by Keith Bassham
A day or so before we went to press, good friend and BBFI pioneer evangelist Don Brown was called home by the Lord. A full obituary will be included in the next issue, but I mention his departure as a reminder, along with the other notices on our With the Lord page, of the aging of our Fellowship. The average age of a non-catholic pastor in our country is in the lower 50s, and it rose about a half-year every year when we were collecting data in the 1990s. Recently, in response to a shortage of priests, the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston raised the retirement age form 70 to 75 (a priest is expected to remain “active,” that is available for temporary assignment to age 75).
Former Tribune editor Jim Combs and Fellowship founder Wally Williams recently visited my office, and we counted eight people still living among those who gathered at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth in May 1950 to found the Baptist Bible Fellowship. Two others who attended but did not sign the founding document also survive — 10 in all who have been here from the beginning — all young men at the time.
If I read the early Tribunes aright, no one seriously thought we would be around as a movement to celebrate a 50th, let alone a 60th anniversary. My predecessor, Tribune founder Noel Smith, opined in 1952 that “if things go on as they are — contingent, of course, on the coming of our Lord — the Baptist Bible Fellowship probably has 25 years to do what it is going to do. After that, the way things are going, it will go down into Egypt.”
Regarding the Tribune itself, he wrote that if the paper was still in business 25 years out, it would probably be edited by what he would call a “modernist.” On the other hand, Mr. Smith’s conclusion, if not his premise, was on the mark. He asked in that same editorial, “How much good can we all do together while the Baptist Bible Fellowship has the blood of youth in it, while it is true to the Bible? …We don’t have long at most — and we may not have another day.”
Nevertheless, back in 1952, Editor Smith believed that the Fellowship deserved a future, and 22 years later, he was still helping to form it. Well, we are still here, and we are true to the Bible. And while it may be true that the average pastor’s and missionary’s age is higher than it was in the 1950s, by the sheer fact of the numbers, the Fellowship has no shortage of young, bright, creative, and godly men and women, “the blood of youth,” with the courage to face giants, armed only with slings and faith if need be. The question for us today, as we seek a revival in this movement, is this: Will our energies be directed more toward preserving the past or will we take this opportunity to show we still deserve a future?