ALR Billy Graham and Doug Coe Op-eds

Ross is president of A. Larry Ross Communications and for more than 32 years served as director of media/public relations for evangelist Billy Graham.

Doug Coe died peacefully at his Maryland home yesterday, surrounded by his wife and most of their three generations of progeny, a family totaling nearly 90 members. Jehovah’s favorite choir was surely blessed, as they gathered around his bed and through an open window from the yard on a beautiful afternoon, serenading him into eternity with songs and hymns. What a welcome reunion; and now he is in the place where the music never stops.

As in life, Doug wanted his passing to point others to Jesus. While the world lost a gentle, spiritual giant, like many others across the globe who knew Doug as a faithful colleague and friend, I lost one of the two longtime spiritual mentors in my life.

For the more than 33 years I have been privileged to serve as personal media spokesperson for Billy Graham, the evangelist modeled for me, in both word and deed, the principles of Jesus. A forceful presence in the pulpit, who boldly and uncompromisingly preached the Gospel message to stadium audiences around the world, in private he had a counter-intuitive and inclusive approach with anyone — regardless of their station or spiritual background.

But I never fully appreciated nor understood Mr. Graham’s consistent balance of grace and truth and leadership with love, which I had attributed to his personal gifts and calling, until I met Doug Coe, who unpacked for me their lifelong fraternity to, as he told me, “lift up the name of Jesus with authenticity and integrity to the great and the low, the high and the humble.”

Over countless conversations and interviews with Doug, I came to realize that both men strived to be “transparent and accessible to everyone” while serving as global “ambassadors of Jesus Christ’s love,“ with a priority to lift up His name everywhere they went. They shared exemplary humility, with a heart and vision to equip and empower laypersons to do the work. Each valued and affirmed all “the sinners that Jesus came for, and included themselves in that group.” Neither “possessed a judgmental spirit, but rather had a supernatural love for and openness with anyone they met,” and were always fully present and engaged – whether meeting with a senator or the President or hotel staff.

Doug shared with me that he initially thought the work of God was evangelism, but soon realized the only person he could evangelize was himself, making sure that he was living a life worthy of the Gospel and an example attractive enough for others to want to follow. He noted that there is only one way to God — through Jesus — but that there are many ways to Jesus; and that the purpose of the Bible is not more understanding of reason and precepts, but to drive us closer to Him.

It was Doug who first challenged me with the concept that the Gospel is not a set of doctrine nor dogma, but a person — Jesus. And since Jesus is God, and God is love, then the Gospel is also love. After more than 25 years’ involvement in global crusade evangelism, it was Doug who first really introduced me to Jesus, causing me to realize that for many years I had frequently been “doing Jesus”; but ever since, Jesus has been “doing me.”

Doug further explained by quoting his friend and noted theologian John Stott, “What distinguishes the true followers of Jesus is not their creed nor their code of ethics nor their ceremonies nor their culture, but Christ. What is often mistakenly called ‘Christianity’ is, in essence, neither a religion nor a system, but a person, Jesus of Nazareth.’”

Doug also taught me a great deal about prayer, once telling me that when his youngest daughter was a child he used to regularly ask God to touch her heart so that she would come to personal faith. But then he better understood the prayer from Luke 10:2 that would become his life focus, as everywhere he would go he would pray for the Lord of the harvest “to raise up laborers, for the harvest is ready, but the laborers are few.” Assured her heart was ready, Doug took God at his word and started praying instead for the individual that would lead his daughter to that commitment – whether his wife, a classmate or himself – that they would be faithful.

A lay minister best-known for providing leadership to The National Prayer Breakfast, hosted by the congressional House and Senate prayer groups, Doug sat in on those weekly sessions for more than 50 years, speaking only once in five decades. He believed in the power of small groups and leadership by consensus, and his work was intentionally and intensely personal, focusing on people-to-people relationships and serving individuals in need.

Presidents and prime ministers called him a friend, as he helped them find ways — through Jesus’ teachings, example and Spirit — to build relationships, strengthen the family of nations and further the cause of peace and justice across the globe. He visited each of the 240 countries of the world over his distinguished career, to “pray for laborers for the harvest” and turn the hearts of leaders toward the poor of their country. But his priority always remained to ensure they and others had a relationship with Jesus.

