By Grace White
Union University
Lewis
JACKSON — Pastor Frank Lewis of First Baptist Church, Nashville, has donated approximately 2,000 books from his personal library to Union University to be used by students and faculty.
Lewis’ collection is expansive, including various Bible commentaries and devotionals as well as books that he inherited from the two pastors who served before him at FBC Nashville.
As part of Union’s library, Lewis’ collection will be used to help train the next generation of pastors. His collection includes books that had belonged to his mother and books bought with money that his uncle had given him while he was a seminary student.
“What’s the possibility that some student from Union is going to write a sermon and preach it in a youth camp, and a kid is going to give their heart to Christ?” Lewis asked. “And it may be from an illustration that was provided by a book that my uncle gave me. That’s amazing!”
Lewis, who has been pastor of FBC Nashville since 1997, is not the only FBC Nashville pastor to donate his personal library to Union. Franklin Paschall, who served as the pastor there from 1956-1983, gave his library to Union. Also included in this donation was the library of Paschall’s predecessor, William Francis Powell, who served from 1921-1956. [Read more…]
Tuesday (Aug. 17) was the first day. It started again. We did it last year and we’ll do it again next year. For almost 200 years (Union celebrates its bicentennial in two years.) Union University has been starting school every fall. After the summer of an empty campus, the lifeblood has come back into this place. Students have returned. The hallowed halls are again teeming with what makes this place tick — students.
In mid-June, I was one of the 15,726 Baptists who attended the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville — the most attended convention since 1995 and the first large gathering in Nashville since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
