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Significant Milestones
- December 1939 -
Gospel Fellowship Association founded by Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., "to get the gospel
to as many people as possible in the shortest time possible."
Read Putting
the "gospel" in Gospel Fellowship Association
- GFA in the
1940's and 1950's - For the first two decades of its ministry, Gospel
Fellowship Association provided assistance and oversight for evangelists,
missionaries, and various other Christian workers.
Read Early
Ministries
- Dr. Bob Jones,
Sr. leads the opposition to compromise evangelism that demanded cooperation
between born again people and unbelieving liberal religious leaders.
Read Battle Lines
Drawn
- May 1959 - A
key provision in the GFA charter provides the rationale for increased
involvement in worldwide missions.
Read Sensing
the hand of God
- Missionaries
plead with GFA to provide oversight as a fundamental mission agency.
Read Necessity
Demands Action
- January 1961 -
First official missionaries.
Read First
Missionaries Officially Recognized
- October 1962 - GFA announces its
missions division. Rev. Ken Becker to serve as Executive Secretary.
Read Rev.
Ken Becker appointed to lead GFA
- January 1963 - Commissioning service
held for first missionaries.
Read First
missionaries commissioned for service
- 1964 - Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. visits GFA
missionaries during his round-the-world preaching tour.
Read Dr. Bob
Jones, Sr., Missionary Statesman
- The Rev. Ken Becker, Executive Secretary,
provides 14 years of crucial leadership as GFA expands its ministry as a
fundamental mission agency.
Read The
Rev. Ken Becker - 14 years as Executive Secretary
- July 1976 - Dr. V.L. Martin, Director of Missions
- June 1979 - Dr. Marvin Lewis, Director of Missions
- January 1991 - Dr. Mark Batory, Executive Director
Putting the "gospel" in Gospel Fellowship
Association
"To
get the gospel to as many people as possible in the shortest time possible."
Those were the very words written by Bob Jones, Sr., in the purpose statement
of the Gospel Fellowship Association at its incorporation in December, 1939.
Now relieved of the heavy administrative burdens of the college he founded, Dr.
Bob, Sr., purposed to give the most of his time "until I die, or until Jesus
comes, endeavoring to unite orthodox, regenerated, Christian men and women and
boys and girls in an harmonious effort to spread the Gospel." From its inception,
GFA was to be a fellowship of individual Christians who would take seriously
the Lord's command to go into all the world and preach the gospel to everyone.
It
was Dr. Bob, Sr., who put the "gospel" in GFA. He sought through the
establishment of GFA the prayerful, sympathetic, friendly co-operation of all
brothers and sisters in the Lord, regardless of their denominational
affiliations, in this greatest business in the world--the winning of lost
people to the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He also had faith to believe that
God would lead His people to support this venture in order that evangelists and
other Christian workers may be sent out to preach the gospel over radio
stations, in shops and factories, in tents and tabernacles, in churches where
there are open doors, on street corners, in parks and in public buildings. He
encouraged members to make house-to-house canvasses and to distribute gospel
tracts in every place where there was an opportunity and a need. That was his
vision for this "Gospel Fellowship Association," a fellowship of individual
Christians who would take seriously the Lord's command to go into all the world
and preach the gospel to everyone. Back to top
Early Ministries
Bob
Jones, Sr., was a veteran evangelist of over forty years experience. He
understood the need of soul-winning endeavor among God's people and believed
that one of the great hindrances to soul-winning was the lack of harmony among
evangelical, orthodox Christians. He also believed that the spiritual growth of
the members of the body of Christ was being retarded by the unkind and critical
attitude of some Christians toward other Christians. He sought to rally God's
people, therefore, not around some minor tenet that was not essential to the
saving of a soul, but around the principle that God's people can and should
work together in harmony to carry out the Lord's clear command: "Go ye into all
the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."
Since
many churches and their leaders were increasingly ravaged by the destructive
influences of modernism and liberalism, Dr. Jones proposed a fundamentalist
creed for Gospel Fellowship Association that would be a sufficient and proper
basis for Christian fellowship, a creed that all born-again men and women could
and should sincerely accept. He believed that Christians should live together
in peace and that it is their Christian duty to promote harmony among the
members of the Body of Christ so as to "work together to get the gospel to as
many people as possible in the shortest time possible."
