Our beloved brother, friend, supporter, and former chair of the board of trustees John Huffman has left this world to reap his good reward. Join us in praying for his wife Anne and children Carla and Janet (their daughter Suzanne is deceased) as we join them in sorrow even as we celebrate the ebullience and generosity that defined his life.

John Huffman’s relationship with Gordon-Conwell reaches back to the seminary’s earliest days when Billy Graham and Harold Ockenga were still on the golf course hammering out the yet unknown details about how this proposed merger of two schools would play out. John was placed serendipitously at the center of some of these early conversations.

His father had been an associate of Ockenga’s at Park Street Church, and he grew up alongside the Ockenga kids. His mother had been the vice chair of the Women’s Auxiliary of the old Gordon College and Gordon Divinity School, so his ties to our history predate the seminary’s beginnings. In time, his family moved to Wheaton, Illinois, where John completed his high school years at Wheaton Academy and then his undergrad work at Wheaton College. He later pursued a master’s degree in American History at the University of Tulsa, along with seminary and doctoral degrees at Princeton. And while the bulk of his career in ministry was spent in Newport Beach, California, after his schooling in his early days of ministry, he settled down as a young pastor in Key Biscayne, Florida.

During the tenure of that young pastor in Key Biscayne, Harold Ockenga would come to Florida to hold mission conferences at John’s church while Billy Graham would likewise come to Key Biscayne to prepare for crusades. As providence would have it, John ended up on the golf course with each of them, separately, where in one ear, Graham would talk about his involvement in the Conwell School of Theology while, in the other ear, Ockenga spoke about the possibility of leaving Park Street Church to become president of Gordon College and Gordon Divinity School. J. Howard Pew’s name, too, would come up in these conversations, as discussion moved more concretely in the direction of the possible merger of these schools. So, this 29-year-old pastor was like a fly-on-the-wall during the early discussions and maneuverings that would result in the birth of Gordon-Conwell.

When the merger went through, he was promptly brought onto the Board of Visitors, the earliest iteration of the trustee board, and soon thereafter came on as one of the earliest full trustees. At that time Gordon-Conwell was “a barebones operation,” as he once said.

John witnessed a major sea change in the culture writ large that carried a substantial impact on the trajectory of the seminary. Ockenga’s vision for this new enterprise was to create a theological school to “to fill the pulpits of mainline denominational churches and faculties of major universities and seminaries.” Ockenga wanted the school to possess the highest credentialing of the Association of Theological Schools, preparing students to go toe-to-toe in the struggle between theological liberalism and historic orthodoxy. What no one saw coming, as Huffman described it, was “the Jesus movement of the early 1970s coming down the pike.” Juxtaposed with Jimmy Carter’s presidency, prompting Time magazine to run the cover story titled “The Year of the Evangelical,” the rise of Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ, and the flourishing of many other para-church organizations at that time, this phenomenon meant that the modest beginnings of the seminary were soon overthrown by a flood of young Jesus freaks wanting to get trained for ministry and mission.

Over the decades John witnessed the metamorphosis of a school that was shaped, as he says it, “under the guidance of strong leader—Harold Ockenga—backed by a stronger leader—Billy Graham,” who together made the critical decisions with the support of a local executive committee. This was the seminary’s model when John came on as the youngest board member. When he departed in 2021, as among the oldest, he saw a much more expanded model of governance that rendered board members larger and more targeted roles.

John challenged and encouraged us with his deep and intimate connections to the beginnings of the seminary and his bold vision for what we might become in the decades ahead. Former trustee Joel Aarsvold recalls during a particular low point for the seminary, the encouragement he felt when he would hear John’s “booming voice say numerous times, over and over, ‘God has been faithful to Gordon-Conwell in the past. We can trust him for the future!’”

John’s role embodied the dynamic and mysterious workings of God, who placed him in the midst of our champion-founders at the earliest days of the seminary’s beginnings. These mentors, in turn, shaped and fashioned his own leadership in a way that remained true to the convictions of our founding purpose and hopeful amid the inevitable future challenges. We thank God for John’s gift of optimism, steady hand, humor, and devotion, echoing Paul’s words to the Philippians: We thank our God every time we remember you. In all our prayers, . . . we always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now (1:3-5).