Billy Graham's Enduring Ministry to our Congregation

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="410"]Billy Graham (1918-2018). Taken from billygraham.org.[/caption]

Billy Graham sleeps.  For most of his life, he was a preacher of the Gospel.  He pointed sinners to Jesus, and he told them to repent and have faith.  Now the servant of God is remembered.  Having joined the great cloud of witnesses, he is absent from the body and present with the Lord.  Billy Graham finished his race.

Billy Graham's impact on my life has come largely through secondary and tertiary means.  I watched a few of his old sermon videos while I was in seminary, and I followed his last crusade in New York in 2005.  But I've mostly been impacted by him through others who have been impacted by him directly.  By the time I came of age, his ministry had already peaked.  So I asked a few people, who are all slightly older than me, from our congregation to share their memories of Billy Graham.  Through these saints and others, Billy Graham continues to minister to me and to our church.

Keith Knight:

Billy Graham provided my first evangelistic experience. As a young teen, I joined the crusade choir when he visited St. Catharines back in the 1960s. His nightly altar call brought hundreds to Christ that night, and millions to Christ over the decades.  Billy's appeal transcended his Baptist background. He attracted Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Reformed, Evangelical, and especially those who professed to believe in nothing at all. His message was straightforward: "Jesus Christ died for you."

He was a man of integrity; always humble, never prone to scandal or fraud or sexual misconduct.  He reminds me of a modern day Samuel (1 Samuel 12) who at the end of his life offered to repay anybody who he had wronged ... and no one came forward.

Billy Graham preached. Period. Before social media, before Facebook and emails, he spoke to thousands in sports stadiums and dozens in obscure African villages.

Chris Cattle:

According to Wikipedia Billy Graham held 417 crusades from 1947 to 2005. I heard Billy Graham speak (Crusade #246) in Toronto at Maple Leaf Gardens and the CNE stadium (now BMO Field) in 1978. Then heard him speak (Crusade #361) in Hamilton at Copps Colesium (now First Ontario Centre) in 1988. I was 17 and 27 years old, respectively.

Billy Graham broke presentation protocol - one should never cross their arms onto their chest when making a presentation (as I was trained in business) - he often did this especially after giving an alter-call - it was as if he was cherishing a private moment in prayer before thousands of people. He was not selling anything, he was calling people to commit their whole life to Christ. His body language spoke as much as his tongue, and many responded.

Karen Gaul:

In 1972 the movie “Time To Run” was produced and shown to a lost world.  The movie was shown in theaters across the country for a week (if I remember, maybe longer) and at the end of each showing on the movie there was an altar call given by Billy Graham, and counselors were available to pray with those who came forward.  I was part of the counseling team.  We spent a week prior to the movie being trained to minister and speak to those who would come, becoming familiar with scripture and being encouraged to memorize certain verses.   For most of that week  I was there watching the movie and then ready and available to make my way to the front of the theater to share Jesus with those who came.  It was a powerful time in my teen years.  It was a wonderful experience to be a part of people's lives being changed as they were brought into the Kingdom of God.  It was a powerful time to be on the front lines seeing God work.  It opened my eyes to the lostness of the world around us, which brought a change in me.  It still warms my heart to think back to that time and seeing the power of God at work.

As well early on in our marriage, mid 80’s, I helped to organize buses from the Exeter area to go to see Billy Graham in person.  Although we were in the nose bleed section of the stadium, it was great to be part of the youth and adults who wanted to be there, who were hungering and thirsting for God.  We saw again people come to the Lord.  It was fulfilling to be part of discipling them when we returned…mostly in the after school program, at the local high school.  It changes your life when you see people move from the Kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light.

George Harron:

While I never met Billy Graham in person, I felt like I knew him.  As a teenager going to Youth for Christ we would see a lot of the feature length movies made by Graham.  Movies of people’s lives changed by the gospel. In these movies we heard a lot of his sermons from his crusades.  I would see on the Saturday nights even in our Youth for Christ venue young people responding to the Gospel because of the message of the Gospel.  The  most famous and respected preacher and evangelist during my life, he has shown that even in our world today that we can live as godly people, with integrity, honesty, compassion and love. We lose a saint, heaven rejoices and we can finish the race well.  This is one of the legacies he has left.

A younger generation of Christians can hardly imagine how important the ministry of Billy Graham was and continues to be among an older generation of our brothers and sisters.  Nor can we fully appreciate how vital his enduring ministry is among us through them.  Truly, "through his faith, though he died, he still speaks."