August 29, 2025
Bill Brehm and Stewardship
While on vacation I learned of the passing of Bill Brehm. It was not unexpected as he was 96, outliving his beloved wife of 70 years. Bill was known for many things: he worked in our federal government in a variety ways, including working in the Pentagon where he, along with his other tasks, wrote the letters to families of fallen service women and men. He was a successful businessman, running and starting major businesses. He was husband and father to his wife Dee, and his children Eric, Lisa, and Laura. He was a person of deep faith He was a wealthy man. Two decades ago he was one of the five top philanthropists in the United States. Still, Bill thought of himself primarily as a musician and a composer.
Bill’s generosity was focused, he gave a good deal of money to very few places. His wife Dee was a Special Education teacher having studied at Eastern Michigan. So Bill and Dee established Brehm Scholarships for those studying special education. Dee also had Type 1 Diabetes. So Bill established the Brehm Center for Type 1 Diabetes Research at the University of Michigan, Bill’s alma mater. Bill also created scholarships for his high school’s graduates in Dearborn to attend the University of Michigan. Most of these students are Muslim, as is the population of Dearborn now. Bill also composed many pieces of music and underwrote and published the work of many others. Bill was as much a visionary as he was generous.
All the above is a prelude to this story. Bill was traveling a good deal early in his marriage, while his home was in the Los Angeles area. He and Dee were attending Hollywood Presbyterian Church at the time. The pastor there was Lloyd Ogilvie and the Minister of Music was Fred Bock. In their travels around the country, Bill and Dee visited numerous churches, leading Bill to conclude that in most churches “if the Pastor and Music Director knew each other, they weren’t talking,” because there was little apparent coordination between the music and the rest of the service, the way there was between Ogilvie and Bock. So when Bill served as Chair of Fuller Theological Seminary’s Board, he offered to start a center to train future pastors to plan worship more wholistically, particularly using the arts in worship. This was the start of the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts. It began with funds for an endowed Chair that they were unable to fill for a decade. But Brehm Center began its work until they had that person and would soon contain both the Fred Bock Institute of Music and the Ogilvie Institute of Preaching.
In 2005 I became the first person to hold that chair, and did so for 16 years. Bill Brehm’s generosity changed my life and my family’s life. He and Dee’s support of me and my vision and work was a constant. They gave me opportunities I never dreamed of having. I would not be the perron I am today without Bill Brehm’s vision and generosity. But I am in no way the only person whose life has been transformed by Bill and Dee’s generosity. And I am not alone. Directly and indirectly the Brehm’s have changed lives of scores of people in a wide variety of ways and all around the world.
I mention this not just to honor Bill, my patron and friend, though I hope I have done so. I mention this because I am being confronted with the last seasons of many people’s lives right now. This makes me consider all the impact that these people, my family and friends, have had on my life and on so many others. In every case, these people have stewarded their life well. I maintain that all of life is a question of stewardship: what do you do with what God has given you? No matter how much or how little we have, we all have the opportunity to have deep and lasting impact on others—and our world—by using what we have generously for others.
We are not all Bill Brehms. But we are who we are; and we have what we have. May we all steward our lives well. Might we trust that God might magnify and multiply our efforts. As our Lord taught us, a mustard seed stewarded well, can make enormous changes. (Matthew 17:20)
With deep gratitude and audacious hope,
~ Pastor Todd