Sunday: A Mother's Prayers Have Far Reaching and Profound Effects

SUNDAY UPDATE: While Lon Solomon leads a group in Greece "In the Footsteps of Paul," McLean Bible's associate pastor Jim Supp gives a dynamite sermon today I need to hear more than once. So fine. I was there this morning with some of my favorite friends.

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In a small town in Oklahoma in 1921, a young mother prayed for her yet unborn son, dedicating her child to God's service. When this child was born his parents named him William Bright. As a child he showed little interest in spiritual things, but his mother continued to pray for him.

Bill Bright graduated from college in 1943 and went west to Los Angeles to seek his fortune in business. On his first evening in LA, Bright picked up a hitchhiker who invited him to visit a home where he was living. It turned out to be the home of Dawson Trotman, the founder and director of The Navigators, an evangelical ministry. Bright was impressed by the hospitality and stimulating conversation of the Trotmans and other people he met there that evening, though he quickly forgot them as he went on his way to pursue his financial goals in the city.

Meanwhile, his mother continued praying for Bill.

The business he started was Bright's California Confections, which marketed gourmet foods in upscale shops and department stores. He was quickly achieving financial success.

After repeated invitation from his landlords, Bright began attending meeting for college students and young professional led by Dr. Henrietta Mears at Hollywood Presbyterian Church. He was very impressed by her teachings and others in the group, finding them intellectually stimulating and successful yet not materialistic and selfish like he considered himself.

He began to realize something was missing from his own life.

After a particularly challenging teaching by Dr. Mears on finding true happiness only at "the center of God's will," Bill went home yearning for this inner happiness. He later recalled:

I laid down beside my be that night and asked the questions which Dr. Mears challenged us to pray, "Who art Thou, Lord?" "What wilt thou have me do?"

In a sense this was my prayer for salvation. It wasn't very profound theologically, but God knew my heart and He interpreted what was going on inside of me. Through my study I now believed Jesus Christ was the Son of God, that He died for my sin, and that, as Dr. Mears had shared with us, if I invited Him into my life as Savior and Lord, He would come in.

Bright enrolled at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. In 1948 he married his wife, Vonette who had also been led to Christ by Henrietta Mears. Meanwhile he was constantly torn between business, evangelism, and seminary pursuits.

Late one night in 1951 while studying for an exam, he had a powerful vision of helping to fulfill the great commission in his lifetime by evangelizing college campuses. Greatly affected by the vision, he shared it the next morning with Dr. Wilbur Smith, his professor and mentor. Smith responded, "This is of God." And the next day Smith told him "I believe God has given me the name for your vision----Campus Crusade for Christ."

After much prayer Bill and Vonette decided that he should leave seminary to pursue his vision of bring the gospel to college students and training them to evangelize their peers Bright then sold his confection business and rented a house one block from the UCLA campus. Within a few months 250 students, including the president of the student body, the editor of the school newspaper and several top athletes had given their lives to Christ.

Campus Crusade quickly spread to other campuses and on August 28, 1953, Campus Crusade for Christ was officially incorporated. Bill Bright's vision and ministry have shaped the organization into one of the largest interdenominational mission agencies in the world. It's most substantial mark on world missions is the JESUS film, which has been viewed by more than 4 billion people in more than 650 languages, with millions of conversions since 1979.

All of this had its beginnings with a mother who prayed for her unborn son and dedicated his life to God, and then kept praying for him the rest of her life.

----E. Michael and Sharon Rustin, The One Year Christian History