CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 20
MULTIPLIED MINISTRY
When Edwin Orr stayed in Coimbatore, he carried with hima little black notebook which listed, one would guess, between —
600 and 1,000 names and addresses arranged systematically — according to geographical area and alphabetical order. Geo- | graphical divisions were distributed by the days of the week, so i that on a Monday Orr was able to pray for many of his friends. in India and the Orient, on a Tuesday for Australia and New
Zealand, on a Wednesday for all of Africa, on a Thursday for Ireland and Scotland, on a Friday for England and Wales, on a Saturday for Scandinavia and the rest of Europe. He prayed likewise for the Americas—Canada, the Eastern, Midwestern, Southern and Western States, the West Indies and Latin America.
Apparently he planned no intercession for the Lord's Days though he had two lists of names of people for whom he prayed daily—his family and relatives, and his "children in the faith" who were engaged in full-time service or, rather, as many of — them as had come to his notice.
Orr had a remarkable memory. In his early days, he used to pray for (and write a semi-form letter to) hundreds of friends, relying upon his memory only. He prayed for his friends daily.
He said, however, that it became a spiritual impossibility to pray for hundreds of people daily. Hurried remembrance defeated its own purpose, so he limited daily intercession to a hundred or so and found it easier to pray for them in their places of residence or labour grouped together.
To glance over these lists was an education. Some were names of famous people in church or state, others utterly unknown.
Most of them were ministers or missionaries or national Christians poor in this world's goods.
Orr was dumbfounded on one occasion when a religious
him forthe c use of bis 4 oe worker i in | America tried to bayeatt with prayer list, apparently to be used to raise funds.
"Look," said Orr. "This is not a solicitation list. I know that there are people who send out solicitation letters and call them prayer letters. I do not. Almost every one on my list is not in a position to contribute to my work or another's. My lists are of those who pray for my work or for whose own work I pray.
Nothing doing!" ee e ee a Orr's correspondence with his friends prompted Albertyn to write a chapter of his thesis upon Orr's friendships.* Albertyn had access to Orr's filing cabinets for a couple of years during Orr's overseas tours. I became interested in the names and reports of Orr's own "children in the faith" already engaged in fulls time Christian service all around the world."
Ronald Waine, a young businessman from the town of Gillingham in Kent, was converted to God during a campaign which Edwin Orr conducted for the National Free Church Council of Great Britain in the Medway Towns in 1937. He studied at All
Nations' Bible College near London and proceeded to Algeria, as a missionary of the Algiers Mission Band. Waine became a pioneer missionary, making hazardous forays into the Sahara in peace-time and maintaining a strategic ministry in Algeria proper during the terrible days of Algeria's struggle for independence.
He rose to a position of leadership in the Mission before evacuation with his family to Britain.
During the same year, 1937, when Orr was sharing the platform of the Moody Centennial Campaign in Britain with Mel
Trotter, a young London pagan attended the meetings with his - aunt. He was converted, but not in any spectacular way. In due course, Fred Pontin became a colporteur-missionary in the Republic of Eire, as difficult a field for evangelical work as Moslem
Algeria.
Norman Krebbs, a resident of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, attended a meeting conducted by Orr in the Northside Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in early 1936. With reluctance, the pastor Tracy Miller opened his church to a young stranger,
_ Edwin Orr. The attendance was good in spite of the fact that he was unknown to the congregation. Norman Krebbs remembered his address as "reserved, dignified and unemotional'', adding:
seats 'oieber us 5 'touched. by the Spirit ae of God and responded to the simple. invitation. Considering the quiet presentation of the message and the unemotional | content, it is astonishing that anyone responded. Clearly, : : it was the work of the Holy Spirit. _ Unencouraged by my parents, I had been attending faithee fully another church in the same city. The Gospel had not reached my heart; I was pointing toward a life of sin and shame. I went each of the three nights. The first night God
_ spoke to me about my need of salvation but I successfully resisted the call of the Spirit. The second night I responded, and accepted Christ as my Saviour. The third night I dedicated
_ _ my life to the service of God. I sensed God's call into the ministry immediately.
Following his conversation, Norman Krebbs attended Moody © Bible Institute, then the College of Wooster in Ohio, entering the ministry of the Presbyterian Church from theological seminary.
