, and elders spoke and taught at the regional and national seminars -- among them John Allen Chalk, Wesley Reagan, K.C. Moser, Carl Spain, E.W. McMillan, William S. Banowsky, Prentice Meador, Roy Osborne, Batsell Barrett Baxter, Andrew Hairston, Jennings Davis, M. Norvel Young, Frank Pack, Rick Oster, William C. Martin, Tony Ash, Bill Bright, and many others.

Change and Orthodoxy Clash

The movement was not without its detractors, however. At the time, campus unrest was at its height. Activist students and interlopers were taking over buildings and disrupting the educational system and nationwide racial tensions were running high. Traditionalists were looking for stability and status quo.

Campus Evangelism’s emphasis on the then-little-taught doctrines of God’s grace and the Holy Spirit, the use of non-traditional worship and songs, distribution of modern language translations of the Bible, involving women in ministry, meeting in hotels and campus student union buildings, witnessing, and baptizing in the ocean and hotel swimming pools therefore raised suspicion in some quarters.

Even with the endorsement of such leaders as Reuel Lemmons, editor of The Firm Foundation periodical, and many other middle-of-the-road ministers, the leaders of the movement came under withering criticism. Having lost the backing of the Broadway Church after about four years, leadership shifted to the Burke Road Church of Christ in Pasadena,Texas. There, insufficient resources slowed the previous four years’ momentum, and the seminars and life-changing experiences so much a part of the rapidly growing movement ended.

The directors felt they had not been called to establish an ongoing organization such as Campus Crusade with all the attendant requirements to raise funds, expand staff, and the like, but rather to start a movement that would spread through God's power. Although disappointed, they accepted the changes as God's will.

Life Goes On

The students who so ardently took up the cause of Christ on their campuses 40 years ago are now in their late 50s and early 60s. Many of the leaders in the movement are elderly or have died. Life has revealed foibles and strengths in many of the leaders who survive today. Some continue in ministry while others have chosen to follow other professions. And there are those who are no longer members of the church of Christ. Some today still believe a whole generation of leadership and zeal for Christ was lost because of naysayers and detractors, while others believe that Campus Evangelism influenced much of what's happening in churches of Christ today.

The greatest enigma surrounds those thousands of students who were so inspired and were such advocates for Jesus Christ – what has become of them? Did they become church leaders and influential in congregations across the country, eventually becoming agents for change in churches of Christ now practicing and espousing the so-called new teachings they were learning 40 years ago?

Where are YOU?

So the question remains – what has become of those students and the leaders of Campus Evangelism? Where are they? What of their faith? What is and has been the influence of their lives in His church?

Most of the historical documentation of the Campus Evangelism movement has been lost; however, in 2004 the few remaining printed pieces, seminar speech tapes, and numerous photographs were placed in the care of The Center for Restoration Studies at Abilene Christian University. According to Dr. Douglas Foster, some post-graduate students are now researching the movement.

This blog has been set up in an attempt to reach participants and leaders who were active in the Campus Evangelism movement. It is hoped that many who were participants or observers will find and contribute to the blog with their own stories, comments or questions and help fill in blanks in the 40-year-old story -- a kind of cyber-reunion.