A Short History Of BBI
It has been over 20 years (in 1992) since the first time a group of Christian ministers thought of forming a new Bible college for the North Dallas area. As part of that group, I, Dwight Patterson, was greatly interested in this new seminary effort because I looked around in the world I was living in and was deeply saddened to find precious few truly Bible Believing Christians – in our neighborhoods, in our churches, in our colleges, and in our world, very much like what Paul said in Galatians 1:4. A Bible Believing college or institute made perfect since then and especially now. After all, let's get for real, have things gotten any better in the last 20 years?
As many believers can attest to, often we will have “a dream” to do something truly worthwhile for the Lord Jesus Christ, but nothing, or almost nothing, happens in our own “human time frame.” When nothing seems to be going on, it can make someone wonder, “WHERE IS GOD?” So for 20 years, the wonderful idea of having a Bible Believers Institute made very little progress, that is, until recently.
Then in October, 2013, my phone started to ring and ring and ring. Now let me be very clear here: BBI is not a “I-thing” or a “one-man show.” It never has been, and it must never be. BBI is a “spiritual body of Christ” thing. People in our local Dallas area are hungry God's truth. Some are parents who have graduating high schoolers who want to go into the ministry and to go to a Bible-centered college, locally, and not have to send their children to a foreign land, like – say – Arkansas. Some Texans consider Arkansas as being – well – foreign.
Other phone callers have been instructors who are curious about the possibility of teaching at BBI. Others are students themselves, wanting to know more about what a Bible believing college would look like.
So as this was going on, Pastor Quebe Seals calls me up – out of the blue – and we beginning talking and praying with each other. Then just a few weeks ago, it dawns on both of us that Overcomers Radio and Bible Believers Institute could work together in the ministry. This gives birth to BBI coming on Overcomers Radio and seeing what the listening audience response is to this new ministry. And it also creates what we are calling “The Overcomers Radio Scholarship” to BBI.