He has been called by many names such as John, Brother Rawlings, Dr. Rawlings, Doc, the preacher, even the bishop. But the name that was most recurrent during his lifetime was quite simply, “Dr. John.”
The inimitable preacher and co-founderof the Baptist Bible Fellowship was born into the family of George and Amanda Evelyn James Rawlings on January 29, 1914, in Sharp County, AR, in the upper Mississippi delta in the foothills of the Ozarks. He was an only son with two older sisters. His father was involved in a variety of businesses including cuttingand floating virgin timber to New Orleans, operating a dairy farm, cotton farm, and sawmills. His father was one of the first to bring a modern cotton gin to the area.
As a child, John attended a one-room school. His mother was a godly Christian who made sure her family was in church whenever there were services. Because the churches relied on circuit-riding preachers in those days, people attended the Methodist church on Sundays when the Methodist preacher came to hold services and the Baptist church when the Baptist preacher held services. John was led to Christ by his Sunday school teacher, a Methodist lady, when he was 13 years of age. About that same time his father also accepted Christ. John was baptized at Mountain View Missionary Baptist Church when he was 15. Rawlings was influenced heavily by a weekly Christian newspaper edited by well-known Baptist leader J. Frank Norris known as The Searchlight. His father would read sermons out of this newspaper when there were no services in town. The introduction to Norris through this newspaper was one of those defining moments that would set the direction for John’s spiritual walk and the course of his life. John testified that he knew he was called to preach even before he was saved because his mother had prayed and given him to the Lord to be a preacher before he was born.
In early childhood, John became friends with a neighbor girl named Orelia Mobley. The families attended church services together, and the two youngsters attended the same school. Rawlings testifies that they fell in love before they were teenagers and had much in common. Like his mother, Orelia was a godly Christian. She and John were very active in their local church. At the age of 18, he and Orelia were married (she passed away in 2007 after 75 years of marriage).
As he served the Lord in rural Arkansas, he felt the need for training. He became very interested when he learned that J. Frank Norris was planning to begin a Bible institute (which became Bible Baptist Seminary). When it started in 1939, John and Orelia packed up what they could, and with their three young sons, Herb, Harold, and Carrol, they moved to Fort Worth, TX (a fourth son, George, was born in Tyler, TX). In the seminary, John threw himself into his studies. He eagerly participated in long hours of door-to-door visitation, personal evangelism, and street preaching. Norris and school administrator Louis Entzminger became his mentors. Many considered John as the second coming of J. Frank Norris.
In the fall of 1940, Rawlings was asked to preach at Fundamentalist Baptist Church (later its name was changed to Central Baptist Church) of Tyler, TX, and the little congregation of 37 people called Rawlings to become Sunday school superintendent. They promised to make him permanent pastor if the church showed progress. Immediately after his call, he moved his family to Tyler, organized the Sunday school, did street preaching, and mobilized everyone he could to do visitation and soul winning. By February 1941, with 145 in attendance, the church voted to ratify him as their pastor. He maintained his weekday studies by taking a commuter bus to Fort Worth on Monday and returning to Tyler on Friday. By year’s end, he completed his studies and graduated from Bible Baptist Seminary. Of all the early leaders of the BBFI, Rawlings was the only one to graduate from Norris’ seminary.
During nearly 12 years of Rawlings’ ministry in Tyler, the church expanded its properties and completed four building projects. Using a new outreach with buses, attendance grew to an average of over 1,500 per Sunday and a high attendance of over 2,500. Rawlings developed an extensive radio ministry with 15-minute broadcasts six days a week and a one-hour program on Sunday nights. For many years the church had no paid staff except the pastor and a part-time secretary. It wasn’t until after attendance averaged 800 that other paid staff were added.
Beginning in 1942, Rawlings began street preaching every Saturday afternoon in the town squares of Brownsboro, Tyler, and Lindale, TX. He utilized a borrowed public-address system and hooked it up to his car. As a result, he started a mission in Lindale that later became a church. In places where he could not do street preaching, he held tent meetings. He would do this in various East Texas towns 18 to 23 weeks a year, driving back and forth from Tyler. From the results of these meetings many churches were planted in East Texas and as far south as Houston. You can still find a “Central Baptist Church” in most of these towns today. This sort of aggressive evangelism marked his ministry the rest of his life.
When the Baptist Bible Fellowship International was established in 1950, John Rawlings was a key figure both in private and public. In meetings at the Texas Hotel in May 1950, he was named vice president of the newly established Baptist Bible College. For the rest of that year, Rawlings joined G.B. Vick, W.E. Dowell, and others at meetings with pastorsin many states, rallying support for their new movement and its new school. On such a trip with Vick in the fall of that year, Rawlings confided that, “God might be moving me from Tyler.”
It was in the spring of 1951 that John saw his old mentor, J. Frank Norris for the last time. It was at a Billy Graham crusade they were both attending at the Will Rogers Coliseum in Fort Worth. Though they made eye contact with each other, neither of them spoke. Norris died the following year and Rawlings mourned deeply.
