Cline R. Paden 1919 – 2007

A Tribute by Sunset International Institute Cline’s Victory Celebration

Video presentation

Welcome and Introduction - Tim Paden

Prayer - Truman Scott

Congregational singing - Ted Kell “My Eyes Are Dry” “Our God, He Is Alive”

Obituary - The - Gerald Paden

Scripture Reading - Matt Paden

Eulogy - The Faithful Friend - Rex Boyles

Song - Nat Cooper “Can You Count the Stars?”

Eulogy - The Visionary - Truitt Adair

Scripture Reading - W. R. Collier

Eulogy - The Family Man - Randy Couchman

Closing Prayer - Foy Anderson

Closing Song - Nat Cooper “Bless Be the Tie”

Instructions to congregation - Funeral Director

Viewing - Recorded music

Procession to Resthaven Memorial Park

Graveside Service - Randy Couchman

Reception - Chapel - Sunset Church of Christ

A Legacy of Leadership by Truitt Adair Cline R. Paden retired last summer from a long ministry with Sunset International Bible Institute, just one year prior to his death. Since 1962 his name has been inextricably associated with the school he founded. After serving as the school’s only director for thirty-one years, Cline retired from the directorship in 1993 and became its first chancellor. The ravages of decades of travel, speaking and tireless service, and more recently Parkinson’s disease, had taken a physical toll. While no longer a physical presence at Sunset, Cline leaves a leadership legacy which will endure for generations. There are significant contributions to Sunset and our brotherhood which are deeply rooted in Cline’s leadership:

Preacher Training: The preacher training concept which Cline introduced in 1962 has spawned hundreds of similar programs world-wide. Cline encouraged and helped in the early beginnings of many of them.

World : The school was never just about preacher training but training preachers to evangelize the world. The Sunset World Evangelism forum which began in 1968 resulted in 120 unevangelized nations hearing the gospel. Sunset trained served in many of those nations at Cline’s encouragement.

Biblical Commitment: Attention to the text, to truth and to balanced Biblical soundness have been a constant and recurring theme. Cline often reminded colleagues that he would never want the school he founded to become a tool for Satan.

Brotherhood Affiliation: There has never been a parochial spirit at Sunset but rather a high view of the church and our great brotherhood. Where possible, there has always been unity, cooperation and partnership with other brotherhood ministries and congregations. Cline was often heard to say, “Lighthouses do not compete.”

Positive Faith: Cline began the school with “no visible means of support” and continued to operate and expand the school on meager finances with little more than a deep faith in God’s power. Ministry decisions have typically been more about faith and the will of God than budgets and spread sheets.

These and other core leadership values which guided the life and mission of Sunset for the thirty-one years of Cline’s Directorship and the thirteen years of his Chancellorship are still deeply embedded in the DNA of this place and its people. We thank God for using Cline R. Paden to model leadership for a generation of preachers, missionaries and those who train them. We commit the next generation to the essential values which must not change as Sunset International Bible Institute progresses into the twenty-first century under the guiding shadow of one of our brotherhood’s greatest leaders.

CLINE R. PADEN MEMORIAL FUND A memorial fund has been established at Sunset International Bible Institute honoring Cline’s lifelong commitment to missions. All donations in memory of Cline will be added to that fund and will be acknowledged to the family.

"THE LORD HAS LED US TO THIS PLACE" by Cline Paden "The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and signs and wonders, and he brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey." Deuteronomy 26:8, 9

Moses recounted for the people of Israel all that God had done for them in leading them out of Egyptian bondage. I am thoroughly convinced that what God did then for Israel he has done for us. I believe that he has led us to this place, and by that I mean He has led us to Latin American Bible School, West Bible School, Sunset School of Preaching, and to Sunset International Bible Institute. So, God having led us to this place, and having equipped us for our tasks, and having been constantly by our side supplying strength for our labors‒what have we done during the past years?

-We have taken seriously the commission given in the valedictory address of our Lord to His apostles to preach the gospel to the fallen race of Adam. -In doing so, we have left our tracks in landscapes with which Moses was familiar. Like his, our voices have echoed off the pyramids of Egypt, as the Christ about whom Moses spake has been preached to the Egyptians of our day. -We have planted churches where of Nazareth was born, and have done battle with the same human obduracy with which our Lord contended in Jerusalem. -Our voices have been heard in every province of , and in every State in the of America, as well as in every country in Central and South America. -We have preached Christ from the smallest hamlets in darkest Africa to City, the largest city in the world with its teeming millions. -We have stood as starving men, telling other starving men where to get bread in the sub-continent of India and Sri Lanka. -We spawned a whole new system of preacher training in our brotherhood and have trained spokesmen for the Lord in dozens of schools of preaching in many nations around the world. -We have preached salvation by grace through faith in many of the time zones of a land once known as the "Evil Empire", -We have entered the silent world of the unhearing, and through the use of the dexterous fingers of skilled men, have brought the hope of everlasting life to thousands. -Our Extension Department has done a fair job of enrolling the world in a Bible study by correspondence. Multiplied thousands have studied God's Word in our school without walls. Satellite schools in scores of churches in our brotherhood make use of taped lessons which originated in class rooms at Sunset. -Since 1968 an annual World Evangelism Forum has been conducted to arouse a slumbering brotherhood to accept the challenge of becoming involved in the eternal destinies of billions of souls living and dying in nations where Christ is not known. The initial goal of planting New Testament churches in the 120 unreached countries has long since been met. -In our quest for the souls of the lost we have frequented not only the busy haunts of men, but we've worked in the human slime pits of the earth where the face of another American would not be seen for years. -We have buried our dead in the bush of Zambia in darkest Africa, in Brazil, and other places, and have recently dug a resting place beneath a coconut tree on the Island of Nias off the West Coast of Sumatra. YES‒I believe the Lord has led us to this place and we rejoice that He honored us by allowing us to be a fellow laborer with Him in a work nearest to his great heart. So, "here we raise our Ebenezer, for hither by His help we've come."

Adapted from a message delivered by Cline at a faculty retreat