10/29/2026
GORDON LINDSAY: THE MAN WHO HELPED LAUNCH AMERICA'S GREAT HEALING REVIVAL
Gordon Lindsay was born on June 18, 1906, in Zion City, Illinois, the religious community established by healing evangelist John Alexander Dowie. His parents were followers of Dowie's ministry, and his father had moved to Zion after becoming deeply impressed by the testimonies of divine healing. It was there that he met Gordon's mother. Lindsay grew up surrounded by preaching about faith, miracles, and the healing power of Jesus Christ, although his own conversion would come years later.
In 1925, at nineteen years old, Lindsay attended a revival meeting conducted by Charles F. Parham at John G. Lake's church in Portland, Oregon. There he surrendered his life to Jesus Christ and received a call into ministry. He subsequently traveled with Lake, gaining firsthand experience in evangelism and divine healing. By 1927, Lindsay was conducting his own revival campaigns, and over the following decade he preached throughout America, established churches, and developed a growing passion for seeing the supernatural power of God demonstrated through the gospel.
In 1947, Lindsay's longtime friend Jack Moore, a Pentecostal pastor from Shreveport, Louisiana, invited him to attend meetings conducted by William Branham, a healing evangelist from Jeffersonville, Indiana. Branham's campaigns were attracting enormous attention as people testified of miraculous healings. Lindsay attended the meetings and watched people arrive on cots, in wheelchairs, and suffering from serious illnesses. He witnessed remarkable healings, including people rising from their cots and a woman receiving her sight while seated in the congregation.
Lindsay became convinced that God was raising up a new wave of healing evangelists. He took a leave of absence from his pastorate in Oregon and began serving as Branham's campaign director, helping organize meetings, manage the crowds, and publicize the miracles.
Lindsay and Moore had also spent years discussing the divisions within Pentecostal Christianity. They wanted to see ministers cooperate across denominational boundaries and believed the healing revival could bring believers together around the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit.
In April 1948, they launched The Voice of Healing in Shreveport, Louisiana. The publication began in an upstairs room above Jack Moore's garage, with Lindsay serving as editor and Moore as associate editor. Moore's wife, Anna Jeanne, also played an important role in managing the magazine's circulation.
Initially devoted to Branham's ministry, The Voice of Healing carried accounts of miraculous healings, photographs, reports from revival campaigns, and schedules of upcoming meetings. People who had never attended a healing service could read about the blind receiving sight, the deaf hearing, the crippled walking, and multitudes surrendering their lives to Christ. The magazine quickly attracted readers throughout the Pentecostal world.
When Branham temporarily withdrew from his exhausting campaign schedule, Lindsay expanded the magazine to include other evangelists. Soon, The Voice of Healing was publishing reports from Oral Roberts, F. F. Bosworth, T. L. Osborn, Jack Coe, A. A. Allen, William Freeman, Velmer Gardner, Raymond T. Richey, and numerous others. Lindsay helped introduce these ministries to audiences far beyond the cities where they were preaching.
The publication grew rapidly. By March 1949, it had approximately 30,000 subscribers, and circulation eventually approached 100,000 copies monthly. Its pages were filled with photographs of enormous revival tents, testimonies of divine healing, and accounts of thousands responding to altar calls. The magazine also provided practical information about where evangelists would be preaching, allowing readers to attend campaigns and bring friends and relatives who needed healing.
Lindsay soon began organizing gatherings that brought the healing evangelists together. In December 1949, the first Voice of Healing convention assembled ministers from across the country, including William Branham, Raymond T. Richey, F. F. Bosworth, Jack Moore, and Velmer Gardner. These meetings provided opportunities for evangelists to pray together, share testimonies, discuss their ministries, and encourage one another.
The following year's convention attracted more than 1,000 ministers from thirty-nine states. Evangelists who had previously conducted their campaigns independently were now developing relationships and cooperating in the work of evangelism. Lindsay's efforts helped establish a network that strengthened the healing revival throughout the 1950s.
Across America, enormous tents were being erected in cities and towns. Oral Roberts preached to vast congregations and prayed for the sick. Jack Coe became known for his bold healing ministry, while A. A. Allen conducted powerful revival campaigns that drew thousands. T. L. Osborn carried the message of salvation and divine healing into nations around the world. Lindsay's magazine documented their campaigns and spread the testimonies of what God was doing.
Lindsay also became increasingly interested in taking the healing revival overseas. He and his wife, Freda, traveled to Mexico, where they witnessed tremendous interest in the gospel during evangelistic meetings in Ciudad Victoria and Monterrey. The experience strengthened his conviction that divine healing could open doors for evangelism in nations where traditional missionary efforts had encountered resistance.
He began encouraging healing evangelists to conduct international campaigns, and The Voice of Healing increasingly featured reports from Latin America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. In 1954, Tommy Hicks conducted his extraordinary evangelistic campaigns in Argentina, where enormous crowds gathered in stadiums to hear the gospel and witness miraculous healings. Lindsay helped publicize the meetings, bringing news of the Argentine revival to Christians throughout the world.
In 1952, The Voice of Healing established its headquarters in Dallas, Texas. The following year, Lindsay launched a weekly national radio program featuring messages about salvation, divine healing, and the work of the Holy Spirit. He also organized prayer initiatives encouraging believers to intercede for worldwide revival.
Lindsay was a prolific author who wrote extensively about divine healing, biblical prophecy, the Holy Spirit, and the lives of influential revivalists. In 1954, he established a printing operation that helped produce and distribute millions of Christian publications, extending the influence of the healing revival far beyond the meetings themselves.
As the revival spread internationally, Lindsay began placing greater emphasis on establishing lasting churches and training believers in the nations where evangelistic campaigns had taken place. His ministry developed Bible correspondence courses, supported national evangelists, and helped congregations construct church buildings.
By the mid-1960s, the organization had expanded well beyond its beginnings as a healing magazine. In 1967, Gordon and Freda Lindsay renamed it Christ for the Nations, reflecting its growing international mission.
Lindsay also wanted to establish a school where young men and women could receive biblical training while being encouraged to seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit, exercise spiritual gifts, preach the gospel, and minister to the sick. In 1970, Gordon and Freda founded Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas, Texas, opening with approximately fifty students.
The school emphasized prayer, worship, biblical instruction, evangelism, and missions. Lindsay wanted graduates prepared to carry the gospel into cities, villages, and nations where the need for Spirit-filled ministers remained great. Its missionary emphasis reflected his decades of involvement with healing evangelists and international campaigns, while its commitment to the Holy Spirit preserved the Pentecostal convictions that had shaped his ministry since his conversion under Charles Parham.
On April 1, 1973, Gordon Lindsay died during a Sunday service at Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas. He was sixty-six years old. Freda Lindsay continued leading the organization, overseeing its expansion and helping develop the international ministry they had established together.
Christ for the Nations continued training ministers and supporting missionary work around the world. Lindsay's influence remained evident through the evangelists he had encouraged, the testimonies he had preserved in The Voice of Healing, and the generations of Spirit-filled workers who continued carrying the gospel into the nations.
Revival Press
