Remembering Jerry Falwell

It was quite a shock to learn yesterday of the death of Jerry Falwell. I was a student at Liberty University for five years and an active participant in the Middle School Youth Ministry at Thomas Road Baptist Church for three of those years. Even though it has been many years since I left Lynchburg the news of Dr. Falwell's passing hit me harder than I ever thought it would.

The news media caricatures of Dr. Falwell were wholly inaccurate. This is understandable from the secular press who hated Dr. Falwell's Christian values but may in the so-called Christian press were just as slanderous in their coverage. I always wondered why Christians would hate him just as much if not more than their secular counterparts.

Anyway. Dr. Falwell was not a perfect man. I disagreed with him on some issues over the years. He is not even on the Top 10 list of my favorite preachers to hear. While I was at Liberty, I thought the rules were too strict in some areas. I did not understand some of the verbal gaffes he committed at times (though admittedly some of these gaffes were greatly exaggerated, mis-characterized, or otherwise taken out of context by the press to make them sound worse than they actually were).

YET HE WAS A CHRISTIAN GIANT!!!!!!!!

The main thing I learned from Dr. Falwell was VISION. Falwell did not have small dreams. His dream for Liberty University was for it to have 50, 000 students, play 1A sports at college's highest levels, have world class academics, and be deeply committed to Biblical Christianity. He wanted to change the world. He spoke constantly of this dream. It didn't seem to matter what passage of the Bible he was preaching on, he would always wonder back to this gigantic vision. I soaked up this visioneering. The vision God has given me for my future ministry is not small either. Dr. Falwell contributed to that greatly.

He had no interest in retirement. He wanted to live at least twelve years longer than he did (in 2004 he stated his desire to live fifteen more years). This was not to play golf or recline in a rocking chair on the front porch. It was to lead people to Christ and train (in his words) "Champions for Christ".

You will likely not see in the secular press the alcoholics who received healing at the Elim Home for Alchoholics he founded. You will not likely read of the many hungry people fed via different aspects of the ministries he founded. You will possibly not read of the hundreds (if not thousands) of unborn babies he saved from death in an abortion clinic through the Liberty Godparent home he founded. Yet this only begins to tell the story of God's accomplishments through him.

In a future post, I will tell of my personal interactions with Dr. Falwell. Including the time I almost contributed to him being attacked by a large number of empty milk crates. For now I shall just say: I miss him.