Jimmie in His Own Words

Jimmie Lovell wrote a script in preparation for an audio recording on vinyl in 1967. We have edited the script to reduce its length. After Jimmie’s script, we offer Jimmie’s comments from his periodical, Action.

This introduction is truly a mighty happy moment for me, but it would be a much happier one, could I personally talk with you face-to-face, and kneel with you and your family right there in your home in prayer to our God.

According to our family records, Thomas Cowan, a grandfather five generations ago, was a captain in the Revolutionary War. He was baptized for the remission of his sins, called himself a Christian, and had the Supper on each Lord’s Day. He was a forefather on my father’s side. Lewis Vallandigham, a great, great, grandfather of my mother, was born in Virginia. He also served in the Revolutionary War and later as a scout under Daniel Boone in settling Kentucky. As we have it, Alexander Campbell baptized Lewis and Elizabeth Vallandigham. My grandfather, Dr. A. C. Vallandigham, was a great man in the affairs of Kentucky and the church of the Lord. My father’s mother was Mary Buntin. David Lipscomb baptized this grandmother in about 1865. She became a charter member of the church in Portland, Tennessee, where I was born and raised.

It so happened that my two sisters, my brother and I all married outside of the church. But those whom we married became Christians and every child born into the four families were added to the Lord as were many of those whom they married. So far as I know, my wife Vivian, my sweetheart of 43 years, was the first Utah-born person to come into the church as we know it. I taught her father and mother the better way of life. After we had started the church in Salt Lake City, Otis Gatewood baptized them into Christ. I baptized Vivian’s two brothers and a sister-in-law—the entire family.

I began publishing the Colorado Christian periodical. Returning to Los Angeles in 1937, working with G. C. Brewer, I started West Coast Christian, and have published and worked with our brotherhood papers ever since. My road in this field has not been easy but it has been a happy one. I have always felt that persecution was quite healthy for a Christian.

In 1959 I retired after 36 years with DuPont Company and some 43 years of continuous travel which found me with almost 2 million miles by air, twice around the world, 24 times across the Atlantic, visiting in 54 nations and many times in every one of the United States. In 1961, Vivian and I built a home in Palos Verdes Estates overlooking the beautiful, blue Pacific Ocean. We are within two miles of our daughter Patsie with her husband Doug Trowbridge, an attorney, and their two children. All of us worship together at the church in Torrance, California.

In January 1962, I started the publication Action, a work which is now so very dear to my heart since I can handle it and the related work right here at home, filling every minute that I am awake with service to man and God. So often I am on the job at 2:30 in the morning but the very fact that over two billion persons in our world know nothing about Christ deeply concerns me. I believe that the church of Christ in our world today is living in sin. One of my most used expressions is this: Every person has more right to hear the Gospel once, than any one person has to hear it twice. I simply cannot sleep when there are souls out there by the millions without any hope. I must help in some way to get the Gospel to them. I do depend upon inspiration which I receive from others to drive me on. I could name you one by one by the hundreds.

Thank you, my beloved friends, my beloved brethren in Christ, with all my heart. I am so happy for this opportunity to express such thanks. At one time I purchased a large tent, booked meetings, and sent R. N. Hogan across the nation preaching the Gospel. I love this brother as my own flesh and blood. I have in one way or another backed every missionary we have sent from our shores in the last 50 years. Although I have spoken in churches in many states and lands, I have never considered myself an evangelist. My contacts have been made most generally through my writings. In five years, Action has grown from scratch to 42,000 in circulation. Now let me mention a few facts upon which I place the destiny of my soul. I believe the Bible to be the revealed Word and will of God to man. I do not understand it all but I believe it all. I believe some 2,000 years ago Jesus, the living Son of God, the Messiah, was born of a virgin whose name was Mary, that He died on a cross to redeem man from his sins and that He purchased the church with His blood. I believe there is one church—the one He purchased. As to who is in it, in reality, no one knows but God, yet we do know that those who are in have been born again, born of the water and the Spirit. I also believe with all my heart and soul in prayer. In all my many years of travel, experience in war and the like, at which times I have swung out over hell on a thread, it was calling out to God that brought me back and to this blessed hour. The first thing I do when I open my eyes in the morning is to thank God for another day. Many times during each day I talk with our Father heart-to-heart. I believe that the Holy Spirit lives within me, that He not only explains to the Father my feeble groanings on behalf of my sinful soul but He also interceded on behalf of my weakness of body and mind. It is through the grace of Christ any of us has any hope.

