The Overflow

Last time I went to the ACU lectures I thought I’d died and gone to hell.

Ok, so maybe I just wrote that for the shock value (that would be a joke folks – pick up your jaw and put down your phone), but making a five year old sit still for a single hour long sermon in a day is bad enough. Why in the world would anyone in their right mind make a five year old sit still for five hour long sermons in one day? Mom, dad – what were you thinking?!?!

Back then I don’t remember being thoroughly impressed with the lessons I’d heard, but I was impressed with the real live cowboy I saw at the restaurant in town during lunch. He had a cowboy hat, boots, and a silver six shooter on his belt just in case he needed to kill someone! When I got home and told the story of seeing him I was the envy of my Kindergarten class. That was great until I got a spanking for punching the kid who called me a liar.

Anyway, attending Summit (the formal name of the ACU lectures) today marked my first time on ACU’s campus since 1985. Luckily, people weren’t still teasing their hair and rolling up their jeans, and I didn’t see a single pair of parachute pants on anyone.

I had a wonderful time talking with Roland Bowen (Involvement Minister for the Austin Avenue Church of Christ) on the ride up. I’ve really grown to love the Bowen family in the short time I’ve known them. Not only are they great people firmly grounded in serving God, they’re also wonderful cooks (ask me sometime about the homemade jalapeno poppers Roland made). Roland and his wife, Carol, worked as missionaries in Santiago, Chile, for many years, and I feel blessed to be able to learn from their wisdom.

In addition to spending time with Roland, I was also blessed to reconnect with my friends Jim & Anne Bevis. Jim & Anne are simply jewels – their influence for Christ has been felt around the world … literally! And it’s not because they’re perfect people or better than anyone else – it’s just because God decided to use them in a powerful way (see Romans 9:21). They’ll tell you as much.

In 1965 the Bevis family along with Rex Vermillion and Charles Shelton, attended the Abilene Lectures as young ministers and heard a sermon that forever changed their lives (and the lives of many others through their actions). 

That sermon, entitled The Lost Frontier, was presented by a Houston area preacher named Wes Reagan.

The gist of Reagan’s lesson was this: if we want to change the world, we must take the university campuses in the name of Christ. Hey, now there’s an idea!

I don’t think he had any idea the can of worms he opened by giving that speech. It lit the Bevis’ and their friends on fire! They were intent on doing something about it, and do something they did.

They formed a new organization known as Campus Evangelism (what eventually became Campus Advance) with the intention of seeing the university campuses of the United States reached in the name of Jesus. A foundation generously awarded them $100,000 to get the new work started which afforded them to do some really neat things from the get go (100k is quite a large chunk of change today – even bigger in the 60s)!

In order to learn how to effectively reach the campuses set before them, they looked to the only group doing it in the 60s - Campus Crusade for Christ under the leadership of Bill Bright.

Jim Bevis and Charles Shelton attended Campus Crusade’s nine week biblical studies course believing full well they were the only saved people in the whole bunch, and, from what I understand, the people around them knew they felt that way too.

In spite of that, Bill Bright personally invited them to attend the three week training session just for Campus Crusade staff members after the nine week session was over. Bill also knew their stance theologically, knew they would never be working for Campus Crusade, and knew that the ministries they started would probably be set up to compete directly with Campus Crusade’s, but he invited them to the staff training anyway (in spite of the rest of the board protesting).

Jim describes the time at the Campus Crusade training as a turning point in his life. In fact, he says it was during that time that he met Jesus for the first time despite already holding Bible degrees and five years of ministry under his belt.

“I knew the church, but I’d hadn’t met Jesus until then.” That’s the way he described it today.

I’m not going to ruin the rest of the story for you by typing it all here (actually, I just need to go to bed so I can get up at 6am), but after being tutored by Bill Bright and having a brush with the authentic, real, grace filled, hope giving, peace loving, revolutionary, one and only, King of kings, and Lord of lords Jesus Christ, Jim Bevis and his friends changed the world, and it wasn’t by their own power – it was a movement of God.

Literally thousands of people are Christians today as a result of what happened back then, and those men and women were run out of the Churches of Christ in the 1970s after it was revealed they believed the Holy Spirit of God worked outside of the written word and actually indwelt those who are saved among other things that are widely accepted today (thanks to well intentioned, but very misguided souls attending the Freed-Hardeman University lynchings … err … lectures back then).

Have I peaked your interest?

If you’d like to learn more about the CE movement of the 60s and 70s, visit this blog, and listen to these lessons from the 2007 CMU Workshop archived here:

Jim Bevis - “The Story of the Campus Evangelism Movement of the 1960s” (60:37) ( Outline: The CE Movement of the 60s)
Jim Bevis - “Looking to the Future/Q & A With Jim Bevis” (42:08) ( Click here to visit Rex Vermillion’s Campus Evangelism Blog)

Jim tells a fascinating story – in fact, that’s why he’s in Abilene right now. He’s retelling the story of his work with CE in three lessons at Summit, and I’ll be attended part II in the morning. We were a full year into our work with CMU before any of us even heard of the CE movement of the 60s. The more I’ve learned about it has revealed some fairly striking parallels between what they did back then, and what we’re doing today. God moved powerfully through campus ministry back then, and we believe He’ll do so again!

Anyway, in addition to dinner plans with the Bevis family tomorrow, there’s another interesting character I’ll be spending time with who I believe you like. Like them, he’s a mover and a shaker, and Lord willing he and I will become great friends. I’ll tell you more later.

Just a question for the commenting types – do any of you with CoC roots realize the rich heritage our movement has in campus ministry? If you have questions pop them my way – I’m one of the few that has a fair knowledge of the history, and if I don’t have the answer I can likely find it.