VOICE OF CHRISTIAN YOUTH - DETROIT
It was Saturday, March 16th,1946 that I experienced the most exciting night of my life, at least to that point in my life. In the weeks preceding that night, every Christian program on Detroit area radio stations was promoting the largest Voice Of Christian Youth Rally that Detroit had ever witnessed. Detroit's VCY had begun a few years earlier and was a bi-weekly inter-church youth rally with exciting music and speakers. It was a forerunner of Youth For Christ and became a part of the YFC organization when it was formed in 1946. The song leader that night was Stratton Shufelt, soloist Connie Templeton, wife of Charles Templeton, Toronto Youth For Christ director and the speaker was Billy Graham.
As I mentioned previously (May 11, 2017 blog) Mom and Dad had listened to Billy Graham on WCFL Chicago Sunday nights. Billy was the pastor of The Village Church in Western Springs, Illinois and he started a live broadcast called Songs In The Night which was aired at 9:30pm CST, 10:30pm in Chatham. When my folks heard that Billy Graham, who was now the first full-time evangelist with Youth For Christ and was to be the speaker, Dad was determined to take a car load of us teenagers to the meeting. Since Dad did not own a car at that time, Norman Martin, a friend in Chatham, loaned Dad his car and off to Detroit we went, Dad and five of us young people. Dad parked the car in Windsor, we took the Detroit-Windsor tunnel bus, then boarded a street car in Detroit and road about three miles up Grand River Boulevard to the Olympia Stadium. That was a mighty big place to this 14 year old. It was the arena where the Detroit Red Wings played hockey and it seated over 16,000 people.
Olympia Stadium
The VCY director was Ed Darling and that big rally in Detroit was a send off rally for Stratton Shufelt, Billy Graham, Torrey Johnson and Charles Templeton. These four men were going to England for some YFC rallies. Johnson was in Chicago that night for a send off and Templeton was speaking for Jack Wrytzen in New York City. The four of them boarded an airplane on Tuesday the 19th, on what was the first trans-continental flight to Europe after World War Two. It was these men's first trip to England to proclaim the gospel.
One lasting impression, of that night, was to see hundreds and hundreds of people walk forward at the close of Mr. Graham's message and pray to receive Christ as their personal Savior. Up to then, I had seen one and maybe two people go forward at an invitation, but here were hundreds.
L to R - T. Johnson, C. Templeton, S. Shufelt, B. Graham
Comments
Post a Comment