Within
three years the Gospel Fellowship Association had eight Field Secretaries
covering eleven states. The Association had also been given supervision of the
summer practical work done by Bob Jones
College ministerial students as
well as keeping track of the summer ministries of Bob
Jones College
graduates. Through the newly established
Christian Service Bureau of GFA, the Association sponsored evangelistic
campaigns; distributed tracts; supplied pastors, evangelists, mission workers, young
people's workers, Bible teachers, radio speakers, and song leaders. For
example, the summer extension work done by the students of Bob Jones College in
1942 and directed by the Gospel Fellowship Association included a quarter of a
million tracts distributed, nearly 30,000 homes visited, and approximately
6,000 public services conducted. Ninety-five groups for definite soul winning
and twenty Young People's Fellowship Clubs were organized. More than 12,500
people were dealt with personally resulting in nearly 2,000 professions of
conversion, over 1,300 re-consecrations and 190 dedications to Christian
service. Clearly the Gospel Fellowship Association, through its various
outreaches, was being used of God to get the gospel to as many people as
possible in the shortest time possible. Back to top
Battle Lines Drawn
Even
in his latter years, Dr. Jones, Sr., never lost his focus as an evangelist. He
understood that the evangelist, together with apostles, prophets, pastors and
teachers, had been given to the church "for the perfecting of the saints, for
the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ" (Eph. 4:12). As an evangelist, he sought to win
souls and to challenge God's people to be soul-winners too. But he understood
his biblical obligation as an evangelist to nurture and care for God's people,
particularly in response to the insensitivity of compromise evangelism to the
long-term weakening of Christianity, which he likened to that of a man
gathering apples from his orchard. With careless indifference, Dr. Jones
explained, the would-be fruit-gather clambers all over the tree, breaking
branches in the process of gathering the apples. Though he gathers some fruit,
he leaves the tree in ruins. He has wrecked it for future fruit-bearing. He
stressed:
- "The test of
the work of an evangelist is not how many converts the evangelist has. The test
of his work as an evangelist is how he leaves the orchard. Did he tear the
limbs off the tree? Did he make it hard for soul winners when the campaign was
over? Did he in violation of the Scripture give Christian recognition to some
preachers who do not believe the Word of God and do not accept the fundamentals
of the faith? If I had an apple orchard loaded down with apples, I would rather
lose one year's crop than to have my orchard so ruined that it would never
again produce any fruit."
It
was Dr. Bob's contention that the "tree" of Christianity would suffer long-term
damage as a result of such "fruit-gathering." This firm conviction to oppose
all compromise is part of the legacy Dr. Bob has left with Gospel Fellowship
Association. It is never right to sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the
immediate. It is not right to violate some part of Scripture on the pretense
"that it gives you a chance to preach the gospel to somebody else." It is never
right to do wrong, even to get an opportunity to do right. Back to top
Sensing the hand of God
Fundamental
Christians live and serve God today in the wake of the independent church
movement that swept through our country during the latter half of the previous
century. Though independent Baptist churches and, to a lesser extent, Bible
churches dominate the fundamental religious scene today, it was a far different
religious picture at the time when the Gospel Fellowship Association was
formed. The mainline denominations still contained many born-again believers
who were trying to hold the line against the inroads of modernism and
liberalism. These faithful Christians included many godly missionaries who,
though still a part of their established denominational boards, struggled to
continue their work of world evangelization despite troublesome trends facing
them at home and on the field.
From
the outset, the Gospel Fellowship Association, as was made clear in its purpose
statement, would have two major themes: the promotion of harmony and peace
among God's people and diligent effort to proclaim the gospel message
worldwide. Included in its charter was the provision that "evangelists,
pastors, missionaries, Bible teachers, secretaries, and others" would
constitute the core of workers who would carry out the purpose of the
organization. Where necessary the organization would be authorized to "license,
ordain, and send out" these who would come under the sponsorship or auspices of
the Gospel Fellowship Association.
Writing
in his memoirs in 1985, Dr. Bob Jones, Jr., looked back to the founding of the
Gospel Fellowship Association by his father and recounted the following
incident:
- Among the ministries with which I
have been involved now for many years is the Gospel Fellowship Association.
