What do a U.S. president, Elvis Presley, and The Christian and Missionary Alliance have in common? It may sound like the setup for a joke, but instead it’s the fascinating story of the gospel, leadership, and our own history. Thanks for joining me today.

To newspaper reporters, he self-described as ex-bellboy, ex-cowboy, ex-prospector, ex-pugilist, and ex-football player. He could have added that he had also been a football coach, university athletic director, employee of the Anti-Saloon League, and a liberal congregational pastor all before age 34. Paul Rader was born in 1879 in the wild American West. His father had left the grocery wagon business to take the gospel to the frontier as a circuit-rider missionary. Dad was dubbed “Cow Catcher Rader,” as he’d ride the cow catcher at the front of the train to visit a newly settled town. Young Paul was often at his side. Together they’d walk into a saloon. Dad would prop six-year-old Paul on top of the bar where the lad would sing a song in his soprano voice. The crowd would quiet, and then dad would preach to cowboys, prostitutes, and anyone who would listen.

It was on one of these trips that Paul gave his own heart to the Lord. In his words, “I well remember the time of my conversion. I was nine years of age. My father was a Methodist missionary in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and a real revival was in progress. I remember that a few soldiers from the nearby fort were at the altar. There was real conviction of sin that evening, of which I was very conscious. I made my way to the altar. A dear saint said to me, ‘Why, Paul, you love the Savior, don’t you?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’re all right.’ I remember that the cloth was worn off the top button of his vest, and I said to myself, ‘God sees what I have done as plainly as I see the uncovered tin of that button.'” Paul went back to his room that night with a sad heart, but his father had been watching and knelt with his son at the bedside and told him about the blood of Christ. Paul gave his young heart to the Lord. It was a moment he looked back on with tenderness for the rest of his life.

For the next two decades, Paul seemed to always be on the move—geographically, occupationally, and spiritually. Paul was sent by his father to plant a church in a town that had no gospel witness. Two people attended his first service, but by the end of the summer, 70 had been saved, $700 had been collected, and the church was turned over to a trained pastor. His college studies took him to the University of Denver. Looking back on these days, he wrote, “I can remember the day when doubts about the Bible began to make their way into my heart. The professor of literature was lecturing on the Book of Job. His statements went through my heart like a knife.” Paul lingered after class. With cutting sarcasm, the professor informed Paul that his simple faith arose out of his ignorance. In Paul’s words, “He could not have struck a worse chord in my nature than to call me ignorant. My blood boiled.”

For weeks, Paul read everything the professor gave him, literature that undermined his conviction about the authority of God’s Word. “I did not throw away my faith, but I let in this strong poison that began its deadly work. From that first day of doubt, a wobble appeared in my nature. I had a double mind, and true to Scripture, became unstable in all my ways. When faith wobbles, failure is inevitable. I tried to preach as before, but I had entered into the poisonous current of the new natural religion of our times, which offers no otherworld salvation but sings the praises of this world and this world alone. It believes in salvation by evolution instead of salvation through the revolution of regeneration. It stands for man-made religion as against supernatural religion, and between the two, I was trying to stand, like trying to escape being hit by an automobile at night by stepping between the two headlights. The devil had beaten me. He had run me up a blind road that leads to nowhere, and all along the road were marks of my defeat. I vowed I would never preach again.”

Paul’s spiritual wandering lasted for years. In the rugged early days of American football, he had excelled as a fullback. Now boxing became his sport of choice. Trained by world champions, Bob Fitzsimmons and Jim Jeffries, standing well over six foot tall and weighing in at 220, Rader was a force in the ring. According to one biographer, Rader could make thousands of dollars in modern day equivalence over a weekend of boxing, often betting on himself. With the money made from boxing, Paul became a partner in an oil prospecting company in New York City. Success came quickly, and he soon boasted that he was now “set for life.”

But at the height of his success, his young bride was back in Portland suffering from tuberculosis, and his much-loved father passed away. He locked himself alone in his room on 44th Street for three days and three nights. He wrestled with his doubts of the authority of God’s Word and his own selfishness and sin. Finally, at four o’clock one morning, his soul was settled. About that experience, he wrote, “God found me like Peter, a believer, a backslider, a hypocrite without backbone. No human words can ever tell the joy that came in my heart when my sins, my failure, and my hypocrisy were dealt with by the means of the blood that I must call precious, the precious blood of Christ. I then saw the meaning of the Cross of Christ and that God had thereon dealt with my sin. Waves of joy and assurance of His love filled my soul. Until through my tears, I cried, ‘Oh God, I am complete and clean in Christ.'”

He stunned his partners by walking away from the oil business, and the streets became his new pulpit. Street preaching led him to Pittsburgh, where he encountered The Christian and Missionary Alliance for the first time. It was 1912. “When I arrived at Mr. Whiteside’s little tabernacle, the Sunday school was just being dismissed. I sat in the back seat of the church. Mr. Whiteside stepped into the pulpit. The Holy Spirit said, ‘This is your job, helping that old man.’ I said to the Lord, ‘Oh, not here.'” Paul worked under Daddy Whiteside for two years, during which time he met Dr. Simpson, who was there holding a campaign. Rader approached him and said, “Anything I can do to help?” This launched a ministry team. Simpson took the 34-year-old to Old Orchard to lead singing. From there, they ministered together at several events. A powerful mentorship was happening for Paul.

