Merry Christmas

Joy to the World not quite the way you may be used to.  From Manheim Steamroller:

Christmas at Biola

Photo – Biola University web site

One of our seasonal favorites:  Biola’s annual Christmas Tree Lighting.

Why Biola Rocks!!

A Historic Milestone

August 27, 2008 marked a historic milestone in the life of our alma mater, Biola University.  Biola kicked off the first day of its second century with a challenging and encouraging convocation service and message from President Barry H. Corey. 

Nearly 6,000 students and a new class of over 1200 new students were as excited yesterday as they were when we went to Biola in the 1980s.   Check it out at this historic milestone at: http://www.biola.edu/convocation/index.cfm and feel the excitement of the first day of class . . . all over again!

Centennial in Review

Why Biola?

When classes end for the day, you’ll find many students heading off campus – and sometimes outside the country – to impact the world for Christ.

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School of Education

A Legacy

Biola’s rich history is captured in this engaging 10-minute documentary, which begins with our founding by an oilman and an evangelist in 1908 and progresses through a century of faithfulness to our original mission.

• Biola University is a private Christian university located in Southern California. Learn more

Celebrating the Life of Clyde Cook

Friends worldwide are invited to join in the memorial services for Dr. Clyde Cook via LIVE webcast.A link to the live video stream will be available at www.biola.edu 15 minutes prior to each event.

Featured Events

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  Clyde Cook Memorial Services

  Please join the Biola community as we mourn the passing of Dr. Clyde Cook.

Centennial Chapel

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  Luis Palau

  Centennial chapel speaker Luis Palau reflects upon Dr. Cook’s life.  NOTE:  This is not a brief presentation.  Palau’s comments are somewhat lengthy, but well worth the listen.  His unique blend of humor, personal anecdote, vivacity and Scripture make this a warm and heartfelt tribute to Clyde.  Dr. Barry Corey, current President of Biola, speaks following Mr. Palau’s presentation.  The text of Dr. Corey’s remarks appears below, but clicking the link provided to hear his voice, inflection, features, etc. breathes life into his comments. 

• Also note that Biola’s 2008 Missions Conference, April 16-18, was recently rechristened the Clyde Cook Memorial Missions Conference – a fitting tribute to this beloved President Emeritus.  (News and photo: Biola web site.)Centennial Chapel Series

 

Message from Biola President Corey

   Dear Biola Family,

It is with profound sadness that we mourn the loss of our beloved friend and leader, President Emeritus Clyde Cook.

This news has stunned us all.  We grieve deeply with Anna Belle, Laura, Craig and their family.  I promised Anna Belle that their Biola University family would prayerfully stand with them through these days of extraordinary loss.

Many of you spent some of your Biola days with Dr. Cook as your president.  He exhorted you in your work, in your service, in chapel, and in the classroom.  He talked with you on the sidewalk.  He ate with you in the café.  He modeled for you the love of a husband for his wife Anna Belle, a father for his children, Laura and Craig, and a grandfather for his six grandchildren.

Clyde Cook prayed for you and prayed with you.  He made you think and he made you laugh.  He was approachable.  He was funny.  He was there. He pointed your horizons beyond the petty stuff and challenged you to think of the big world outside of Biola as a place God wants to redeem.  He believed in you and he loved you.

For 25 years, he gave of himself for Biola.  Clyde Cook embodied Biola, its heritage, its values, its high calling as a biblically centered university. When people across the country and around the world saw Clyde Cook, they saw Biola.

 After returning from speaking at a Bible institute in Houston on Friday, Dr. Cook was at home with his wife Anna Belle when he passed away and entered the presence of the Lord.  The final address he would give was the evening prior, Thursday night.  He wasn’t feeling well, Anna Belle told me, but he stepped up to the microphone and with the strength that could only come from the Lord, he gave his address and ended with words that went something like this:

The final quality I believe every student must have to make an impact is to ENDURE CONSTANTLY.   We want our…students to hang in there.  We don’t want them to quit.  We want them to persevere.  To keep moving.  Or as the apostle Paul has written, ‘And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.’  If we are normal, we will have moments when we want to quit.  My word to all of us is, “Don’t quit.”  The Lord will help you through the crisis or pressure. (Emphasis added.)