Krebbs built up a vigorous, new congregation on the south side of Kansas City in Missouri, and the congregation built a magnificent church in colonial style of architecture, Colonial Presbyterian Church, a strongly evangelical lighthouse. With great satisfaction, Edwin Orr conducted meetings for this congrega- : tion in their new building in 1960.
In San Diego, in 1950, a young man professed conversion in na a deeper life conference conducted there by Edwin Orr at the invitation of Dr. Edward Cole, a Baptist. Wayne Lockwood decided to enter another phase of Christian ministry and became a staff member of Forest Home Conference Centre. Forest —
Home, founded by the late Henrietta Mears, was justly famed for its amazing influence on the Pacific Coast and throughout the United States. Out of movements of the Spirit there came the ministry of the Hollywood Christian Group, Campus
Crusade for Christ, and many other endeavours, and it was there that Billy Graham's ministry blossomed out in 1949. Orr often ministered at Forest Home and almost always saw great results there.
In the Church of the Open Door in Los Angeles, in 1949 when Orr was guest of Dr. Vernon Magee, a gangster kneeling in misery at the communion rail professed conversion. He had fe)
ES one cae in prison for crimes cociaeed om tri . engage in preaching, his background was we that | it made "4 conventional training for the ministry impossible. Orr prayed faithfully for this man, in spite of disappointments, praying daily
_ for him. Louis Nelton married a girl whose faith and fortitude were strong enough to help them through all the vicissitudes of life. They established a happy family, and Nelton spent his winters working as a carpenter, his summers as a rural evangelist far and wide.
In December 1956, the New Zealand Challenge devoted an entire issue to a survey of evangelism in that country, mentioning Orr's ministry in 1936 and 1956.* It pointed out in retrospect that the first convert of the first meeting of the first tour of evangelism in New Zealand by Edwin Orr was a lady who engaged in a remarkable ministry of evangelism, now (Mrs.)
Major Claire McCallum assisting her husband Major Robert McCallum in a ministry of rehabilitation of alcoholics run by the Salvation Army on Rotoroa Island. Both the McCallums were well known for their zeal. The article pointed out that the last convert of the last meeting of that 1936 tour was a young man who became a pioneer missionary in Bolivia, now a veteran of Andean service, William Simpson of Russell who excelled in pioneer colportage.
Two young men who were converted in the 1936 Orr Campaigns in South Africa entered the South African Methodist ministry—Desmond Adendorff of Pretoria and John Gibson of Durban.' The latter served in the Transvaal and Natal in suburban churches. Gibson also served as the chairman of the - Committee of Converts of 1936 in the Ministry that sponsored the Edwin Orr Campaigns of 1953. When Orr had preached in Pretoria in 1936, young Desmond Adendorff was urged by a teenage friend to attend and was soundly converted there, the call being seed that fell into ground already prepared by his father who used to pray with his son each night and read and explain New Testament stories.
After a while, I was aware that something of the fire had gone out of my experience. I prayed God to send someone
"to convert me again". God did. I made a fresh surrender at a meeting conducted by the Cooper-McCrossan Team and
'at ; sh ble re a 'spedalic 4
had thought incurable. I never his « a recurrence of the trouble. Metin Adendorff began Sunday School teaching, and later local
__ preaching i in Capetown. In 1939, he was deeply disturbed by the failures in his life such as '"'an almost pathological temper". For _ a while he disbelieved, then sought to be filled by the Spirit of | "
God, received and was free.
Adendorff had charge of the Methodist Indian Mission in Durban and environs for eight years during which God used A : him and Indian colleagues "to turn it away from being an organization whose chief aim was to care for hereditary Christians
and restore some sense of mission."' He then had five years in European ministry in East London, from which he carried a hundred or more names as part of his prayer list representing © some of those who accepted Christ through his counsel.
C. Murray Albertyn, converted under Orr in 1953 in a 5 Methodist Church in Durban, studied for the ministry in colleges
_ of Wesleyan foundation—in Cliff College, Pasadena College, and Boston University—but entered the Presbyterian ministry.
A young dance band leader in Johannesburg, Denis Clark— not to be confused with Dennis Clark of New Delhi—became an ardent youth evangelist, developed his talents as a speaker, organizer, soloist, organist and choir director, and was soon appointed South African Director of Youth for Christ. He left that work in other capable hands and emigrated to Europe, where he became the European Director for Youth for Christ.
| He was a key leader in the Copenhagen Youth for Christ World Congress. His ministry became popular in Scandinavia but he made his base in Britain, continuing in independent but cooperative missions with an unusual mixture of biblical clarity which he owed to the Brethren movement and emotional warmth
| which he owed to the Pentecostal.