This organization, founded by my father almost fifty years ago, has as its
object the promotion of fellowship, Bible study, and soulwinning on the part of
individual Christians. At the time the charter and bylaws were drawn up, our
attorney said to my father, "Do you not think we should indicate among the
purposes of the organization the licensing and ordaining of Christian workers?
The time may come when you may need to license or ordain missionaries."
Although my dad was not enthusiastic about this idea, he recognized this in the
purposes of the organization. (Bob Jones, Jr., Cornbread
and Caviar. Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 1985).
The
providential insertion of this provision in the charter at the founding of GFA
now came into serious consideration as the Board of Trustees met in annual
meeting in May 1959. Back to top
Necessity Demands Action
Seeds
of discontent were sprouting into complete frustration as godly, separated
missionaries fought losing battles against compromise on the field. Typical of
the situations confronting fundamental missionaries was of the Rev. Jerry
Johnson in Japan.
Having gone to Japan
under another mission agency in 1949, he could no longer continue with them
following their participation in the 1956 Billy Graham campaign held under the
sponsorship of Kyodan or United Church
in Japan, the
country's largest Protestant organization. Fundamental missionaries had already
experienced problems with Kyodan because of its compromise in allowing
Shintoism worship and idolatry. The Johnsons resigned from the mission agency,
but continued to serve in Japan as independent missionaries, joining a growing
stream of Bob Jones University graduates who pleaded with GFA that they be
allowed to transfer their services to it as a mission agency.
In
response to the growing pressure on GFA to become a mission agency, the Board
of Directors adopted unanimously a resolution to address that need. Several
particulars deserve emphasis regarding that resolution. First, it expressed extreme reluctance on the part of the
leadership, especially Dr. Jones, Jr., to have GFA become a missionary-sending
agency. Only with hesitancy was it even acknowledged that this may become a
necessity. Second, if such action
were deemed necessary, it would be because of the failure of existing boards to
provide a separated testimony. If the faith mission boards were doing their
job, there would be no need for another mission agency to duplicate their work.
Third, GFA, if it actually became
involved in sending out missionaries and raising of funds for their support, it
would not delve into related missionary matters, such as reviewing
qualifications of candidates; thus, whatever missionary involvement by GFA, it
would be minimal to the extent that it would expedite the movement of personnel
and funds to the field. There was never any obsession with entering into what
could be termed a full-fledged mission agency, a move forced on GFA only by
circumstances that were not of its own choosing.
To
de-emphasize any missions component within GFA, the Executive Committee,
meeting on May 25, 1961,
determined that people coming under GFA sponsorship were not to be called
"missionaries," but rather "field workers." From its beginning in 1939, GFA had
sought field representatives in various states and countries to oversee its
evangelistic outreach. To that end, the Executive Committee unanimously
recommended the Rev. Gerald Johnson as field representative for GFA in Japan.
Meeting five days later, the Board of Directors approved the recommendation
from the Executive Committee, moving GFA another step closer to becoming a
world missions undertaking. Yet GFA's exact status as any sort of mission board
remained far from obvious. No one, including Dr. Jones, Jr., had issued any
directive to "start a mission board." Back to top
First Missionaries Officially Recognized
At
a historic session on Tuesday, January
23, 1961, in the Administration
Building on the campus of Bob
Jones University,
Maurice and Peggy Paulson, Gerry and Miriam Johnson, Harry and Jean Bain,
Dudley and Kathy Atteberry and Ethylen Bennett were all accepted for full
membership as missionaries under Gospel Fellowship Association. The critical
decision had been made.
The
first public announcement that something had indeed been done regarding the
missions question did not appear until over a year later. In a brief note in The Fellowship News in June 1962, Dr.
Bob, Sr., quoted from a letter he received from a man and his wife who attended
Bob Jones
University before they were
married. They had "just returned to the States from Africa
because they could not compromise by continuing to work under a certain mission
board," explained Dr. Bob. He continued. "This couple will go out again to the mission field under the sponsorship of the
Gospel Fellowship Association (emphasis added), which the Lord led us to
found a number of years ago." Dr. Bob, Sr.'s, brief announcement in that June
article was an affirmation of the action taken earlier in 1961 by the Executive
Committee.
In
Cornbread and Caviar, Dr. Jones, Jr.,
recounts those initial encounters with the missionaries in South
Africa as he condenses several years of
growing involvement by GFA in missions into a single paragraph.
