Billy Graham Center
Archives
Campus revival records opened to the public
For immediate release - "I think that it was a little scary at
first.... I didn't know how to feel, because these people, people
that I know, people that I look at and think, They have things
really together,' or that they would never come up and say
anything, were getting up and making confessions of sin that I
couldn't believe they were saying.... So that was
pretty amazing to me that these people would get up and admit
that they were not as perfect as they would like other people to
believe. And it was really moving to see."
That was the
comment of a student who took part in a religious revival of
confession, repentance and renewal that took place on the
campus of Wheaton College in 1995 and which involved
hundreds of students. The staff of the Billy Graham Center
campus began gathering material on the awakening while it was
occurring and materials it gathered are now open to all users as
BGC collection 514, announced Robert Shuster, director of the
Archives.
"We wanedt to
capture people's beliefs and experience of the revival while it
was still fresh in their minds and hearts," said Shuster. "We
wanted to document not so much a spiritual awakening as the
impact it has had on people's lives."
It was on March 19, 1995, that a college worship service turned
into an all-night meeting of confession and prayer. The revival
continued over the next three nights and then concluded with a
worship and celebration service on Thursday, March 23. The
Wheaton meetings had been sparked by a revival that had
occurred at Howard-Payne University in Texas and visits by
Wheaton students to other colleges and churches led to similar
revivals. The Archives staff, along with college student [and WCF president], over the next three months conducted interviews
with some thirty-seven people about their experiences in the
revival. People interviewed included undergraduate and
graduate students, college faculty and administrators, pastors,
and students and chaplains from other colleges.
In addition to the interviews, the collection contains e-mail
messages, newspapers clippings, and video tapes about the 1995
meetings. It also contains interviews, questionnaires and other
documents which the Archives has collected about previous
revivals on the Wheaton campus between 1936 and 1970. A
guide to the collection can be found on the Internet at this URL:
http://www2.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/guides/514.htm
Except for six tapes which have some restrictions placed on their
use by the donor, the entire collection is open and available for
use. Anyone wanting more information about this collections or
other holdings of the Archives should contact the Reference
Archives of the Billy Graham Center Archives.
The Archives of the Billy Graham Center collects material on
nondenominational North American Protestant efforts to spread
the Christian Gospel. Its hundreds of collections include the
records of mission agencies, evangelistic organizations and
service associations; the private papers of missionaries and
preachers; oral history interviews and the files of congresses and
conferences. Anyone can use the processed collections of the
Archives. The BGC is located on the campus of Wheaton
College in Wheaton, Illinois. Anyone wanting further
information about the Archives can call (630) 752-5910 or
contact the Archives on this e-mail address:
or through its web site at:
http://www2.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/archhp1.html
BGC Archives
500 College Ave., 3rd floor
Wheaton, IL 60187-5593
U.S.A.
Telephone: (630) 752-5910
Last Revised: 9/8/01
Expiration: indefinite
© Wheaton College 2005