Touching Lives

By Jack Williams

During her first year on campus, Gloria Sickal, a native of Battle Creek, Mich., found herself in a literature class taught by Dr. Milton Buettner. Gloria remembers Buettner as a gentleman of diverse dimensions — simultaneously a missionary, musician, artist, and scholar. Before coming to campus, he’d served in China and was so committed to his missionary task that he barely escaped the dropping of the Iron Curtain. In Buettner’s class Gloria read a book by another man of many dimensions, Dr. Albert Schweitzer. While collegians around the country studied Schweitzer from afar, as a distant historical figure, Gloria and her classmates learned about the humanitarian, missionary, medical doctor, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize from someone — Professor Buettner — who knew him well. In fact, Buettner had taken organ lessons from Schweitzer, also an acclaimed musician and world authority on Johann Sebastian Bach.

“It was really something to know that you were getting this added insight about Schweitzer,” says Gloria. “Milton Buettner’s classes were incredibly stimulating.”

Buettner also knew how to coax the best out of his students. “I remember just writing my heart out and getting A’s on his literature tests,” says Gloria. “But for the midterm, he gave me a B. When I went in to ask him about it, he said, ‘You did get the highest grade in the class, but you didn’t get the highest grade for you.’”

In hindsight, says Gloria, this conversation with Buettner early in her college career may have made her the relentless advocate that she is for Christian higher education.

Gloria, a 1963 AU grad who married a 1959 fellow grad and took his last name of Gaither, likes to tell this “B grade” story to students who are about to enroll on sprawling university campuses where their freshman lit class will contain two or three hundred students.

“I tell them that no one will even know if they’re in class or not,” says Gloria. “At the Christian liberal arts school, you have professors who’ll call you to account. They know you, your talents and gifts, and what you are capable of doing.”

Bill Gaither was a freshman commuting a half hour from his family’s farm in Alexandria, Ind., to Taylor University in Upland, Ind., when he had a “two roads diverged into a wood” experience.

The year previous, his pursuit of a career in gospel music, a dream since early boyhood, had seemingly failed. Although Bill was now enrolled in college full time, he thought he might be getting a second chance when the Weatherfords, a well-known southern gospel quartet, asked him to travel with them as their pianist. Bill was honored, excited, and almost packed, in fact, until his father insisted that his son complete the degree he had started. In a recently published memoir, It’s More Than The Music, Bill described his amazement at this turn of events: “I turned them down to study English literature and poetry!”

Later, the aspiring musician would admit that the road he chose — well, the road his dad helped him choose — made all the difference.

“In the field of Christian music, there’s this feeling that raw talent will get you there. It will get you there, but it will not necessarily keep you there,” says Bill, who transferred to Anderson after finishing the year at Taylor. “There are a lot of people out there who are more talented than we are but have not stayed at this as long as we have. I think it goes back to our liberal arts education.”

Bill tells aspiring musicians to ask themselves what they’ll do when their favorite style of music passes and when the culture no longer wants what they’re producing.

“I think our exposure to philosophy, psychology, sociology, world literature, and poetry has helped us communicate at a broader level,” he says.

Both having finished their undergraduate degrees at AU, Bill and Gloria were busy teaching high school, writing songs and performing in the Bill Gaither Trio, when, as Gloria says, “the music world took over our lives.” The music officially took over their occupational lives in the late 1960s, when they found they couldn’t give their full attention to teaching — and when sales from albums, sheet music, and concerts made it possible for them to pursue music careers full time.

Gloria challenges conventional wisdom that God’s will comes pre-packaged in ribbon and bows. “I think that what God calls us to is a journey that has its adventure and its glory,” she says. “And many times you have no idea where that path is going to lead. But you trust God and you live life with a ‘Yes.’”