- Sometime after the war while in South
Africa for a series of meetings, I
encountered some of our graduates serving as missionaries under another mission board. These young missionaries were tremendously
disturbed because of the compromise they found in their board. They were alarmed
by certain questionable alliances the mission was making, organizations with
which the missionaries were working, and the quality of the literature in the Johannesburg
bookstore. They said to us, "We cannot continue to serve with this board and are looking for somewhere to go. Do you
suppose we could be accepted as missionaries with Gospel Fellowship
Association?" I promised to give some thought to it and upon my return discuss
it with the GFA board. The latter agreed unanimously that we should accept
missionary candidates who met our standards and who were qualified for the
mission field. It was agreed at that time that we would never put on high
pressure drives to recruit missionaries but would make our position known and
would consider any who applied to us. (Bob Jones, Jr., Cornbread
and Caviar. Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 1985, p. 75). Back to top
Rev. Ken Becker appointed to lead GFA
In
a chapel service in October 1962, Dr. Jones, Jr., announced the formation of
the missions aspect of the Gospel Fellowship Association with Rev. Ken Becker
serving as Executive Secretary. The plan was for Mr. Becker to spend a good
deal of his time on the road presenting the missionary challenge of GFA and
acquainting people with its policies and purposes as they touched on foreign
mission activities. Dr. Jones also explained the conditions within Christian
missions that prompted this decision by GFA to become a missions agency.
"Today, thirty years later [after its founding], when mission boards that stand uncompromisingly
for the Word of God are few, we can see that step by step God has led in the
organization and work of the association that now sponsors 25 missionaries who
are either on the field or doing deputation work preparatory to going there."
Dr.
Jones further explained. "Our duty is to do what God commands--be faithful for
the sake of those who can be saved from being overrun and destroyed by apostasy
. . . As conditions grow worse, those called of God to serve on mission fields
are going to have a hard time finding a board whose sponsorship they can
accept. Thank the Lord, a few faithful boards remain. The number, however, is
decreasing . . . As young missionary couples have found their sponsoring boards
yielding to the pressure of compromise, many of them have asked, 'Can't we be
sponsored by GFA?' So it looks as if, more and more, God is pushing this
organization into serving as a missionary organization . . . As lights that
formerly have shown brightly have begun to grow dim and flicker, it is more
than ever essential that we take up the torch." Back to top
First Commissioning Service
Of
special significance at the beginning of 1963 was the first commissioning
service conducted by GFA. Twelve missionaries were commissioned by GFA in a
Saturday chapel service at Bob Jones
University on February 23, 1963. These were the first to be
formally commissioned since the formation of GFA the previous year. Dr. Marvin
Lewis, Executive Promotional Secretary of GFA, presided. The Rev. Ken Becker,
Executive Secretary of GFA, introduced the candidates and delivered a
missionary challenge, saying that "the Cause of evangelistic Christian missions
must be maintained. The creeping forces of infidelity, compromise, and apostasy
are looming up as giants against this Cause. We wish to raise the battle cry
before a cowering Christian church as David did before the armies of Israel--'Is
there not a Cause?'"
These
early missionaries represented ministries in Japan,
Puerto Rico, Latin America, and Sweden,
with other fields of endeavor quickly opening in France,
Cyprus, Spain,
and Korea, as
couples or individuals sought to be included in GFA's expanding family of
missionary workers. In his first report to the Board of Directors in May 1963, Mr. Becker noted GFA had accepted 25 into its family with 10 already on
the field. Back to top
Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., Missionary Statesman
The
vision of Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., for the Gospel Fellowship Association was that it
would be used of God "to get the gospel to as many people as possible in the
shortest time possible." The missionary thrust through Gospel Fellowship
Association Missions (GFAM) that now identified GFA clearly reflected Dr. Bob's
life-long concern for missions and world evangelization. Throughout his
preaching career, Dr. Jones often traveled outside the United
States, preaching in the British
Isles, in Asia, in South
Africa, and in Latin America.
His evangelistic efforts on the European continent even took him to Poland
(White Russia) in the late 1930s prior to the outbreak
of World War II. As graduates from Bob Jones University began to multiply on
the foreign mission field, Dr. Bob took special pleasure in seeing his "boys
and girls" on these evangelistic trips. With his ministry as a powerful
evangelist already well recognized and his Christian university fully
established, he would now add to his long life of service that of missionary
statesman.
