Church Aflame- chapter two

CHAPTER TWO There Was a Man Sent from God January 20, 1952, is the most important day in the life of Jerry Falwell. It is the day of his conversion. He was a big strapping football player in high school, valedictorian of his graduating class, and considered ''good-looking" by the girls. His black wavy hair and infectious smile had won Jerry many friends. His was not a spectacular conversion, but a conversion with eternal consequences. Jerry visited the Park Avenue Baptist Church the previous Sunday evening. He was impressed with the sermon and seriously considered going forward during the invitation. Obviously he was under conviction. Jerry Falwell was a eighteen-year-old sophomore at Lynchburg College, taking a pre-mechanical engineering course. Jerry wheeled his 1934 blue Plymouth sedan over to pick up a buddy, Jim Moon. The Park Avenue Baptist Church was packed with over 300 people attending the service that cold winter evening. The ushers put the two young men on the front row. Falwell eyed an auburn-haired girl playing the organ. ''I'm going to get a date with her," he told his friend, Jim Moon. Moon picked out Macel Pate at the piano. She had on a black dress, trimmed in white, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. (Both boys married the opposite choice they made that night. Jim Moon married Delores Clark, the organist, and Jerry Falwell married Macel Pate, who has been the only pianist at the Thomas Road Baptist Church.) Jim has been a lifelong friend of Falwell, an Assistant Pastor at the church and teacher of the second largest Sunday school class. Reverend Paul Donnelson preached that evening on hell and the Second Coming. Falwell recognized the revival style of preaching as similar to the type he had heard over radio by Dr. Charles E. Fuller on the Old-Fashioned Revival Hour. As a young teenager, Falwell's mother would leave the radio tuned to Dr. Charles Fuller on Sunday morning, knowing full well that Jerry would not get out of bed to turn the program off. Today, Falwell makes no apology for fashioning his televised Sunday morning service "The Old Time Gospel Hour" after that early influence on his life. Jerry pondered the sermon that cold winter evening in a simple cinder-block church building. Falwell came to church that evening with the intention of going forward, but now he lacked courage. An elderly white-haired gentleman put his hand on Falwell's shoulder, and said, "I'll go with you.'' Garland Carey knelt at the altar with Falwell and led Falwell to Jesus Christ. No one spoke to Moon. He just followed and was also converted. The example of Garland Carey speaking to Jerry Falwell continues in the Thomas Road Baptist Church to this day. During every invitation, Christians are seen speaking to the unsaved. Even teenagers can be seen reaching over pews with open Bibles to witness to other young people, inviting them to go forward. Seldom does an individual come down the aisle alone. There is someone walking with him. "I'll go with you," is a common invitation to those who attend the services. Jerry Falwell was born during the Depression at a time when families did not plan for children. Carey H. and Helen V. Falwell were greatly surprised on August 11, 1933,