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Collection 658 Papers of Samuel D. Faircloth

 Collection
Identifier: CN 658

Scope and Contents

Prayer letters and an oral history interviews which document Samuel Douglas Faircloth’s childhood, conversion, education at Wheaton College and elsewhere, and his work as a United States Army chaplain in Italy immediately after World War II, as a church planter in Portugal, and a seminary professor at the Tyndale Theological Seminary in the Netherlands.

Dates

  • Created: 1949-2011

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions on the use of this collection.

Biographical Information

Full Name: Samuel Douglas Faircloth

Birth: June 22, 1921, Aurora, Illinois

Death: November 23, 2020 in Naperville, Illinois

Family:

Parents: Samuel Edwards and Florence C. (Drew) Faircloth

Siblings: Jean (born 1922), Doris (born 1924), Richard (born 1927), Miriam (born 1935)

Marital Status: Married Arliss “Arlie” A. Albright, August 17, 1943 (1920-2002);  Married Ruth Evelyn Johnson, January 18, 2003 (1934-2006); Married Betty Jane Litchfield Crippen, March 24, 2007

Children: Rebecca, Martha, Priscilla, Ruth, Elizabeth, Anne, Miriam

Conversion: November 11, 1937 under evangelist Rev. James McGinley

Ordination: July 11, 1945 at Oak Lane Baptist Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as a minister in the Northern Baptist Convention

Education:

1939-1940 - Attended University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois

Jan. 1941-1943 - Graduated from Wheaton College with a B.S. degree, majored in Bible and Theology and minored in Biblical Archeology

1943-1945 - Graduated from Eastern Baptist Seminary with a B.D. degree

1984: Graduated from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School with D. Missiology degree

Career:

September 11, 1945 - Appointed and commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Chaplains Corp

October-December 1945 - Attended Chaplain's school at Fort Oglethrope in Georgia

January 2, 1946 - Sailed to Europe with the 2nd regiment

1946-1947 - United States 5th Army chaplain in Italy

January 12-February 24, 1946 - Assigned to the 300th General Hospital in Naples

Febrary 24th, 1946 - January 30, 1947 - Assigned to the Rome area command

February 28-March 6, 1946 - Attended planning seminar in Geneva for the upcoming first meeting of the World Council of Churches, led by Willem Adolph Visser 't Hooft

January 30-May 16th - Reassigned to the 1170th Engineer General Service Regiment , Livorno/Viareggio

March 25th-beginning of May, 1947 - Observer at the war crime trial of Major General Von Machenson and others

May 23, 1947 - Sailed for home with his wife (who had arrived in Europe June 28, 1946), arrived at Fort Hamilton, NY June 2

July 17, 1947 - Honorably discharged effective July 10th

1948 - Accepted by the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society to serve in the Belgian Congo but changed fields and was appointed to go to Portugal

1949-1954 - First Term: founded and directed the Baptist Theological Seminary of Leiria, Portugal

1955-1958 - Second Term: Seminary, Leiria, Portugal

1959-1964 - Third Term: church planting, Movement for the Promotion of Evangelism (nation-wide), Parede, Portugal

1965-1969 - Fourth Term: continuation of church planting and MPE, Carcavelos, Portugal

June 1966 - Attends the Billy Graham Greater London Crusade

October-November 1966 - Attends the World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin, Germany

1970-1975 - Fifth Term" founding of the Portuguese Bible Institute under Greater Europe Mission (GEM) with Donald Crane, Carcavelos, Portugal

July 1974 - Attend the International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland

1976-1979 - Sixth Term: church planting, MPE, and teaching at the PBI, Carcavelos, Portugal

1979-1982 - Seventh Term: church planting and teaching at PEI, Carcavelos, Portugal. Study for the doctorate at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois

1983-1985 - Eighth Term: church planting, doctoral study, Carcavelos, Portugal

1985-1991 - Ninth Term: Vice President for Academic Affairs, Academic Dean, and professor of Church History and Missions at Tyndale Theological Seminary, The Netherlands

January 1991 - Retires from Tyndale Theological Seminary, continues as adjunct professor of Church History and Missions

July 1991 - Retired to Windsor Park Manor, Carol Stream, Illinois

1992 - Interim pastor and chairman of the board of directors of Claim Street Baptist Church, Aurora, Illinois, his home church

1992 - Elected to the Board of the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society and also to the Board of Tyndale Theological Seminary

1992 - Adjunct professor of Church History and Missions at Tyndale in the Netherlands

Other significant information:

1984: Doctoral Thesis, Guidelines for the Church Planter in Portugal. The Portuguese edition printed in Portugal.

