BILLY GRAHAM : Evangelist Returning to His ‘2nd Home’ for a Challenging Crusade

Southern California, which Billy Graham likes to call his”second home,” has been good to the world-renowned evangelist.

In 1949, the young, flashy dressing, Southern Baptist preacher burst into international prominence in Los Angeles during an eight-week tent crusade at the corner of Washington and Hill streets. Word that Hollywood celebrities were “stepping forward to receive Christ” reached publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, and he sent a two-word telegram to every editor in his newspaper chain: “Puff Graham.”

During a three-week crusade at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 1963, Graham set an attendance record that still stands: On the closing afternoon, 135,254 people pushed through the turnstiles to hear him preach.

And in 1969, records were again set during a 10-day crusade in Anaheim Stadium. A total of 384,000 people attended, and on the closing day about 56,000 filled the stands and spilled onto the infield grass.

The 19th of this month, Graham--who has now preached the Gospel message to more than a hundred million people--will return to the home of the California Angels for another 10 nights of meetings.

And, he again hopes to make religious history in Southern California.

But, Graham returns to a sprawling amalgam of communities populated by an ethnic mix that did not exist in 1969--much less 1949.

To communicate with the area’s multiplicity of nationalities and languages, the crusade will utilize the most comprehensive translation program ever undertaken during Graham’s 38 years of mass ministry.

Each night, Graham’s messages will be simultaneously translated into as many as 13 languages. Translators, sitting in the stadium press boxes, will broadcast over separate low-power transmitters. Meanwhile, the various non-English language groups, seated together in specially reserved sections, will listen to their native tongues through headsets plugged into battery-powered radios provided by the crusade.

“There has been a drastic change,” Graham said during preparations for the Anaheim crusade. “It is a new population, a new generation. There has been an influx of international people since we were last here. . . . People here should welcome these immigrants with love, and the church should take the lead. I hope that what comes out of this crusade is the big churches and the little churches and the ethnic churches coming together.”

“It will be like a mini-United Nations,” said Larry Turner, director of the Anaheim crusade.

About 13,000 of the AM-FM receivers--marked with a “CRUSADE” emblem and recently shipped from Hong Kong--have been distributed to participating churches. Each set costs $5.30, but the churches may keep or resell the radios after the crusade is over.

Signs will be posted so listeners can tune into the right frequency for each language. “Actually,” said crusade associate Tex Reardon, smiling, “you can also tune in a ballgame if you want to.”

Spanish-speaking crusade leaders, representing 500 cooperating churches and hoping to reach many of the area’s 3 million Latinos, asked for 10,000 sets. The Vietnamese contingent, noting that there are 19,000 Vietnamese-speaking people in Orange County alone, asked for 1,500.

Other participating language groups include 300 Chinese churches speaking three dialects, Cantonese, Mandarin and Taiwanese; Korean, with 450 churches; Japanese, 50 churches; Cambodian, 11; Hmong, 2; Laotian, 2; Arabic, 6, and Iranian and Thai, one church each.

Black church involvement in the crusade is “significant,” according to director Turner, but he said it was “not as numerically strong as we would wish.” There is no attempt to segregate crusade audiences by race--only by language, and that is voluntary.

Turner added that Roman Catholic participation is expected, but on an individual basis. This is typical for Graham crusades, which are evangelical and Protestant--but not sectarian--in nature. An estimated 3.6 million Catholics live within the crusade’s drawing range.

“We have met with the bishops’ offices in Los Angeles and Orange counties,” Turner said. “They have essentially extended their blessings and good will. . . . No (Catholic) churches are officially participating, however.”

A total of 12,000 seats on the stadium club level have been set aside for the non-English language groups. In all, the stadium--enlarged from its 42,000-seat capacity during the 1969 crusade--can now seat about 67,500. Crusade organizers hope for a 10-day total turnout of at least 500,000.

Graham advance men, who have been on the scene preparing for more than a year, have reason to think big.

Nearly 2,000 local churches--from Ventura to San Diego, Long Beach to San Bernardino--have formed the backbone of crusade organization and support, promoting the meetings, providing singers for an aggregate mass choir of 10,300--perhaps the largest ever to perform at a Graham crusade--and furnishing most of the 10,000 crusade-trained lay counselors.

Counselors for ‘Inquirers’

These counselors will give individual spiritual guidance to “inquirers”--people who come forward onto the field at the conclusion of the nightly meetings in response to Graham’s traditional invitation to “receive Christ” or make other religious commitments.

Although he has not outwardly diminished in vigor or slowed in pace, Graham, 66, has said this “will probably be the last large stadium crusade I will ever have in America.”

Since he last mounted the platform above second base to preach in Anaheim 16 years ago, he has grown more mature, his style is smoother, his theology more sophisticated, his understanding of the world broader. The anti-Communist rhetoric of the old days has been put aside, and his sermons are sprinkled with subtler illustrations and social comment.

But, they crackle the same old thunder.

The essence is still “take Christ into your heart and be saved.”

In 1969, Graham railed against immorality and sin: nudity on the stage, sexual perversion on the screen, drugs, crime and pornography. God will not spare America, he said, “unless there is a national turning to God.”