Clyde Cook lived the words he proclaimed on Thursday night.  And on Friday night he heard, “Well done.”

Dr. Cook was long loved by this community and has truly impacted the world for the Lord Jesus Christ through his influence on countless lives.  We will miss him dearly.  I will miss him and he was a new friend for me.

 I imagine how much more he will be missed by the Board of Trustees and senior leadership of this institution who worked so closely with him, and by you as students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends who have spanned years and even decades serving with the inimitable Clyde Cook.

This week we will have special occasions to celebrate his life and remember his legacy.

Please join the Biola community as we mourn the passing of Dr. Clyde Cook:

Memorial Service
Saturday, April 19, 11 a.m.
First Evangelical Free Church, Fullerton
2801 N. Brea Blvd, Fullerton CA 92835

Biola University Memorial Service
Monday, April 21, 9:30 a.m.
Chase Gymnasium

Please visit Biola’s website to stay informed daily of the events and tributes planned, as well as a Memorial web page that will set up in the next day or two where people can leave personal messages of memories, condolences, and tributes.

 In lieu of flowers, the Cook family has requested that gifts of remembrance be designated to Biola’s Clyde Cook Memorial Fund for the Talbot building project, which was on Clyde Cook’s heart as a priority to complete.

 Blessings in Christ.

 Warmly,

 Barry H. Corey
President
Biola University

***

“Beloved” connected with Clyde Cook is not hyperbole.  See some of the lives Clyde touched and how he is remembered first-hand by clicking: http://clydecookstories.blogspot.com/

 

A Tribute to Dr. Cook

Our sister blog launches a tribute to Dr. Clyde Cook, president emeritus of our alma mater, on Friday: http://www.HEvencense.wordpress.com.  We wanted to share our tribute - and a brief story behind it – with you here today.

I spent last Saturday working on our new church.  Here in our little town of 8,000, this is a somewhat daunting endeavor.  Our current facility is over 100 years old – beating Biola by four years – but it’s showing its age (aren’t we all?).  After more than a decade of praying, fund-raising, planning and seeking, God provided 17 acres of choice waterfront real estate in an area of town that has never had a Christian church.  Never.

 

As we prepared to break ground last year, our congregation of about 250 (”large” by boondocks standards decided to build not just a physical edifice or meeting place, but to incorporate a “ministry center” paradigm into our efforts.  Leaders met with city council members and other local representatives to see how we might be able to serve our community in/from/with our new facility.  Accordingly, besides the church itself, we’re also putting in baseball diamonds, a soccer field, playground, and river walking trail – all to be shared with and open to our community.  We hope to occupy our new building sometime next fall and impact the community for Christ far beyond our own four walls. 

 

I wore my “drop-dead red” Biola sweatshirt last Saturday around our framed-in sanctuary.  I was literally helping to build a church on the day Dr. Cook was ushered into glory.  Somehow that seems a fitting tribute to not only Clyde but to my alma mater as well.

 

One thing I clearly recall about Dr. Cook himself is that he never gave the impression that he was too busy or inaccessible.  His heart and his door were always open to faculty, students, staff and alumni.  Dr. Cook had a knack for making one feel that when you were with him, spoke with him, there was no one more important to him in the entire world at that moment than you.  I also remember Dr. Cook’s keen sense of humor and his annual presentation of Clyde’s Slides.  Remember those? 

 

We’ll miss Dr. Cook and can barely imagine Biola without his twinkling blue eyes and ready smile.  But we rejoice that he is now in the presence of the Lord he loved so well and served so faithfully for so long.  He finished well.

