Auburn Friends

Billy Graham (1918 – 2018) is well known as the American evangelist who preached to millions in person and through radio and television.  He rose to prominence in the late 1940's and is probably among the most influential Christian leaders of the 20th century. But he was, by his own admission, an ordinary man, a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ who had a calling and gave himself to the fulfi...

Joni Eareckson was born October 15, 1949 and is a Christian author, radio host, and founder of Joni and Friends, an organization "accelerating Christian ministry in the disability community."  On July 30, 1967, she dived into the Chesapeake Bay after misjudging the shallowness of the water. She suffered a fracture between the fourth and fifth cervical levels and became a quadriplegic, pa...

James Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, was a man passionately driven to seek God's will in all that he did. He is best known for the drastic difference he made in the evangelisation of China. Born in 1832, Hudson Taylor was raised in Yorkshire, England.  His father was a chemist and a Methodist preacher. But as a teenager Hudson began to doubt whether he actually believed i...

John Bunyan (1628–1688), an English writer and Puritan preacher, is best remembered for " The Pilgrim's Progress " (1678), which became one of the most published books in the English language. Bunyan came from the village of Elstow, near Bedford.  After 3 years in the army he returned to Elstow and took up the trade of tinker.  He was converted to Christ after his marriage through 2...

Richard Wurmbrand (1909–2001) was born to a Jewish family in Bucharest, Romania.  In 1936, he married Sabina Oster and in 1938 they placed their faith in Jesus Christ. During World War II, Richard and Sabina preached in bomb shelters and rescued Jewish children out of the ghettos. They were repeatedly arrested and beaten and, at least once, nearly executed. Sabina lost her Jewish family in Nazi co...

“God does not have problems. Only plans,” proclaimed Corrie ten Boom when a clerical error allowed her to be released from a Nazi concentration camp one week before all women prisoners her age were executed. After being released from the horrors of Ravensbruck, Corrie continued to live in reliance on God, just as her family had as they hid Jews from Nazi terror. Traveling the world as an ambassado...

Keith Green (1953 – 1982), a pianist, singer and songwriter is best known for his strong devotion to Christ and challenging others to the same.  Several of his songs are very well known around the world, including " Oh Lord, You're Beautiful ", " Asleep in the Light ", " Your Love Broke Through ", " You Put This Love in My Heart " and " There Is a...

Gladys Aylward (24 February 1902 – 3 January 1970) was a British-born Christian missionary to China.  From her early teens, Gladys worked as a housemaid but following a calling to go overseas she tried to become a missionary.  However, due to her lack of progress in learning Chinese she was not accepted by any mission. On 15 October 1932, Aylward spent her life savings on a train passage to Yangch...

George Whitefield (27 December 1714 – 30 September 1770), was an English Anglican cleric and evangelist who was one of the founders of Methodism and the evangelical movement. Whitefield was ordained after receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree at Oxford and immediately began working as an itinerant preacher and evangelist. In 1740, Whitefield traveled to North America, where he preached a series of...

Oswald Chambers (24 July 1874 – 15 November 1917) was a Scottish evangelist and teacher, best known for the devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest . Chambers was stricken with appendicitis on 17 October 1917 while in Egypt serving as a chaplain amongst soldiers during World War 1.  He resisted going to a hospital on the grounds that the beds would be needed by wounded men.  On 29 October, a su...

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (19 June 1834 – 31 January 1892) was an English Baptist preacher. He remains very influential among many Christians, among whom he is often known as the "Prince of Preachers".  His extraordinary gifts and his personal devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ were the means of much fruitfulness to the glory of God. Spurgeon was a pastor of the congregation of the New Park...