Action Excerpts

In Action periodical, Jimmie’s first use of the name “World Bible School” was in the March-April 1973 issue. On page 3, under that heading, he wrote: For more than 40 years I have pretty much concentrated on this method [Bible correspondence] of reaching the unsaved in all nations with the Gospel. The effectiveness of it has proved itself so outstandingly in foreign lands, and it is now my opinion that we can make use of it just as fruitfully here in America. During these years, and much longer, I have held to more or less one basic objective—preaching the Gospel in every nation.

I still believe that every person has more right to hear the Gospel once than any one person has to hear it twice. I have now affixed another goal for living—to see the day when every church of Christ in the United States is making use of Bible correspondence courses in its own community. If we are not interested in saving ourselves, family and neighbors, we will never become too interested in others. I am willing to give every ounce of my energy in helping you and the church where you have membership to get started.

May-June, 1973, page 6: We have set up World Bible School here [at Torrance church]. What are our objectives? But one thing—souls, souls for Christ. But there are two general areas—those in foreign lands whom we expect to enroll in Bible correspondence courses with us here and those of us in America who will be teaching them. We want to start enrolling English speaking students in all nations where English is spoken—thousands of them—and in turn get thousands here at home to work who may never have in their lives been assigned the responsibility of helping to convert a soul to the Lord. Once we get an individual in a congregation involved, it will not be long until he or she, just like leaven, will set the whole church on fire. World Bible School will help to get every congregation using Bible correspondence courses.

July, 1973, page 1, under the headline WORLD BIBLE SCHOOL ALL-CHURCH INVOLVEMENT, Jimmie Lovell wrote,

The day has come when God’s people are going to come alive – where the church is going to catch on fire! I believe with all of my heart that day is here—I see it already. James Cowan, one of my forefathers of North Carolina, following the Revolutionary War, studied himself and a whole congregation of others into the church, and they have never heard of Campbell, Stone or Smith. These persons were so deeply convicted they lived for but one purpose—convert others. This same spirit has prevailed in many of our people until this day. The real fervor of the evangelistic spirit has never been lost among us, although it has certainly been shifted. [Now] preaching has become highly commercialized and Gospel meetings are poorly attended.

In this shift, we have changed from personal involvement of doing the work ourselves to paying others to do it for us. I believe that I have the right to speak with some understanding and authority on the world picture—I’ve been there with this one purpose in mind and I paid every penny of the cost of going. People in our world are seeking as never before out of ignorance, poverty, hunger, racism, strife, war. Millions upon millions are seeking a Savior, they are begging for the Bible, begging for Jesus Christ, begging for some hope in the life to come.

To keep the Lord’s commandments we must—let me say it again—we must preach the Gospel to every creature—we sin if we do not do so. This makes very clear our first objective: the Gospel to others. Wherever the Bible goes and is read, the seed is sown and we know that wherever it goes some of the seed will fall into good ground. Our job is to sow, sow Jesus Christ and Him crucified. God will handle the watering and the reaping. We are already enrolling thousands of unsaved persons in other nations who are eager to study the Bible. It is our plan to enroll persons in every nation on earth where English is spoken and maybe later get into other languages. I send this message to thousands of churches and more thousands of Christians with a prayer on my lips and in my heart that you will respond—I do so in the name of Christ, Amen.