This month the seminary community lost a beloved friend and one whose spirit Gordon-Conwell continues to echo. Trustee emeritus Bill Wood gave up his earthly tent on Sunday, August 18, 2024 and has donned the robe of glory in the presence of the saints and angels.

The mark left by Bill during his tenure on the Gordon-Conwell board of trustees can be traced back to the early formative days of the seminary. He had been the son of a pastor and “growing up a manse” (he would say), meant “seminary life loomed large in my interest.”

The manner of his coming to the board of trustees captures the spirit of the divinely orchestrated and, at times, divinely chaotic movements of God that brought Gordon-Conwell into existence. At the time when the seminary was still being forged, Bill was a young faculty member at Harvard Medical School. On one occasion he had given a lecture north of Boston and, as he was driving home, he passed on the freeway on his right seminary-founder Harold Ockenga’s black Mercedes. He honked and waved. A minute later he saw the same car, this time passing him on his left, with Ockenga signaling with hand motions for him to pull over. He pulled onto the shoulder, as did Ockenga’s car, and he watched in disbelief as Ockenga’s wife, Audrey, slid into the driver’s seat while Ockenga himself stepped out of his car to climb into the passenger seat of Bill’s car saying, “Drive on. Audrey will follow us.” The ensuing conversation resulted in Ockenga informing Bill that he had been nominated for the board of the newly-forming seminary, soon to be Gordon-Conwell. Bill hesitated, explaining to Ockenga that he felt his coming on board might be awkward since his father-in-law, Harold Lindsell, was currently serving as the board chair at the seminary and he did not want to give the impression of there being nepotism involved. Ockenga assured him that Lindsell knew nothing of the nomination and had nothing to do with the invitation. So, on a dark night while driving into Boston, Audrey navigating dutifully behind, Bill Wood joined the ranks of the earliest leaders of the then newly-formed seminary.

He had just turned forty, but his youth was an asset, he was told. He brought new vigor to what was intended to be a long-standing role with the mandate to be “watchers of the seminary.” “Other schools brought on people who could bring wealth,” he said once, “but they slid away from orthodoxy. Our job was to make sure the seminary doesn’t slide away and I took that very seriously.”

When he spoke of the seminary’s challenging times, particularly on three occasions when the financial crises seemed to mark the end of the school’s viability, he said, “We prayed, ‘Lord, this is not our seminary; it’s your seminary. We can’t see our way out of this. Please deliver us.’”

“Each time,” he would say,  “God has always come through and supplied that need.”

These kinds of moments brought the board to their knees, which Bill attested positioned the board “to get serious about prayer and trusting. We had reached the point where it was beyond simply writing checks.”

In the early days, under Graham and Ockenga, the work of the seminary was more localized. Over the decades of Bill’s tenure, he watched how the vision and ethos evolved and the work expanded to embrace a global mandate. He said, “Under Scott’s leadership we are seeing a Christianity [that goes] beyond North America.”

He lived by the cherished advice of his mother from Philippians: “Be anxious for nothing; in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (4:6), adding his own version: “God answers every time. Abandon anxiety and lean on him. I’ve seen him come through remarkably. My mother’s verse came through.”

He joined the board of trustees of  Gordon-Conwell on October 27, 1975 and retired on June 30, 2021 to become an emeritus trustee.

We as a seminary community give thanks for the bravado Harold Ockenga displayed when he waved down Bill on the freeway, hopped out of his car to ride with Bill and opened up a world of new possibility. Bill’s leadership among us has served, strengthened, and blessed us over many decades.

He is survived by his beloved wife Judy and three children Kristen, Billy, and Lindsay and a tribe of grandchildren.  A service of remembrance is being planned in Atlanta in mid-September (details forthcoming).

Rest in God’s peace and grace, our dear friend.