Graham continues to preach that personal sin is the root of alienation, both between individuals and between nations, and between human beings and God.

‘Sources of Tension’

During the Anaheim crusade this month, he said, he will deal “forthrightly and pointedly” with such issues as drug dependence, suicide, child abuse, loneliness, sexual abuse, depression, anxiety, alcohol dependence “and other sources of tension and frustration so prevalent in Southern California. . . .”

“If you took the Christians out of Southern California, I’d hate to live here,” he said, adding that the crusade “will not solve all of the problems, but it could be a catalyst, given the in-depth support within the . . . churches already committed to participate.”

Indeed, the extensive preparation and massive involvement of nearly 50,000 church leaders and workers before the crusade virtually assure near-capacity turnouts.

The energy, dedication and smooth-running professionalism displayed by the 35-member paid crusade staff, plus thousands of volunteer workers, easily eclipse that of most political machines, said Roger Tompkins, chairman of the crusade’s 110-member general committee. Observed Tompkins, a regional vice president of State Farm Insurance:

“It’s a very . . . well-done campaign. The scope of this thing . . . the attention to detail . . . public relations involvement, before Graham even hits town, make it as professionally done as anything in my political experience and to a much larger scale.”

Computer Overloaded

Twenty-three crusade committees--including four set up just to handle prayer support--report to Tompkins and Turner. In fact, the mammoth intricacy of crusade arrangements crashed Tompkins’ business computer.

“I bought a little program that would allow me to do project management . . . line up all the tasks, break them into sub-parts, critical time lines, et cetera,” Tompkins said. “I loaded all the projects and committees into the program and . . . it just wasn’t able to handle the complexity of the crusade process.”

That is not so surprising when considering the coordination required for:

- Preparing and disseminating about 4 million pieces of mail and literature before the crusade, more than half a million during it, and between 100,000 and 150,000 follow-up materials for “inquirers.”

- Recruiting and rehearsing 10,300 choir members and training 2,886 ushers. Rehearsals for 7,400 singers in four locations have already been conducted by Graham music director Cliff Barrows. And ushers must practice, too. There is even a separate usher aisle captain rehearsal.

- Training more than 23,000 people in a four-week counseling course led by 11 instructors in 41 locations; 10,000 signed up to help crusade inquirers. A special international committee will handle counseling in the 13 designated languages as well as refer inquirers to appropriate ethnic churches.

- Coordinating wheelchair reservations, adding more passenger cars to Amtrak’s San Diego-Anaheim run, and arranging parking for 1,000 buses for choir and charter delegations.

- Targeting various groups for a plethora of special pre-crusade rallies and meetings. For example, 2,000 women in prayer workshops, 3,000 men hearing Dallas Cowboy Coach Tom Landry speak. Senior citizens, ministers, youth and singles have all had their own outreach events, and 2,100 pastors have signed up for a school of evangelism to be taught during the crusade.

Last month, a tour of area military bases netted “a very favorable response,” according to crusade associate Greg Strand. And, door-to-door visitation--church members inviting neighborhood residents to the crusade--begins this week.

“Putting up posters and billboards doesn’t result in a full stadium and souls saved,” Turner said. “Eighty percent of the unchurched who come forward . . . are brought there by a friend or relative.”

Crusade Outreach

For some who aren’t free to come, the crusade has already gone to them. The military tour included stops at five prisons and juvenile detention centers. In all, Strand said, about 550 people “made first-time commitments to Christ” during the rallies.

Nor, when the crusade ends July 28, will evangelism, Graham style, be over.

A 5,000-square-foot office near the stadium, rented more than a year ago when Turner and his staff first moved to Anaheim, won’t be released until mid-October. “Nurture groups,” led by 2,000 already-trained volunteers, will be established for many of the expected 20,000 to 25,000 new converts. Also, each inquirer will be referred to a local church, enrolled in a correspondence Bible course and telephoned in a post-crusade survey.

In September, videotaped segments of the crusade will be aired on national prime-time television.

And before it is dissolved, the crusade’s executive committee, formed as a local corporation, will publish a financial audit.

Such a huge undertaking requires a hefty budget: just over $2 million, compared to about $700,000 for the 1969 Anaheim crusade.

“But, at $3 to $4 per attendee per night, that’s coming in at a little under the 1969 costs--in 1969 dollars,” Turner said. “And that includes a whole year of preparation and follow-up. . . . That’s far less than many local church (annual) budgets.”

Graham’s 1969 salary was $24,500; now it is $59,500. But he doesn’t get a dime from the crusade offerings, according to Turner. If donations from local churches and nightly contributions exceed expenses, the excess will go toward buying the television time, Turner said.

Possible Visit to Romania

Next, Graham has his eye on Romania for a likely preaching visit in September, and a crusade is scheduled in Washington’s Convention Center next April. Then there’s a worldwide conference for evangelists in Amsterdam next July, followed by a crusade in Paris in September. And perhaps, in a year or so, a speaking tour of 14 universities in China.

Why, Graham was asked recently, do so many hundreds of thousands flock to hear him wherever he goes?

“Well,” the evangelist replied, pausing for a moment, his blue eyes flashing, “part of the answer, I suppose, is I’ve been preaching so long . . . and curiosity. . . . But I prefer to think that it’s God.”