WORLD BIBLE SCHOOL
ACTION – September 1973
Jimmie Lovell, Founder of World Bible School
I’ve tackled a number of exciting projects for the Lord in my lifetime but I seem now to have arrived at the most exciting one of all, however, all of them, in one way or another, fit together. Let me review a bit: In 1936 when we moved back to Denver, there was no church in the Dakotas, Utah or Nevada and maybe one little rural church in Recluse, Wyoming – there was really not one strong church in all of the Rocky Mountain states. Vivian and I started the Colorado Christian (later the Rocky Mountain Christian) in order to make known and lend encouragement to these little, way-off-bythemselves churches. When we came back to Los Angeles in 1937 we started the West Coast Christian for pretty much the same purpose, covering all of the West from Mexico to Alaska.
I personally traveled the same territory and more. In all cases, sowing the seed in new places and helping to build the many small existing churches became my mission, my mission then and it still is. All the while we were raising vast sums of money to send and support our workers across the seas.
Having written, while in Denver, the first Bible Correspondence Course I ever saw, and finding it, although so poorly done, a tool by which any Christian could multiply his or her influence, I began to push the idea with our missionaries. It was astounding how fast it proved of value but it required money and we started supplying it. With both our West Coast Christian and California Christian papers we helped Olan Hicks start and build the Christian Chronicle. In 1962 we started ACTION with a stronger emphasis on world missions through Bible Correspondence. In some way or another to preach the Gospel in every nation of the world became our goal.
It was not until on my third world trip and in Africa that I came to the realization that one cannot take a Bible Correspondence Course without a Bible. However, I found there one case where near 100 Students in a 50-mile radius who were doing their study from a single Bible. Bibles then became a major added objective. I feel now that I waited most all of my life to find the most important one thing to mankind in all the world – the pearl of great price – God’s Word. Then it was that Vivian and I started down that long road of reaching, in some fashion, the unsaved person with the Bible or Bible lessons – if he accepted one we tied in the other – no greater twins were ever born. Today, outside the United States, we have close to a half million Students enrolled in Bible study. Please do not pass this by without thinking seriously what it means – 500,000 unsaved persons in our hands seeking salvation. To each of them we are helping to get a Bible and the lessons – the lessons and the Bible.
The tremendous efforts with all of the backing of great churches here in America; the dedication, determination and efficiency of our workers over there, I saw, as I have never seen elsewhere in the world – even here – the power of the Gospel – what the Bible, and almost the Bible alone – can do in the hearts of man.
By some act of God (we call it providence) we were able to get thousands of Bibles printed on Communist presses in Czechoslovakia, and delivered into the hands of our courageous workers out of Vienna, Austria. You readers of ACTION gave the money – I just helped get it there. Not only that initial transaction, you have supplied to them some $60,000 or $70,000 since that time. Here we have a situation where dedicated, scholarly men of God with their dedicated wives and children are staging a new Restoration Movement like of which the world has never known. The Word of God is going out in 11 different languages, followed by both mail and personal contacts. It is one of the ripest fields and richest works on earth with many redeemed souls now in every one of those nations.
The Bible, my Brothers, with Christ, Peter, Paul and others, is the most powerful proclaimer of the Gospel – having to do with man and eternal life – in all the world. I come now, no doubt, to my life’s closing chapter – WORLD BIBLE SCHOOL which brings to sharp focus all which I have mentioned above.
Oh how I’ve worked and prayed about all this, and how wonderful so many of you blessed souls have been to help make so much of what I mention in this paper possible – thousands and thousands, yes hundreds of thousands of dollars. I now bring you to one of the greatest works of them all where money plays but a minor part – our WORLD BIBLE SCHOOL.
There are two major situations having to do with man and Christianity (1) the unsaved and (2) the responsibility of the saved to get Christ to him, which means that if the saved does not do it, he stands in the same position – or even worse – than the unsaved – both will be lost. As so much which I have mentioned above, after most of life has been spent, I awaken to these two vital insights with some knowledgeable means of handling them. Finding and enrolling the unsaved is not too difficult and we are fast finding teachers who will see that Christ and His soul-saving message reaches them. From one end to the other it requires lots of deep thinking, planning and hard work on our part but this is joy to our souls – millions are dying without Christ – we have a job to be done.
We have had to start with those who can read and write English and we are in the process of enrolling such persons all over the world. It is somewhat a costly procedure but the thought of a soul in darkness drives us on. We already have Students in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Kenya and many will be coming soon from several other nations.
We plan to have 100,000 Students next year and 500,000 by two years from now – all taught by members here in America – the saved must become involved if they stay saved. Churches in a number of places have become involved. It is nothing short of being fantastic.
I can truthfully say, you have never experienced such interest and excitement as this work will bring. You will be keeping some of the Lord’s commandments you never kept before and it will bring you happiness in the church you never had before. You will be preaching Christ from your own home not from some church building, which proves it can be done from both.
I ask again that every preacher, elder, member who reads this to become involved as it will help you toward that home where there are no tears, no night. I send this with a prayer and my love.