For the two Anderson alums, the journey has certainly had its adventures. They have written more than 600 songs, including classics such as “Because He Lives,” “The King Is Coming,” “The Church Triumphant,” “There’s Something About That Name,” “Something Beautiful,” and “Upon This Rock.” They’ve released nearly 60 albums, including Alleluia: A Praise Gathering for Believers, the first inspirational album to be certified Gold. A concert tour that began with three Gaither family members singing in rural churches eventually grew into multi-artist affairs selling out huge auditoriums and arenas. As an author, Gloria has written a long shelf of family-related books, including the bestsellers What My Parents Did Right, Let’s Hide the Word, and We Have This Moment. They launched Praise Gathering, which has attracted as many as 11,000 participants. Their original Gaither Music Company expanded into a record label, recording studio, concert booking department, television production house, fulfillment and telemarketing center, copyright management department, the opening of a Nashville office, and the launching of Gaither Family Resources and Latte Bar. Not to mention, of course, the Homecoming video explosion.

The journey has also had its share of glory, trophies that the Gaithers accepted gratefully but sometimes feel a little awkward talking about — awards such as four Grammys, more than 20 Dove Awards, the honor of being the first artists designated as “Christian Songwriters of the Century” by ASCAP, and memberships in both the Gospel Music Hall of Fame and the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame. More than 50 Homecoming videos have reached the gold, platinum or multi-platinum category.

Despite their résumés, Bill and Gloria still like to think of themselves as schoolteachers who are still about the business of the classroom. In fact, their presence hovers around the classrooms in the music wing of the Krannert Fine Arts Building and the Athletic Training Room in the new Wellness Center, two areas the Gaithers supported when those buildings were constructed.

They also have invested generously in minority student scholarships. “Historically, some of our most outstanding leaders within the Church of God have come from the black community,” says Gloria. “We can’t afford to lose these rich resources.” Bill recently completed 30 years of service on AU’s Board of Trustees.

“There’s no question that Gloria and I have been given a platform,” says Bill. “And with that platform I like to remind people connected with the university to use their influence and resources to help the institution in the way it served us when we were all a little younger.”

Singing the praises of the university is no stretch for Bill and Gloria, who firmly believe that AU and Church of God theology make for a strong partnership when it comes to carrying out academic mission.

“This theology of openness really excels when it comes to education,” says Gloria. “We’re not real creedal in the Church of God. We work out our salvation with fear and trembling and use the Bible as our creed.

“This theology allows us to give kids a lot of latitude and space to do some experimenting and failing and questioning,” Gloria continues. “But we want students to come to these conclusions on their own. If you don’t let them grow and blossom and find their own way, you’re only postponing that process for another four years. Better they do it here than out there in the secular world.” Bill says it’s a difference between teaching students what to think and how to think.

“We’ve seen kids from every town in the U.S.A. and they want to know where they can go to study the arts,” says Gloria. “Many times, it’s the theatre students and the writers who give colleges fits.

“AU is a great place for those who want to do music or sculpture or painting,” she says. “I would like to see us become the finest institution in the communicated arts. I would like to see us get stronger.”

Gloria is in a unique position to compare schools, having served on the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities for the last 20 years. The CCCU, of which AU is a member, is an association of more than 150 Christian colleges around the world, which works to advance the cause of Christian higher education.

According to Gloria, Council schools network to do what they could not do individually—such as offering American studies, China studies, Russian studies, Latin American studies, and LA film studies programs, where students from member schools serve internships.

Gloria, who has also promoted the cause of minority scholarships with the CCCU, won the Mark O. Hatfield Award in 2002 for her efforts.

In recent years, she’s become involved in the United Christian College Fund, a development effort of the CCCU to cultivate relationships with major donors who give funds that funnel down to member schools. As benefactors of these organizations, the Gaithers have had the opportunity to give time and money to the broader evangelical world.

Gloria’s role has also offered the couple a closer look at other Christian colleges.

“When I look around at institutions that are trying to do the same thing as us,” says Bill, “I find myself saying, ‘AU’s a pretty good place.’ ”

The Gaithers give much of the credit to present leadership. Last year at an alumni gathering before a Homecoming concert in Ft. Wayne, Bill told the audience that AU President Jim Edwards is the “president of presidents.”

Gloria has also had the opportunity to work with many Christian college presidents in recent years. She credits Edwards for his ability to juggle academic and spiritual issues while also realizing that disciplines in the arts have a major impact on today’s culture.

“There are only two or three other presidents that I would put at his level,” says Gloria. “He has a balance that colleges dream they’ll find.”