Percy Crawford
Percy Bartimus Crawford (October 20, 1902 – October 31, 1960) was an
Youth and conversion
Crawford was born in
As a teenager, he left home and completed high school at the
Education
In 1924 he enrolled at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (BIOLA), where he was mentored by Thomas Corwin Horton and Reuben Torrey. At BIOLA Crawford discovered his gift for evangelism and committed himself to full-time Christian service.[3] After briefly studying at UCLA, Crawford earned a bachelor's degree at Wheaton College. During summer months of his student years, he made successful evangelistic tours with a gospel quartet, in one summer recording eight hundred professions of faith in Christ.[4]
In 1931, while a seminarian at
Marriage
In 1931, he met and, two years later, married a very young but gifted pianist and arranger from Collingswood, New Jersey, Ruth Duvall, who became his lifelong partner in evangelism. Ruth Crawford assembled a musical entourage—vocal quartet, brass quartet, men's and women's ensembles, and later a full orchestra—that distinguished Crawford's evangelistic ministry from others of his era.[7] The Crawfords had five children, four sons and a daughter.
Ministries
In 1929 Crawford began speaking on radio station WPEN, Philadelphia for the Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission, a homeless shelter and soup kitchen, which recorded its Sunday morning service before hundreds of homeless men. In October 1931, he started his own radio ministry called the Young People's Church of the Air, and within a decade the program was broadcast on four hundred stations.[8]
In 1933 Crawford founded Pinebrook Bible Conference for young people and brought to it the nation's leading fundamentalist Bible teachers and musicians. A few years later he added Shadowbrook camp for boys and Mountainbrook camp for girls. Crawford directed Pinebrook for nearly 28 years.[9]
In 1936, he founded
Crawford and his wife often traveled 40 to 50,000 miles a year with a quartet, and later their five children, conducting meetings and rallies mainly in the northeast but also on cross-country tours to the west coast.
In 1949, Crawford began the first coast-to-coast religious program,
Death
Crawford died on October 31, 1960, of a heart attack suffered while driving to a Youth for Christ evangelistic meeting in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Billy Graham was the main speaker at his funeral.[18]
References
- ^ Crawford (2010, p. 23).
- ^ Crawford (2010, pp. 26–28).
- ^ Crawford (2010, pp. 28–32, 48–61). Crawford vowed to his new-found Savior: "I'll give you every drop of blood I have."
- ^ Crawford (2010, pp. 62–75).
- ^ Crawford (2010, pp. 79–104).
- ^ Crawford (2010, pp. 125–29). Crawford "was not a 'come-outer'; he left only when he saw that if he did not he would be forced to compromise his own particular work for the Lord. And when he did finally leave, he did it in the least harmful way that he could—without attacking church officials or denouncing the church." (129)
- ^ Crawford (2010, pp. 104–07, 141–43, 235–36).
- ^ "Sunday Chester Times". Newspaper Archive. Chester Times. 20 May 1944. Retrieved 23 July 2015.; Crawford (2010, pp. 21–22)
- ^ Crawford (2010, pp. 130–57).
- ^ Crawford (2010, pp. 187–208).
- ^ Crawford (2010, pp. 227–236, 185–86, 255–56). Their children were Don, Dick, Dan, Dean, and Donna Lee.
- ^ Crawford (2010, pp. 244–49).
- ^ Crawford (2010, pp. 141, 168–69).
- ^ Crawford (2010, pp. 279, 138). Crawford selected Pinebrook speakers who were "on the moderate end of the spectrum, never for instance, inviting Carl McIntire or John R. Rice.
- ^ Crawford (2010, pp. 237–43, 249–50).
- ^ Crawford (2010, pp. 252–55). On one occasion the show featured "Walter Haman, former Harry S. Truman body guard and ace pistol shot" who demonstrated his shooting before talking to the teenagers.
- ^ Crawford (2010, pp. 287–91, 294–300). Reruns of Youth on the March can be heard on https://www.kbriteradio.com/.
- ^ Crawford (2010, pp. 300–304).
Bibliography
- Bahr, Robert. Man With a Vision: The Story of Percy Crawford. Chicago: Moody Press, n.d. [approx. 1961].
- Carpenter, Joel A. Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, ch. 9.
- Crawford, Dan D. (2010), A Thirst for Souls: the Life of Evangelist Percy B. Crawford (1902-1960), Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, ISBN 978-1-57591-140-3.
- Crawford, Percy. The Art of Fishing for Men. Philadelphia: Mutual Press, 1935. Paperback edition, Chicago: Moody Press, 1950.
- _________. "A Modern Revival." Revelation (August 1932); 325,349-50.
- _________. Salvation Full and Free: A Series of Radio Messages (Preached on 250 Stations Over The Mutual Network). Philadelphia: Westbrook, 1943.
- _________. Whither Goest Thou? A Series of Radio Messages Preached on 250 Stations over the Mutual Network. East Stroudsburg, Penn.: Pinebrook Book Club, 1946.
- Larson, Mel. Youth for Christ. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1947.
- Vaughn, Gerald F. "Evangelist Percy Crawford and The King’s College in Delaware, 1941–1955." Delaware History 27, nos. 1-2 (Spring 1996-Winter 1997): 19–41.
External links
- Percy Crawford website, by Dan Crawford