Featured Billy Graham

Define "large scale." And why is only "large scale" evangelism good evangelism? In fact, if Billy Graham had not sent all those new converts back into their dead churches, but instead sent them to a good bible teaching church that taught them how to obey the Great Commission and each convert only won 1 soul per year, in 10 years the "large scale evangelism" campaign would be be in the negative numbers.

Billy Graham stated his belief that only about 25% of those who come forward at one of his events actually became Christians. In recent years, studies have shown that only 6% of people who “come forward” at an evangelistic crusade are any different in their beliefs or behavior one year later.

Billy Graham has preached to around 200,000,000 people in his life time. If as many as 25% "came forward" that means 50,000,000 people. Where are they?

And of the 6% that had fruit in their lives a year later (that's 3,000,000 people) what percentage were sent into good bible believing churches and how many went back to their old, dead churches? Let's be generous and say half ended up in bible believing churches. That means 1.5 million went back into their dead churches.

If each of those 1.5 million had been scripturally taught and won just one person per year, that would be 15 million in 10 years. But because they were sent back into their dead churches they never learned to win others to Christ. So, subtract the 3 million from the 15 million, and you have a bet loss of 12 million persons.

Think about it.

As I have already said, Billy Graham has preached to more people than anyone on Earth. And I commend him for that. And I praise the Lord for every person who has come to Christ via Billy Graham's preaching.

But we get much better results when we do it God's way. Send them to good bible teaching churches, teach them to keep the Great Commission, and you will add 12,000,000 souls to the Family of God.

 

I agree here. Those who were saved in Acts were “added to the Church”. I believe this is more than some metaphysical shift in citizenship (I believe that they were added to the local assemblies and partaker together with other believers).

I believe that God ordained and gifted men as evangelists (not that it is not every believer’s responsibility, but that God is a God of means and He uses men in particular ways to advance His Kingdom).

I have met men who were excellent preachers, and excellent evangelists, but horrible pastors. Some people, I believe, are used by God simply do draw men. Others are used to disciple men within the local church (I’ve also known wonderful pastors who were not “gifted” evangelists).

God adds these souls to His family. And I believe that often the means He uses involves more than one person, and more than one role. As such, it seems to me that some are over critical of Graham for not "following through" by assuming a role that may not have been his to start. If we take his ministry as if it were a church, then there are issues associated with discipleship. But if we look at his ministry as one of evangelism then perhaps many of those issues are misplaced.

 

I was a good teacher/preacher, but a terrible pastor. So I made sure my staff men were gifted in such a way as to complement my gifts and make up for my shortfalls and vice verse. That is one of the main reasons why biblical churches have multiple elders/bishops/pastors.

Nobody is expecting him to assume any role he was not called and gifted for. But we do expect him to direct converts to bible believing churches who can complete the baptism and discipleship of those converts. Sending them back to their dead churches is as great a crime as abandoning a new born baby in an alley dumpster!

But evangelism is a function of the church. The great commission was given to the church. And to operate outside the church is to operate outside of God's program, the local New Testament church.

For over 50 years Billy Graham was a member of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, and considered W.A. Criswell to be his pastor. But FBC Dallas did not exercise any authority over Billy Graham or his ministry. That was done through the para-church organization "The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association." I have searched the scriptures and can't find the verse where Jesus says "Upon this rock I will build my Association, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." But I can find His promise to build his church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Had he allowed W. A. Criswell to recommend local churches in the local communities to which he could refer his converts maybe they would not have had such an abysmally low number of changed lives (only 6% after a year). But if he did that he would not have gotten the support of the dead denominational churches and thus a smaller turn out and his numbers (the god of modern Christendom) would have fallen.

 

You seem to have missed the point.

 

I really do not know enough about Billy Graham's ministry to critique his methods. Anything except a general observation or opinion here, from me, would just be gossip.

I understand what you are saying. I actually believe that far too many "churches" out there have become "para-church organizations." Two people have suggested that Graham contacted and worked with local churches. If that is the case (depending, of course, what this means) then I do not have a problem with an evangelist spreading the gospel hand in hand with local churches. But from what you are telling me, it seems that this may not be the case. So I simply do not know.

I suppose the Graham crusades were strong when I was in high school (I graduated in '86), but the summit of his ministry was (I believe) before my time (either that, or a location at a slight distance from where I lived).

Billy Graham's work is about done. The torch has passed to others. I think that it is important that we examine how God has used his ministry and what worked, what he did right, along side areas that needed improvement. The time has passed, IMHO, to critique the man or really the "crusades". But I think that there is much that can be learned, both good and bad, from his ministry. Unfortunately, for me it seems many present him as God's right hand or Satan's best friend. I'm fairly confident that the truth is somewhere in between.