The Passing of a Giant
We were saddened to hear about the home going of Jerry Falwell. Dr. Falwell has long been a friend to this ministry and helped us in many ways through the years.
Like many of you, I first learned of Jerry Falwell through his television program, The Old Time Gospel Hour, and his book, Church Aflame. When my wife, Cathy, and I were dating, our Sunday night schedule consisted of going to the local Taco Bell with the church youth after church (I was the Director of Ministries at my home church at the time which included the Youth Ministry) and following that we would go to Cathy’s house and watch The Old Time Gospel Hour together. Dr. Falwell soon became one of my heroes in the Faith and even more so in the years to come.
In 1976, a year after I had taken over the Bring Them In Ministry, I contacted Dr. Falwell about interviewing him for Bring Them In Magazine. He agreed and I headed to Lynchburg, Virginia to meet with him.
Even though he was pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, of one of the five largest churches in the country, and the head of a national evangelistic effort reaching literally millions of people, he graciously welcomed me to his office and gave me an uninterrupted hour of his time. The interview appeared in the August/September issue of Bring Them In Magazine and Dr. Falwell had this to say about the Children’s Ministry, “The parents of today, 20 years ago, were born in ungodly homes and the results is parents, in general, are agnostic and their kids are pretty much left to the wind. The local church who wants to do the job is going to have to assume that reaching the parents is going to take longer because they have had no teaching whatsoever. We are going to have to get the children first, win and train them for Christ, if we are going to do the job we should.”
The photos here show beloe Dr. Falwell and me together during the interview and in the one where he is pointing to the bookshelf, he is showing me the bottles of Donald Duck Cola, which he keeps as a reminder of the church’s humble beginning in the old Donald Duck Bottling Company 20 years prior to this interview.
After that Dr. Falwell helped us by speaking at several of our national conferences and hosting the 13th National BTI Conference in his church in 1988. He also was kind enough to record a special message for our 20th conference in 1995. The photo below of Dr. Falwell setting at a table was when he was doing a TV interview at our 8th National Conference in Memphis, Tennessee, one of four interview is did for the media during his short visit with us.
Regardless of what people might think about Jerry Falwell, even his critics have to admit that he was a stanch defender of the faith who stood against what he believed to be wrong and for what he believed to be right. He was an inspiration and he will be greatly missed by the Evangelical community.
Please remember Dr. Falwell’s family, Thomas Road Baptist Church, and Liberty University in prayer in the days and weeks to come.
Larry Hipps
May 15, 2007
We applolize for the quality of the photos but they are simply old and faded.
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