***

FOR THE SAKE OF THE CALL

“This film feature was scheduled nearly three months ago, before we heard of the passing of a dear friend and mentor, Dr. Clyde Cook, beloved president emeritus of Biola University.  We’ve taken a break from blogging this week to mourn the loss of this great man of God, but I decided to retain this post as scheduled.  It seems appropriate within this context of both loss and victory.  For the Sake of the Call by Steven Curtis Chapman is our tribute to a man who touched countless lives for Christ and poured out his own life in faithful service to His Lord.”  (To avoid feedback, click on the bottom left arrow rather than in the center of the screen.)

“Wholly devoted, to live and to die for the sake of the call…”

Clyde heard the call and obeyed, and we are richer for it.  

“Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

“Well Done, Thou Good & Faithful Servant…”

Beloved President Emeritus Clyde Cook Passes Away

   Beloved President Emeritus Clyde Cook went home to be with the Lord on Friday evening, April 11, 2008. The Biola community is prayerfully standing with Anna Belle, Laura, Craig and their family as they grieve the loss of this wonderful, godly husband, father, grandfather, friend and leader.

Please join the Biola community as we mourn the passing of Dr. Clyde Cook.

Memorial Service
Saturday, April 19, 11 a.m.
Evangelical Free Church, Fullerton

This news has stunned us all.  We knew Dr. Cook from our student days at Biola.  Warm, caring, committed, Clyde had a rapier wit and a wonderful sense of humor that was showcased in his annual chapel presentation of “Clyde’s Slides.”  One of Clyde’s best-known comments was, “I believe that Biola’s best years are ahead.”

Dr. Cook retired in 2007 and cited some of of his best memories as commencement ceremonies, seeing eager graduates going out to fulfill Biola’s mission of impacting the world for Christ.

“The world needs a place like Biola that does not compromise, that’s rigorous in its academic programs — a place where parents can send their children, not to have their values undermined, but built up,” Cook said.

At his retirement, many Biolans said they couldn’t imagine Biola without Cook. But Cook always reminded himself that he’s the temporary office holder and wanted to hold his work at Biola lightly.

“It’s so easy for me to think I’m Mr. Biola,” Cook said at the time. “But there were presidents before me and presidents will come after me,” he said. “This is God’s work and it’s His mission, and He’s going to see it through.”

Dr. Cook was a capable, effective, and humble servant of God who touched countless lives for Christ.  We will miss him dearly, but rejoice that Clyde is now in the presence of the Lord He loved so well and served so faithfully.

“Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” 

Happy Birthday!

 

Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven.

- Psalm 119:89

This is a momentous occasion as my alma mater, Biola University, marks its centennial.   (It was a really, really bright afternoon when this picture was taken – staring straight into the sun!)

It’s not every day that a Christian university celebrates 100 years of an unswerving, undiluted commitment to the Word of God.  This is something special. 

The words from Psalm 119 noted above graced the portico of the original building of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles when it was established in downtown Los Angeles.  A century after its founding, Biola remains committed to intentional spiritual development and career preparation and all Biola faculty, staff and students are professing Christians.  With more than 145 academic programs through its seven schools, Biola offers degrees ranging from B.A. to Ph.D.  Biola is as committed to an academically rigorous and biblically centered education today as it did when it was founded.  For more information, visit www.biola.edu.

Founded in 1908,  Biola University is an evangelical Christian university that has remained committed to biblically centered education for more than 100 years. Located in La Mirada, California, on the border of Los Angeles and Orange counties, Biola is recognized by U.S. News & World Report as a “National University,” considered the “major leagues” of higher education.

***

As a member of the Class of ‘82, I join the University community, friends, faculty, staff, and alumni in wishing Biola a Happy 100th Birthday as we celebrate a century of  faithfulness. 

Solo deo Gloria!

See my sister blog at: http://www.HEvencense.wordpress.com