In 1951, Lockland Baptist Church of Cincinnati, OH, was without a pastor. It had experienced several problems, including a divisive split in its membership. Both G. B. Vick and W. E. Dowell met with the pulpit committee and recommended John Rawlings. Reluctantly, Rawlings preached at the church and evaluated its condition and need. When the chairman of the pulpit committee phoned to tell him he had received a unanimous call, he knew it was God’s will for him to go. He moved to Cincinnati in June.
The church had over 700 people attending Sunday school, but the schism was so deep that lawsuits had been filed, and the court was involved in supervising some operations. That first year Rawlings was involved in a power struggle with certain key people and various committees who seemed, in his view, to operate independently of the will or best interests of the church.
However, staying true to his evangelistic instincts, the embattled pastor saw many people added to the church, and despite the internal conflicts, a strong majority became loyal to him. He raised funds to finish a building that was under construction and it was dedicated before the end of the year. During 1952, the struggle for leadership between Rawlings and certain officers in the church finally came to a head. Just prior to Easter, a business meeting was held in which several officers were ousted by the vote of the church. The story created such a stir that it was carried in the local newspapers. Undaunted by the negative coverage, Rawlings determined to press forward to win souls and build the church.
From that time forward, the church unified behind Rawlings’ leadership and experienced growth. The church purchased several lots around its location and built two multi-story education buildings. The church auditorium was remodeled to provide seating for 2,000 people. Attendance soared to a high of over 3,000.
In 1958, Rawlings led the church to purchase 50 acres of land north of Cincinnati and in the summer conducted open-air meetings at the new property. In 1959, the church contracted to purchase 110 more acres adjacent to its property. The church today occupies 170 acres of property in north Cincinnati adjacent to Interstate Highway75. The first building was begun on the new property in 1963. Later that year the church was renamed Landmark Baptist Temple and moved to this location. Over the years the church built three main buildings (approximately 200,000 square feet), a parsonage, outbuildings, and 21 acres of paved parking on its vast acreage. It also developed a park, cemetery, and athletic fields.
The years following relocation of the church were characterized by continued growth and outreach by various means, and average weekly attendance reached a high of over 5,000. For several years the church reported 1,800 to 2,200 baptisms per year, and in the 1970s it was considered one of the largest churches in North America.
Rawlings believed in the power of broadcast media and always maintained a radio ministry. The potential to grow his influence through the larger radio market in Cincinnati was one of the leading reasons he decided to move from Tyler. He began a radio ministry called “The Landmark Hour,” as soon as he arrived in Cincinnati. It featured evangelistic messages by Rawlings and guest preachers at the church. In the early 50s it was expanded to include 53 stations and 200 by 1958. This ministry reached its peak at nearly 300 stations during the 1960s. Weekly television broadcasts from the church were also used to bring its ministry to the area. For a time “The Landmark Hour” television program was broadcast on an international cable network. These media broadcasts and newspaper advertising made the church well known for personal evangelism and standing firm on moral issues.
In addition to his ministry at the church, Rawlings continued his work with the Baptist Bible Fellowship International and Baptist Bible College. He served as president of the BBFI twice, from 1952-1954 and 1974-1977. He served as BBC’s vice president from its inception until 1972. He helped organize state fellowships in at least eight states and as BBFI president in 1974 he led in its reorganization to its current structure.
In 1994, he announced his retirement from the pastorate. His son Harold succeeded him at the church. In June of that year he moved to Lynchburg, VA, to become the chairman of ministry training at the Bible Institute of Liberty University and to be a consultant to Chancellor Jerry Falwell. During 18 months in Virginia, Rawlings also helped establish The National Liberty Journal.
In 1996, he moved to Northern Kentucky to establish the Rawlings Foundation with sons George and Herb. The original purpose of the Foundation was to help plant new churches and financially assist church building and expansion projects, but Rawlings vision began to broaden in the early days of the Foundation. Out of this vision has grown Impact Youth Worldwide and the Highlands Youth Camps (www.impactyouthworldwide.org). The Foundation has provided millions of dollars of funding for hundreds of ministries, churches, colleges, camps, and publications (including the Tribune). The Foundation’s scope is worldwide, with large footprints in Asia, Africa, Latin America, South America, and Europe.
In his latter years and despite a numberof health issues, Rawlings worked the phones and spoke in Fellowship meetings encouraging pastors to renew their efforts in evangelism and church planting. And he found time to remarry, taking Mary Birdwell Pruitt as his bride in 2008.
Rawlings laid his earthly burden down to enter the presence of the Lord January 30, 2013, at the age of 99 years plus one day. Thousands around the world notedhispassing, many expressing appreciation for his attention and faithfulness to themselves personally. In memorial services held February 4, 2013, at Landmark Baptist Temple in Cincinnati, OH, hundreds in attendance paid their respects and agreed with officiant Leland Kennedy that John W. Rawlings’ greatest legacy was his ability to win men’s hearts and urge them to service for the Lord.
Editor’s note:
Much of this article is either reprinted from material developed by Mike Randall or Keith Bassham during their times as editor of the Baptist Bible Tribune, from a personal interview between current editor Randy Harp and Harold Rawlings or from the biography, The Lord is Not Through with Me Yet, written by Kaitlyn O. Rawlings, great-granddaughter of John Rawlings.