For many years the Billy Graham Center Museum staff with diligence and discernment collected postcards that had a religious theme, especially cards were related in any way to Christian evangelism. The collection grew to include thousands of items from throughout the 20th century, mostly American, and of great variety. There are images of meeting tents, churches, activities, denominations, individual evangelists, illustrations of passages of scripture, Gospel messages and much more. In 2006, this collection was transferred to the BGC Archives. Over the coming year, a few of the different types of cards will be illustrated on the bulletin board.

Several times during 2008 we are going to highlight particular sets of cards with particular themes. This month, we will show a few of the individual postcards and postcards sets illustrating hymns. The cards might be in black and white or color and would contain the lyrics of a hymn verse, with and illustrated, often a posed photo. Many times the postcard publisher would sell a separate card for each verse of a multi-verse hymn. The same or similar combination of words and picture were used as slides for sing along, with the image projected by magic lanterns in theatres and other public assemblies.

Two of the cards on this page. Click here to see postcards for a number of other popular evangelistic hymns, including Just As I Am, Rock of Ages, Lead Kindly Light, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, and The Holy City.