1991: Authored the book, Church Planting for Reproduction

Extent

0.20 Cubic Feet

1 Box (DC), Audio Tapes

Language of Materials

English

Arrangement of Material

[Note: In the Arrangement section, the notation “Folder 2-5" means “Box 2, Folder 5"]

Series: Audio Recordings

Date Range: 2010-2011

Geographic coverage: United States

Type of documents: Digital Recording

Notes: Interviews with Samuel D. Faircloth by Robert Shuster.

Exceptional items: The time period covered by the interview is 1921-1990s.

*****

Series: Paper Records (Box List)

Arrangement: Chronological by date of prayer letter

Date Range: 1949-2001

Volume: 0.2 cubic feet

Boxes: 1

Geographic coverage: Portugal, The Netherlands

Type of documents: Prayer Letters

Correspondents: Samuel & Arliss Faircloth,

Subjects: Evangelism in Portugal

Notes: Photocopies of prayer letters of the Samuel and Arliss Faircloth missionaries to Portugal with the Conservative Baptist Foreign Missionary Society and to The Netherlands on faculty at Tyndale Theological Seminary. Letters written during their first and second term are in folder 1-1, third and fourth term letters in folder 1-2, fifth through eighth term in folder 1-3, and ninth term and retirement are in folder 1-4. These letters describe their evangelistic work, church planting, involvement with seminaries, and prayer needs. The prayer letters are numbered sequentially only during their first term in Portugal. Since the prayer letters are filed chronologically and easy to locate no folders numbers are listed only dates (in parenthesis) in the description below.

Exceptional items:

Just one month after arriving in Portugal Faircloth wrote (July 1, 1949), The longer we stay here, the more apparent is the need for a Bible training center...How we long to open the doors of the Seminary to God-called young men..., two years later (July-August 1951) the need for more classrooms and dormitories is discussed, The Seminary is receiving more applications for the fall term (February-April 1952), Ours is the great joy, as well, of seeing young men, who have been trained for the ministry, leave these halls [seminary] to enter the battle for their Lord(January 1956), a clipping from the October 1960 issue of the Conservative Baptist magazine with article titled Portugal Work Moves to Lisbon about why the Baptist Seminary moved to Lisbon, The Wheaton College YFCI [Youth for Christ International] team testified, sang, played and preached their way into the hearts of large Portuguese audiences and in the true sense of the terms, spearheaded a great YFCI evangelistic invasion of Gospel-hungry Portugal. In twenty continuous days of evangelistic YFC meetings with this team as the central attraction, about 400 lost souls came forward to accept Christ as personal Savior (October 1950), an undated (ca. 1954) newspaper clipping with photo and information about the return of the Faircloths from their first term in Portugal (located after January 1954 letter), a photo pray card for the Faircloths with their four daughters (ca. 1955), newspaper clipping (June 1955 ) about the farewell for the Faircloths return to Portugal for their second term, an interesting “Special Prayer Letter” (after May 1956 letter) in booklet format describes the various ministries the Faircloth’s were involved which including evangelism, literature distribution, education, and a farm program.

Several letters mention Faircloth attending the Greater London Crusade (September 1966), World Congress on Evangelism (January 1967), and the North of England Crusade of which he said it seemed to set my heart on fire for a wave of the Spirit of God in this county, using all available possibilities (February 1962), involvement in the International Conference for Itinerant Evangelists, Amsterdam ‘86 (September 1986), and Billy Graham’s visits to Portugal to speak at a ministers’ meeting (December 1970) and the Tyndale Seminary in the Netherlands (December 1985). Information about the Christian work being done by Faircloth’s daughters (April 1985, December 1986) or being planned (April 1980)

Faircloth’s ministry at Tyndale Theological Seminary in the Netherlands (1984-1990), information on Tyndale students (October-November 1987 to April 1988, March 1989), Faircloth’s retirement letter (June 1990), all but one letter from 1994 to 2001 are addressed to specific individuals, two letters (July 24, 2000) describe Faircloth’s teaching a course in church planting and development at the masters level, and the last letter (June 5, 2001) tells of his teaching graduate students at TTS and his trip to Portugal to dedicate the new sanctuary of a church he planted thirty years ago.

Accruals and Additions

The materials in this collection were given to the Billy Graham Center Archives by Samuel Douglas Faircloth in June 2010 and May 2011.

Accession 10-37

May 3 , 2011

Wayne D. Weber

Accession 11-31

July 14, 2011

Bob Shuster

Title
Collection 658 Papers of Samuel D. Faircloth
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script
Language of description note
English

Repository Details

Part of the Evangelism & Missions Archives Repository

Contact:
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Wheaton IL 60187 US
630-752-5910