Bill Bright (1921-2003) is seen today as one of Christianity’s major leaders during the last half of the 20th century. He became a believer in 1945 under the ministry of Dr. Henrietta Mears, who at the time served as the Director of Christian Education and Teacher in the College Department at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, California. Interestingly, Dr. Mears left her mark on many who would become widely known and influential Christian statesmen, including Dawson Trotman, Founder of the Navigators; Richard Halverson, Chaplain of the U.S. Senate; and Billy Graham.
Dr. Mears also led Vonette Zachary (1926-2015) to Christ and helped her grow in her newfound faith. Bill and Vonette fell in love and were married in 1948. Although Bill’s income as a businessman was sufficient for the two, Vonette took a teaching job in the school system in Los Angeles to put to use the knowledge and skills she had gained while in college.
Their lives were busy. Bill grew in his relationship with Christ and would lead teams from his church to minister to various groups. They would go to prisons, for example, or to nursing homes and share Christ with the people there. Soon, however, it occurred to Bill that there were no lines to meet with college students and share Christ with them. He became burdened for students. On college campuses, he knew, were tomorrows leaders—and they needed the message of Christ just as desperately as anyone else.1
Around this time, Bill and his wife decided they would sign a “contract with God.” Hear Vonette relate the story of contract.
You can watch the extended version of this video here.
Having surrendered their lives fully to Christ and feeling strongly led of the Lord to bring the truth about Christ and Christianity to college students, Bill and Vonette founded Campus Crusade for Christ [now called Cru] in 1951. God blessed their ministry richly. According to Bill,
During the early years of the Campus Crusade for Christ ministry, Vonette and I had the privilege of sharing her [Dr. Mears’s] home for 10 years. Located near the UCLA campus, it was a perfect place for student meetings and all types of Christian gatherings. The home was so designed that Vonette and I lived in one part of the home, and Dr. Mears in another. We shared our meals together. We also shared the costs for operating the home, where many hundreds of students met Christ and were discipled.
A Ministry of Prayer
The ministry expanded far beyond the UCLA campus. It grew rapidly as well, and over the ensuing decades it came to have a nationwide and even a worldwide influence. And as God was using Bill Bright in powerful ways, He also was using Vonette. Bill had encouraged her to adopt prayer as her ministry. She did so, and she did so extremely effectively. In 1972, in connection with Campus Cursade’s Explo ’72 held in June of 1972 in Dallas, Vonette orchestrated a prayer effort that engaged 7,000 women. That was just the beginning.
As she observed how little effort seemed to be focused nationally and internationally on prayer, she urged more action. She established the Great Commission Prayer Crusade and served as a member of the original Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. She charged the Intercession Working Group from 1981 through 1990.
Later she helped to found the National Prayer Committee and served for [nine] years as chair of the National Day of Prayer Task Force. In that capacity, she found herself working with other Christian leaders and with members of Congress from both parties. Their efforts paid off in 1988 with a unanimous act of Congress, signed by President Ronald Reagan, establishing the first Thursday of May as a specific occasion for America to pray.2
The First Thursday in May
It is called the National Day of Prayer (NDP). As we have noted previously at Word Foundations,
On numerous occasions throughout America’s history, the leaders of the nation have urged the people to pray (also see this and this from WallBuilders). In 1952, a bill passed Congress that called on the president each year to set aside a special day other than Sunday for observing a National Day of Prayer (NDP). President Harry S. Truman signed the bill into law and issued a proclamation on June 17, 1952. The first annual NDP took place on Friday, July 4th of that same year. You can read President Truman’s presidential proclamation here.
Of course it was wonderful that in the decades that followed, annual presidential proclamations would call the nation to prayer. At the same time, it became clear that a fixed date for the event would be beneficial. Some chief executives would place the NDP at about the same time every year, but others would select different days during their terms without any particular pattern. This made planning NDP events more difficult.
So, the first Thursday in May has Vonette Bright’s “fingerprints” all over it! As we have indicated, in 1988, 36 years after the original statute was passed in 1952, the law was amended to designate the first Thursday in May as the nation’s annual NDP. Vonette Bright was largely responsible for bringing about that change.
Thursday, May 3, 2018 Is The National Day of Prayer
This year’s NDP theme is Unity. It draws on Ephesians 4:3, “Making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”
Today, Dr. Ronnie Floyd serves as the president of the NDP Task Force. He took the baton of leadership from Anne Graham Lotz, who had received it from Shirley Dobson, who had received it from Vonette Bright many years earlier.
For the National Day of Prayer in 2018, Dr. Floyd has written a prayer for the nation that upholds biblical unity at a critical and otherwise divisive time in the life of our nation. You can read and listen to the prayer on this page. You are encouraged to visit the NDP website and to find and attend events in your local area.
As you pray for our country on this important day, remember to say a prayer of thanks for a lady whose passion was prayer, and whose influence reaches beyond her years on this earth to this very day.
Also, heed her wisdom on prayer.
Vonette Bright got it right.
For President Trump’s 2018 National Day of Prayer Proclamation, go here.
Copyright © 2018 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
1Michael Richardson, Amazing Faith: The Authorized Biography of Bill Bright, (Colorado Springs, CO: WaterBrook Press), 53.
2Richardson, 152-153.
top image credit: Bill and Vonette Bright, founders of Cru
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