Jack Shuler
admitted he was no singer. Yet he played guitar and wrote songs. He also
recognized musical talent. Shortly after Cliff Barrows graduated from Bob Jones
College, he became Jack Shuler’s music director and song leader for the
evangelist’s crusades. In fact, when Barrows and his wife Billie first met
Billy Graham, the Barrows were still part of Shuler’s evangelistic team. Graham
used the Barrows when his own song leader, Strat Shufelt, was not available.[1]
Other musicians Shuler worked with included Jack Holcomb, Don DeVoss, and
Stuart Hamblen.
Jack Holcomb
was a pentecostal evangelist himself. But his fame in the fifties and sixties came from his
Irish tenor voice. As early as 1948 Holcomb was appearing at evangelistic
meetings. For example, the February 25, 1948 Lodi News-Sentinel ran an article
headed “Angeles Temple Trio to Appear at Glad Tidings.” The article lead said “Arriving
in Lodi this afternoon are Rev. and Mrs. Howard Rusthoi and Jack Holcomb, radio
tenor, for a special rally service in Glad Tidings Temple tonight.” Rusthoi was
then serving as associate pastor of Angeles Temple, founded by Aimee Semple
McPherson in Los Angeles. In the early twenties McPherson had founded the Four-Square
Gospel denomination.
Christ for
Greater Los Angeles, Inc., continued to plan evangelistic campaigns after the
success of Billy Graham there. And one of the earliest ones had to do with Jack
Shuler and Jack Holcomb together. In a letter of its committee, it wrote, “There
are many calls on us for united campaigns for 1950. One has already been set up
for the Harbor Area, taking in San Pedro, Wilmington, Harbor City, Lomita,
etc., with Jack Shuler and Jack Holcomb as the evangelists, for September 1950.”[2]
The two Jacks
continued their friendship through the 1950s. Toward the end of Shuler’s
career, he held a city-wide campaign in Tucson, Arizona with him preaching and
Jack Holcomb singing. Called “Crusade for Souls,” It was held from Sunday,
February 28 through Tuesday, March 1, 1960 (three days since that was a leap
year) at Central Assembly of God in Tucson.[3]
Though Shuler
used a number of musicians, the music director through his most successful
campaigns was Don DeVos. He joined Shuler in the early fifties and was with
him in his most successful campaign in Belfast, Ireland.
After the
1949 Billy Graham campaign where country western musician Stuart Hamblen became
a Christian, Hamblen appeared at most of Shuler’s crusades in the fifties. But
their connection predated that. Hamblen’s father, Dr. James Henry Hamblen, was
a well-known pastor of a Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in Texas, and a
founder of the Evangelical Methodist Church. In 1946 J.H. Hamblen and Jack
Shuler both were members of the Board of Trustees for Bob Jones College. And
Jack’s father at the same time was on the school’s Cooperating Board.
Jack Shuler,
himself, wrote a number of songs, among them “In His Time,” “His Promise is
True,” “Close to the Savior’s Side,” “The Prisoner,” “A Holy Day,” “Hallelujah
for the Cross,” “The Man With the Nail in His Hand,” “The Wesley Brothers,” and
others. He also authored a Crusade Hymn Book.
Shuler, in
addition to authoring a book of sermons called Shuler’s Short Sermons (1952), compiled a book of poems, The Valley of Silence (1956) of which he
included five of his own and one by his sister. His sermons contained much well-crafted,
poetic language. All in all, he displayed talent in a number of pursuits.
[1] Billy
Graham, Just As I Am (New York:
HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1997), 101. After the 1949 Los Angeles crusade,
the Barrows became permanent members of the Billy Graham team. Cliff became
part of Jack Shuler’s crusades shortly after graduating from Bob Jones College
in 1944.
[2] http://www2.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/exhibits/LA49/08after01.html
While the 1949 Los Angeles crusade launched Billy Graham into national
prominence, much of its success depended on what preceded it. And the Christ
for Greater Los Angeles, Inc. committee was a key part of that history. In
reviewing its past, Jack Shuler played perhaps the most crucial role as any
single evangelist. When the committee started in 1943, it organized city-wide
revivals. The first was led by Hyman Appelman in 1944. In 1945 Jack Shuler
conducted a youth rally at the Hollywood Bowl in which 15,000 attended and 400
made decisions for Christ. In 1946 Joe Hankins held revivals. In 1947 the
evangelists were Charles Templeton and Merv Rosell who spoke at Adams and Grand.
Also Billy Graham spoke at the Hollywood Bowl. In 1948 Jack Shuler spoke at Adams
and Grand. In 1949 “because of the intensive work necessary to prepare for the
Billy Graham campaign, only one other meeting was held. This was the Jack
Shuler meeting in the San Gabriel Valley in June, a most successful and
fruitful crusade.”
[3] Tucson Daily Citizen, February 27, 1960.
In 1963 Holcomb was named “Mr. Gospel Music” by RCA Records.
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