Great Soul-Winning Churches - Elmer Towns

For a number of years, Cummons held tent meetings in the small towns around Massillon
during the summer. He had a large white 400-seat tent which church members pitched in empty
lots, where he preached each evening. His members helped canvass the neighborhood, provide
special music, and do follow-up. Many one-week tent revivals were held each summer, and to
this day Christians drive as far as 35 miles to church because they were won to Christ in a tent
meeting, or through other extension ministries of the church.
Third, “Our strong missionary outreach has made us biblical and given God a basis on
which to bless us,” according to Cummons. Eighty-two families from many mission boards are
supported by an $85,000 annual faith-promise offering. Cummons had visited the World Baptist
Fellowship annual conference and heard Oswald Smith speak on the faith-promise plan for
foreign missions. God spoke to him, and the following month they had their first conference,
promising $25,000 to missions. According to Cummons, “From that day we have never had a
financial problem. We have built buildings, black-topped our lots, remodeled and bought
acreage.” Cummons sees missionary outreach as a turning point in the church’s growth because,
until that time, he “had not promoted missions heavily and finances had been a struggle.” He is
quick to add, “We still have to trust God and plead with our people to give, but God supplies our
needs.”
Bruce Cummons accepted Christ as an 11-year-old boy at an old-fashioned altar. The
pastor of the Evangelical United Brethren Church in Parkersburg, West Virginia, preached the
revival meeting. Every day, Cummons promised God that he would go forward that evening; but
during the service he put it off. On the last night, a little German lady walked around the back of
the auditorium and put her hand on his shoulder, saying, “Bruce, wouldn’t you like to be a
Christian?” He said nothing to her, but immediately went forward and knelt at the altar, where
the pastor led him to Jesus Christ.
Bruce was reared in an old-fashioned Christian family, where his father and mother
opened the Word of God; and, as a high school student, he was active in the church youth group.
At the beginning of the Second World War his parents moved to Akron, Ohio, and Bruce went in
the Navy. After the war he used his training in radio to get a job as radio maintenance man in an
Akron, Ohio, factory. One Sunday evening he decided not to go to church because of a heavy
burden on his heart which he couldn’t explain. That evening he walked around Portage Lake near
his home. He testifies, “I wept because of the burden and was angry because I couldn’t explain
it.” He lay down on the bank of the lake in the green grass and prayed, “Lord, I don’t understand
this burden; if you lift the burden, I’ll do anything—I’ll even preach the gospel.” The burden
immediately lifted and for the first time in his life, he thought about being a preacher. That night
he first told his parents and then his fiancée, Wanda, who immediately was willing to follow him
into the ministry. Bruce Cummons, being a man of his word, has never been untrue to that
promise he made God on Portage Lake.
Cummons talked with his pastor, Dr. Dallas Billington, pastor of Akron Baptist Temple,
who suggested he prepare for the ministry at Bible Baptist Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas. Bruce
entered in 1948 and graduated at the end of the summer school, 1950.
There, Cummons indicated, Dr. J. Frank Norris made a great impact on him, “opening
my eyes to the Scriptures, teaching me the mysteries of the Old Testament, challenging me to