About these days with Simpson he wrote, “His life was an example of holy living. I remember one day while we were traveling on the train, I told him, ‘Doctor, you have been a terrible conviction to me. I haven’t heard you say a word of gossip.’ He said, ‘Don’t give me credit for that. I have suffered so much from people’s tongues that I don’t want to see anybody suffer from mine.'” In 1915, Paul became the pastor of the prestigious Moody Church in Chicago. Simultaneously, he held extensive evangelistic meetings throughout the country and was named honorary vice president of The Alliance.

When our president, Dr. Simpson, died in 1919, our movement looked to the pastor-evangelist for leadership. At age 40, Paul Rader became our second president. The transition was in no way seamless. Paul continued to pastor in Chicago with our office in New York City. Some of our leaders opposed Rader’s appointment, doubting that Dr. Simpson’s vision could be entrusted to him. Moody, an independent church with no interest in joining The Alliance, wasn’t pleased either. Their pastor hadn’t even consulted them before accepting the presidency. By 1921, he left Moody, started a new ministry in Chicago, never did move to New York, and resigned as our president in 1924. Clunky though it seemed, 100 years later, we’re still experiencing fruit from seeds sown during that season. This past year, The Alliance celebrated 100-year anniversaries for our churches in Syria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Columbia, and Cambodia. Hundreds of thousands of people through the century have encountered the living Christ, and thousands of churches have been established because The Alliance moved forward in faith, despite the loss of our founder and the awkward transition that followed. Evidently, the advancing of Christ’s Kingdom is not dependent upon the perfection of our processes.

More highlights of Paul’s ministry include: he was among the first to take the gospel to the airwaves. As the newly invented radio made its way into American homes, Paul was there. Eventually, he’d partner with CBS, and his programs were broadcast nationwide. Twelve full-time staff were needed to handle the thousands of pieces of mail that poured in every month. The religious broadcasters inducted him into their Hall of Fame as a pioneer in religious broadcasting. For three months, Rader ministered in Aimee Semple McPherson’s Angelus Temple during her absence. Crusades were held across American Canada. One of those in Chicago, Paul Rader’s big steel tent tabernacle seated 5,000 people, and night after night was full of saints and seekers alike. One convert, Peter Deyneka, a Russian immigrant and my spiritual great-grandfather, was hired as night watchman to protect the stage’s two grand pianos. This crusade became the launch of the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle, which, during the Great Depression, was utilized to serve the needy—Paul Rader’s Pantry not only gave away food and clothing but turned their tabernacle into a cannery. Grapes, apples, pears, peaches, even herring and sauerkraut. Wisconsin farmers sent eight tons of surplus cabbage. Of course, some of the congregants complained of the smell. Bold though he was amid the Great Depression, his ministry suffered greatly due to lack of finances and eventually fell into bankruptcy.

Rader spent two of his final years pastoring a small church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, living on a chicken farm to supplement his income. How does a U.S. president fit into the story you ask? “I remember vividly the day just after I entered high school when my father took me and my two brothers to Los Angeles to attend a great revival meeting held by Chicago evangelist Dr. Paul Rader” —Richard Nixon, 1962.

And Elvis? Rader wrote several hymns, including one during General Council 1919–Toccoa Falls, Georgia. The delegates, including Rader, were housed in tents. Rader was moved by stories of hardship that the institute family had endured for the years since a fire destroyed their facility. “Fear not, little flock, from the cross to the throne. Only believe, only believe. All things are possible. Only believe.” That hymn became a personal favorite of Elvis Presley, who recorded it for his album “Love Letters from Elvis.” I’m not sure Rader would’ve loved Elvis’ version of it, but America did, and it was subsequently released as a single in ’71, where it spent two weeks on the chart, peaking at number 53.

Paul died of prostate cancer at age 58 in Hollywood, California. 2,500 people attended his funeral, but his legacy can be traced through more than a song or denomination. Ministries that were spawned by leaders he influenced included HCJB Radio—Clarence Jones, his right-hand man in the earliest radio broadcast. Awana—Lance Latham, his music and youth director. Slavic Gospel Association—Peter Deyneka. New Tribes Mission—Paul Fleming, converted under Rader’s ministry in Los Angeles. National Sunday School Association and Gospel Light Publication’s Henrietta Mears came to Christ in a Rader crusade. Staff member Oswald Smith went on to build Peoples Church in Toronto and be an influence in the early days of Youth for Christ, and his wife, Mary, along with two other women, formed a prayer band at the 1914 Chicago Council that eventually became what we call today Alliance Women.

I’m grateful to our Alliance Archives that provided the resources for this storytelling and to James Snyder for the biography, “Paul Rader: Portrait of an Evangelist.” I know I’m well past my 12 minutes and could triple the stories I’ve told about our second president. Yet as we approach our twelfth leadership transition, I didn’t want Paul Rader’s life lost to us, with the conviction that the fascinating story of The Christian and Missionary Alliance is still being written by the Divine Author Himself.