George Beauchamp Vick

George Beauchamp Vick

George Beauchamp Vick
1901-1975
George Beauchamp Vick was born in Russellville, Kentucky, the son of a lawyer-politician. When young Beauchamp was a year old, his father quit politics and entered Louisville Seminary as a student pastor. As a young child, Vick assisted his ailing father on pastoral visits, and the experience undoubtedly influenced his later emphasis on the visitation program as the key to church growth.

Vick’s first paid position was the superintendency of the young people’s department at J. Frank Norris’s First Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas. Under Vick’s dynamic leadership, the department averaged nearly a thousand per Sunday, and annually led First Baptist in additions.

In 1929 Vick “hit the sawdust trail” as the advance man-song leader for evangelists Wade House and Mordecai Ham. In 1936 Ham held a revival at the Temple Baptist Church in Detroit, where Norris was attempting a dual-pastorate. Due to the 1,300-mile distance involved, Norris was unable to conserve the results achieved during his visits, and Vick was induced to assume the role of “general superintendent,” which, due to Norris’s protracted absences, was tantamount to the pastorate. He became co-pastor in 1948 and sole pastor in 1950.

For nearly 40 years, Vick led the Temple Baptist Church to the pinnacle of influence among fundamentalists. During that period, he also became president of the World Fundamental Baptist Missionary Fellowship, president of the Bible Baptist Seminary, president of Baptist Bible College, primary founder and titular head of the Baptist Bible Fellowship, leading figure in the Fundamental Baptist Congresses, and a spiritual diplomat who most successfully bridged the gaps between the sundry fundamentalist islands.

Ruckman ’76