As told by Marty Hughes
A legacy is something of value that survives you and is passed down to your children and grand children. It involves lasting principles, enduring qualities of character that enhance the lives of those that follow in our footsteps. In many cases, it is abstract and unseen, residing in the realm of memory and personal motivation. At other times, it takes the form of institutions, traditions, and ongoing opportunities that offer to reproduce in our offspring the foundations upon which our lives and ministries were built.
Baptist Bible College fulfills both of these definitions. Its history and impact are the stuff of legend, from its conception at the Texas Hotel, to its birth and infancy in the 1950s, to its heyday as the “Largest Bible College in the World” in the 1970s, through its times of struggle, to the hopeful spirit of optimism for its future that is evident on campus today.
There are now three generations of alumni that have benefitted from the legacy of Baptist Bible College and those generations are inseparably linked. The men and women who founded the school and who stirred the passion for missions and ministry in the first generation had shown the fruit of consistent lives and served as living examples of lifelong faithfulness to the young upstarts of the second generation. Now, as the third generation hits its stride, they glean valuable insights from those who taught their parents to honor God’s Word and give their all in service to the Lord.
The memories of BBC that each generation treasures are strikingly different in some ways and eerily similar in others, but the common thread that runs through them all is a legacy of godly men and women with a passion for serving their Lord investing their lives into the hearts and minds of young people with the call of God upon their lives. Each generation has faced its own challenges, but the embers of their passion for God have been consistently fanned into flame by the local pastors, chapel speakers, teachers, and administrators that they came in contact with on the campus of Baptist Bible College.
In the 50s, students saw and heard from men like John Rawlings and Art Wilson, whose examples as fiery preachers and tireless church planters challenged them to lay everything on the line as pioneers across this great country. In the 70s, students were challenged by men like W.E. Dowell and Parker Dailey, with the heart of a pastor, to build a strong church and love their people. Today’s BBC students are challenged by young men like Mark Carter and Aaron Cavin, who carry on family traditions of faithful service to the Lord, and who call them to relevant, biblical ministry that can shake a postmodern world.
The network of resources, fellowship, encouragement, and accountability that being an alumnus of BBC provides has allowed each generation to have a major impact on their world. In the area of missions alone, Baptist Bible College has produced some of the most fruitful missionaries of our times. And the legacy continues in second and third generation missionaries doing great work all over the globe.
Yes, a legacy is something of value. It is something that endures. It has the ability to enhance the lives and the fruitfulness of those who benefit from it. As such, it is worth preserving. It is worth investing our lives, our resources, and our children in, so that if the Lord tarries, future generations will have the same opportunity to benefit from it that past generations have enjoyed.