Word: ockenga
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This new-style speaking in tongues had its origin at a meeting near Interlaken, Switzerland, in 1948, at which a group of North American Protestant evangelical leaders, including Billy Graham and Dr. Harold Ockenga of Boston's Park Street Church, decided that European Protestantism was hiding its light under a bushel. Though there were 28 Protestant religious stations outside the U.S., they noted, there was not one in Europe-which had two-thirds of the radio sets outside...
...Fires. When "the Lord opened the door" to Park Street, Preacher Ockenga found himself in the country's most historic bastion of Protestant conservatism. Founded in 1809 to resist the wave of Unitarianism then sweeping Boston, the high-spired church overlooking the Common got to be known as "Brimstone Corner" because of the gunpowder that was stored in its basement during the War of 1812. The fiery preaching that echoed there helped keep the nickname alive; William Lloyd Garrison gave his first public address against slavery at Park Street; Moody and Sankey led revivals there; Henry Ward Beecher preached...
...Harold Ockenga has kept the old fires burning. Shocked at the goings-on under Boston Common's shadowy trees during the long summer evenings, he made it a practice to preach from the Parkman bandstand after his regular vesper services. When city authorities refused to renew his permit, he had an outdoor pulpit built on to the church, from which he and his assistants regularly address the Common's assortment of bums, tarts, sailors, tourists and Harvard boys...
...Know." As Ockenga's fame has spread, offers have poured in to him from congregations across the country. In 1941 the First Presbyterian Church of Seattle offered its pulpit at a tempting boost in pay (a starting salary of $8,500 a year, with annual increases of $700 guaranteed up to $12,000). After nearly two months of soul-searching, Ockenga turned the offer down, to his congregation's surprise and joy. "Now what you say to us will mean more," said a member of his flock, and the Park Street Church has grown by 50% since that...
...Ockenga is currently approaching two other decisions about his ministry. Pasadena's Fuller Theological Seminary, which he helped found, is urging him to accept its full-time presidency. He has also been invited by the National Association of Evangelicals to become its executive vice president. At week's end his mind was still not made up. "A man's got to know what the Lord's will is," he said...