On July 19th, during a meeting of over 5000 U.S. based Campus Crusade staff members, we were informed that Dr. Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade, had passed away.

Dr. Bright was an amazing man of faith, who labored tirelessly in serving the Lord in order to help fulfill the Great Commission.

Dr. Bright was in seminary when he received a vision to start a ministry to college students. He felt strongly impressed that university students were incredibly strategic yet surprisingly neglected as an outreach audience.

He started the ministry at UCLA in 1951, supported by a 24 hour prayer chain that was mobilized through his local church.

Prayers were answered as countless students came to Christ that first year, including the student body president, many prominent athletes and members within the Greek system.

The world was always at the forefront of everything Dr. Bright did. In working with students that first year, Dr. Bright would often pull out a world map and pray for the world.

One country that Dr. Bright personally adopted was the Soviet Union. Years later, when communism fell, Dr. Bright cashed in his entire retirement savings and used it to sponsor a Great Commission Training Center in the former Soviet Union.

It was a tremendous example of sacrifice and of course it indicated that Dr. Bright had no intentions of ever retiring.

After the first successful year at UCLA, ministries were started on other campuses. Dr. Bright initially recruited seminary graduates to join his staff and for the first several years, he paid the salaries of each staff member for 9 months out of the year from his own personal savings.

However, when the money he used from his successful business began to dry up, all the staff, including Dr. Bright himself, agreed that they would be responsible to raise their own support to pay their salaries.

Dr. Bright was not in it for the money. He wrote dozens of best-selling books and authored the popular 4 Spiritual Laws gospel tract which has been reproduced several billion times, yet he never collected a royalty for himself. Instead, he gave it all back to the ministry for the furthering of the gospel.

Dr. Bright didn’t own a car or a home but God always graciously provided the transportation and living arrangements that were needed.

In the mid-90’s, Dr. Bright was honored with the prestigious Templeton award for religious achievement. The Templeton award is the largest award of its kind, larger even than the Nobel prize.

Dr. Bright could’ve easily cashed in his check of over 1 million dollars and relax. Or perhaps he would give his 10% to the Lord and live on the rest. True to his character, he took the entire amount and donated it to projects educating the church on the importance of fasting and prayer.

Dr. Bright was a humble dedicated servant whose impact on this world is still increasing. Hardly a moment goes by that someone isn’t still indirectly influenced by his legacy.

Our prayer is that we would follow his example in leaving a legacy for Christ that will outlast our own lives.

Pray for our 4 interns who are raising support to be on our staff team next year. They have until around September 1 to raise all that they need for next year.

Pray for our new staff raising support.

Begin praying now for our ministry in the fall. We have more full-time manpower and we are hoping that translates into growth as a ministry.