My conversion to the Lord Jesus Christ was finally consummated on September 6, 1936. I had been threatened with — expulsion from school four years before for swearing, which had as strong a grip upon me as drink has upon an alcoholic.
In the Edwin Orr series of meetings, my interest was greatly awakened through his stories of faith. Here at last was evidence
_ that God was alive.
Oi the final an ob the 1936 Cane
and ushers were needed and I was asked to assist. The doers 4 opened and the crowds crushed in until even the aisles were jammed with people. To take up the collection was a most difficult task. I do not remember the message at all but at the end of the service there I stood, knowing that I was an unsaved door steward, my hand still grasping a few song sheets. Dare I go forward? That would have been a great shame, for door stewards are supposed to be saved already. There and then I - trusted Christ, and went home changed but hardly knowing it.
The opportunity soon came to separate myself from the usual sins and confess why. With this confession came the assurance of salvation. I noticed that my mouth was clean, no more swearing!
In 1952, Denis Clark resigned his directorship in ROR and his career in accountancy. As he preached more and more, he found that it took a great battle of soul to preach the whole counsel of God. He and his colleague, Campbell McAlpine, adopted "'living by faith" without solicitation and attributed this decision to the example of Edwin Orr in that respect.
One of the least fruitful of all Orr's campaigns was conducted in Hong Kong for European people, in 1938. In it was converted
Willard Grant who became a children's evangelist for the Mission | Covenant denomination (to which Dr. Paul Rees belongs).
In another meeting which appeared to be fruitless, a rally. for the Birmingham Youth for Christ in 1946, a young lady became converted and entered nursing work, Barbara Greig.
A brief visit to the Philippines in 1938 resulted in the conversion of Antonio Lacanilao, who later became an evangelist in that country. Edwin Orr did not recall meeting this man, but as soon as he heard of him, he placed him on his daily prayer list. This was the case with quite a number of Christian workers in Brazil who traced their own spiritual life back to the stirring days of Revival there in 1952. Orr met some of them in 1960.
Orr counted it a duty to pray for his children, his brother and sister, his brothers and sisters-in-law, his nephews and nieces, uncles and aunts and cousins in Britain, Canada, the States, New
Zealand, South Africa and Scandinavia. But he counted it a privilege to pray daily for those who had put their trust in Christ
'hi ministry and who had heard 'the call of God eee Christian service. He felt that when he prayed, for Simpson _ in the Andes or Waine in the Sahara, he was alongside i in serving
— ee God. He felt the same way about those for whom he wer | weekly instead of daily, and made it a point to write and encourage them regularly. He was baffled at times by those who seemed to be indifferent to his prayers, and encouraged at other
_ times by those who told him that they valued his prayers beyond _ words. Oft-times Orr was tempted to delete a name from his prayer list as unworthy or unfruitful, but he found it practically
— impossible to stop remembering the person, worthy or not; he. just prayed with a different urgency.
From Coimbatore, Orr wrote an erstwhile associate in the _ ministry who had suffered such a deep personal loss that he
Ay had become embittered and indifferent to God. Orr told his friend that he had been tempted to give up praying for himto spend the time in intercession for others engaged in useful service for God, but could not discard his interest lightly, rather redoubling his prayers for him. To his surprise, his friend of former days wrote urgently asking for prayer for his future plans, which took him once again into the orbit of friendship and understanding.
Friends often asked Edwin Orr how he found the time for praying for his friends. He used to explain that he did not set any certain time aside each day, because of his very uncertain schedule. Instead, he used whatever hour presented itself—in an aeroplane, in a barber shop, in a waiting room, but more often than otherwise during a brisk walk early in the day. Sometimes a day became too crowded for intercession until evening, or on occasion it was postponed until another day.
Edwin Orr would not allow his friends to call him a "man of prayer" lest they get the impression that he spent long hours in spiritual wrestling. In fact, he was very matter of-fact about petitions, presenting them to God as telephone calls rather than
"laying siege to the ramparts of heaven". Only when he was disturbed by his own unfaithfulness or that of close associates © did he carry a burden.