George W. Truett
1867 - 1944

“Be kind to everybody you meet, because everybody is having a hard time.”


North Carolina was George Washington Truett’s birthplace.  By the time he was 18, he was educated well enough to begin teaching in a one-room public school on Crooked Creek in nearby Towns County, Georgia.  It was during that two-year apprenticeship that George was converted.  Then he established an academy at Hiawassee, Georgia, in 1887.  The student body eventually numbered over 300.

When the Truett family moved to Texas in 1889, George went to college—Baylor University—though not as a student.  He was offered the position of financial secretary and was instrumental in saving Baylor from bankruptcy.  Afterward he became a student, graduated, and unbelievably was elected to become Baylor’s president!

But the same year of his graduation he was called to the First Baptist Church of Dallas, remaining there for 47 years, or until his death in 1944.  Under his leadership the church grew into the largest church in the world at that time, with 18,124 additions and 5,337 baptisms.

But Dr. Truett had many pulpits besides the pulpit at First Baptist Church.  He instituted the Palace Theatre services, held each noon the week before Easter, with nearly 2,000 attending.  He preached out in the country churches all across the South, and the common folk heard him gladly.  He preached from the steps of our nation’s Capitol, and in world centers in London, Stockholm, Paris, Berlin, Jerusalem, etc.  Everywhere Truett’s preaching produced souls for Christ. 

In 1927 he was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention, which office he served for three terms.

By any standard, he ranks as one of the most popular and influential preachers in America in the first half of the 20th century.  He was a world figure; was on close terms with presidents, senators and governors.

Dr. Truett was a great man, a great leader, and a great preacher of the Gospel. His biographers knew whereof they spoke when they explained the man and his ministry in two well-defined words:  “heart-power.”