“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16 NKJV
My Dad, Lawson Dooms, prepared a display to hang behind the pulpit of Second Street Baptist Church in Mt. Carmel, Illinois. The message: “Christ died for our sins,” with a neon cross. When the lights were dimmed and the display was plugged in, the cross turned blood red.
Later, a duplicate of that sign was placed just south of Terre Haute, Indiana along US 41. It became our very first “roadside missionary.”
Within a few weeks after that message was displayed behind the pulpit, as an 8-year-old I responded to the invitation to personally “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The next month, the congregation was renamed Grace Memorial and became an affiliate of the Independent Fundamental Churches of America, and began using Scripture Press publications – “The whole Word for the whole world.”
My parents began receiving The Sunday School Promoter magazine, soon renamed Sunday magazine. I was fascinated to read articles such as “Singing I go,” the George Beverly Shea story; and “The grand old man of fundamentalism,” W.B. Riley, then pastor of First Baptist Church in Minneapolis.
My senior year in high school, our church was broadcasting “Echoes of Grace” live every Saturday morning on the new radio station in Mt. Carmel. Circumstances were changing rapidly for our pastor, Charles Pedersen, who gave me 3 weeks training and turned the broadcast responsibility to me.
Stuart Hamblen’s song tells it well: “How big is God? How big and wide His vast domain? To try to tell, these lips can only start. He’s big enough to rule His mighty universe, yet small enough to live within my heart.”
The year I was born, significant long-range happenings began.
The Christian Businessmen’s Committee (CBMC) got its start in Chicago February 10, 1931.
Paul Rader had started dynamic ministries at the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle, including launching Tabernacle Publishing with Victor Cory, who founded Scripture Press April 1931.
In Bradford, Pennsylvania, C.G. Taylor and W.T. Piper built a small airplane powered by a two-cylinder “Tiger Kitten” engine. June 15, 1931, the Piper Cub was licensed for manufacture by the United States Department of Commerce.
W.T. Piper’s brother Arthur became a missionary to the Congo, and Piper aircraft later would be used to transport missionaries across jungle territories in Africa, Central and South America, Australia, New Zealand, and across the Caribbean.
C.T. Studd’s father accepted Christ through D.L. Moody and Ira Sankey’s ministry in England in 1877. Soon C.T. and his two brothers each made the decision to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
C.T. dedicated his life to serving the Lord full-time in China, India, and Africa. He inherited his father’s fortune and gave it all away to “The Bank of Heaven,” including donating 25% to help D.L. Moody build a Bible school in Chicago. Serving his final years as a missionary in Africa, C.T. Studd died there July 15, 1931, leaving behind the poem: “Only one life, ’twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.”
July 20, 1931 in Chicago, Torrey Johnson and Ray Schulenberg formed an evangelistic team, just days after C.T. Studd’s passing.
Later, Torrey Johnson founded Chicagoland Youth for Christ and became president and founder of Youth for Christ International, with Billy Graham as the first full-time staff member.
December 24, 1931, radio station HCJB went on the air in Quito, Ecuador. Co-founder Clarence Jones was associated with Paul Rader’s ministry at the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle.
The roadside missionary ministry is continuing to put the message “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” along busy highways, including US 41.
Telling The TRUTH radio is heard twice daily on the VCY (Voice of Christian Youth) America network, reaching listeners in 25 states and offering God’s ABCs of salvation upon request to listeners. So far this year, we have sent 954 copies of God’s ABCs to listeners in 10 states.
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12-14 NKJV
How big is God? What can you and I do to be Truth-telling connectors?