In
October of 1963, one year after the inauguration of GFAM, Dr. Jones observed
his 80th birthday, having experienced a full ministry of evangelism
and Christian education. In faculty meeting or in chapel, when commenting on
his life and ministry, he often would say, "Someday I'd like to take a few
months, and get on a boat, and take a trip around the world." On Founder's Day
of that year (October 30), the faculty and staff made that wish a reality when
they presented him and Mrs. Jones with tickets for just such a trip.
Dr.
and Mrs. Jones departed for their round-the-world trip on January 2, 1964, stopping at San
Francisco to board the "President Roosevelt" for their
voyage across the Pacific, stopping in Honolulu,
Hawaii, to attend a Bob
Jones University
alumni gathering. After arriving in Yokohama, Japan,
they attended a second alumni conference in Tokyo.
From Japan they
then traveled by air to Thailand,
India, Iran,
Syria, Lebanon,
Jordan, Israel,
Cyprus, Italy,
Austria, Denmark,
and France. In
each country they continued to seek out the many Bob
Jones University
alumni who now served God on the foreign field. (By 1963 more than 800 Bob
Jones University
alumni served as foreign missionaries on nearly 90 mission fields. The large
percentage of these men and women served with faith missions.) During the
two-month tour, Dr. Jones preached often and continued to hold meetings with
alumni. Dr. Bob and his wife arrived back in New York
on February 24. This world-wide missions trip would be the last opportunity for
Dr. Jones to visit with his "boys and girls" who had been trained in the
Christian university he had founded. For those men and women who were part of
GFA, it would be a special reminder to remain true to what Dr. Bob had preached
so often to them while they were students at the University.
Dr.
Bob would live less than four more years with increasingly failing health, but
his evangelistic heart never gave out. His burden that GFA be a means by which
the gospel could be brought "to the most people possible in the shortest time
possible" had become a living reality in his lifetime as well as in the lives
of GFA missionaries and countless other graduates of the University, who
spanned the globe and determined to preach the gospel to the lost and dying. Back to top
The Rev. Ken Becker - 14 years as Executive
Secretary
How
do you administer and promote a fledgling mission agency? That was the task
that faced Rev. Becker as he proceeded with his ministry as Executive Secretary
for GFAM. His two-fold-mandate was clear from the announcement of his
appointment by Dr. Jones, Jr. Rev. Becker would spend much of his time on the
road presenting the missionary challenge and acquainting God's people with the policies and purposes
of GFAM. The balance of his ministry would involve overseeing the expanding
office details of the new organization, which was at the beginning simply the
missionary arm of the broader Gospel Fellowship Association. Dr. Jones further
urged Bob Jones
University graduates to book Rev.
Becker for meetings in their churches, to pray for him and the missionary
program of Gospel Fellowship Association. Graduates and friends of the
University were encouraged to pray for those missionaries already on the field
as well as those who were raising funds in order to go to the field as soon as
possible.
On
the campus of BJU, Gospel Fellowship Association Missions quickly became a
symbol of the focused missionary interest throughout the student body,
particularly through the daily prayer bands, the bi-weekly missionary chapels,
and the missionary training programs. As a result, the early GFAM missionaries,
with few exceptions, were Bob Jones
University alumni. The mission's
leadership came from administrators and friends of the University. Support for
the mission endeavors, drawn from all over the USA,
came heavily from pastors who were alumni. There was no hiding of the fact that
although the University had many other missionary interests besides GFAM, it's
leadership, particularly Dr. Jones, Jr., took special interest in the Mission's
development because GFAM stood for what was needed in the world of missions. Bob
Jones University
was a known quantity in fundamentalist circles and its inherent involvement
with the establishment and promotion of GFAM gave the new agency immediate
authenticity, though total acceptance by pastors and churches would take
considerable more time to develop. That would be the task laid out before the
Executive Secretary-to raise a GFAM constituency that would fully support the
endeavor. And for the next 14 years, Rev. Becker provided the day-to-day
leadership that brought GFA to the forefront of fundamental Christian
missionary endeavor. Back to top
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