For crusade founder, the message always came first
By Associated Press
Published July 31, 2003
ORLANDO - Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright never passed up a chance to spread the Christian message, whether to a single person on an elevator or to millions of people through his worldwide ministry, mourners said Wednesday at a memorial service.
The service at First Baptist Church of Orlando drew more than 3,000 people, including evangelical Christian leaders such as the Rev. Pat Robertson, chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network; James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; former Watergate figure Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; and the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of the Rev. Billy Graham.
"The ministry that Bill founded, led, inspired is probably the most significant of any that has come into being in the 20th century," Robertson said.
Bright, 81, died July 19 in Orlando after battling a degenerative lung disease. His burial was Tuesday in Orlando.
Bright was already successful in the confections business when he embraced Christianity and decided to follow the scriptural command to "go make disciples of all the nations."
He and his wife, Vonette, started Campus Crusade for Christ at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1951. The ministry, geared toward young people on college campuses, now has a presence in 191 countries and 26,000 employees.
Colson, an aide to President Nixon who went to prison after the Watergate scandal, said he first felt Bright's influence during a Christian study group in prison with a Campus Crusade for Christ worker. "So when I got out of prison, he was one of the first people I wanted to meet," Colson said.
Dobson called him a role model and a father figure.
"I was pleased to learn that the last meal he asked for was ice cream," Dobson said. "That's my kind of man."
Mary Graham, president of Women of Faith, a female-focused ministry, said Bright was a champion of women.
"I speak for hundreds of women when I say no one believed in me like Dr. Bright," Graham said.
Bright helped organize several Christian-oriented stadium gatherings, including one in Dallas in 1972 that was dubbed the "religious Woodstock."
Former U.S. Sen. William Armstrong said Bright exuded a confidence that came from his faith.
"Bill Bright was called by the Almighty to teach others to teach others to teach others about Christ," Armstrong said. "It's spiritual multiplication."