On the morning of Doug’s death, I gathered with a small group of associates for our regular teleconference to pray for world peace. Doug was a charter member when our circle was formed seven years ago, and he faithfully joined each week until his health precluded his involvement in recent months. Rather than praying for the day’s designated countries as we normally do, we elected to reflect on and pray for our dear friend, knowing he was soon to cross over to his reward.

My colleagues each shared their similar reflections of Doug, one of whom described him as “totally selfless, reflecting unconditional love, which he both taught and lived.” Another shared how Doug was there for him and came to his defense when he was falsely accused, reminding him from Isaiah that, “no weapon formed against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you,” which indeed came to pass.

Another member of our group, who calls in each week from London, shared Philippians 1:27, a Scripture of encouragement she received from Doug in his final text to her over the holidays: “…whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the Gospel.”

That is the legacy of Doug Coe: groups of men and women from all walks of life, discovering the secret of true brotherhood with their fellow men by meeting together regularly in a spirit of love, friendship and reconciliation to study the Person and principles of Jesus. As a result, they are finding understanding, confidence and hope for the future, encouraging each other to pursue loving God with all of their heart, soul, mind and strength, and loving one another as Jesus loves us.

Larry Ross is president of A. Larry Ross Communications, a Dallas-based agency providing crossover media liaison at the intersection of faith and culture; for more than 32 years, he served as director of media/public relations for evangelist Billy Graham.

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https://time.com/5168915/billy-graham-larry-ross-remembrance/

180221 TIME - “The Billy Graham I Knew”

By A. Larry Ross

February 21, 2018 2:28 PM EST

Ross is president of A. Larry Ross Communications; for more than 33 years, he served as personal media spokesperson for evangelist Billy Graham, and is curator of the Billy Graham Legacy website and YouTube channel.

A common journalistic axiom recognizes that a story becomes newsworthy if it contains one or more elements of familiarity, impact or oddity. The death of renowned evangelist Billy Graham, who passed peacefully in his sleep early this morning at the age of 99, contains all three. Familiarity, as a worldwide symbol of evangelism who gained the respect of leaders of other faiths across four generations and a senior statesman for an inclusive view of the Christian experience focused around the centrality of Jesus. Impact, considering he preached the Gospel of hope and salvation to more people in live audiences than perhaps anyone in history, nearly 215 million people in 185 countries and territories, plus countless millions more via satellite, television, radio, publishing and the Internet, according to estimates from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. And oddity, that a country boy born on a rural dairy farm near Charlotte four days before the armistice ending World War I and grew to love baseball and girls, rose from obscure roots to become “America’s Preacher” and “Pastor to Presidents” throughout a ministry spanning six decades.

For more than 33 years — over half of his public ministry — I had the privilege of serving as personal spokesperson and media representative for Billy Graham. His deep impact as a principal colleague and spiritual mentor taught me that the life one leads is more important than the mere words one says. On countless occasions, I observed that he did much more than just preach the Gospel — he lived it.

Many analytical pieces will be written about the influence and impact of this lion of the faith who maintained his roar until the very end. But my reflections are anecdotal, based on several photos that hang in my office, which provide insight into Mr. Graham’s faithfulness to his calling and intuitive character traits reflecting a standard of excellence and best practices for every person of faith.

Simplicity

Harry Benson, the renowned photographer, is best known for his iconic photos of the Beatles mid–pillow fight in Paris and their final glance back as they disembarked at JFK Airport to begin their first U.S. tour in 1964. He once told me that everywhere the Beatles went, there was chaos. The only two safe harbors were their hotel rooms and their limousine.

In some respects the same thing was often true for Billy Graham, though in most others he was the antithesis of a rock star. His favorite food was a McDonald’s hamburger — a dependable consistency in a life of constant change for a man who traveled the world preaching the Gospel. But the popularity of his record-setting stadium crusades and the infectious power of his message made him one of the most recognizable faces on the planet, often forcing him to take service elevators or exit through convention hall kitchens to get past the crowds.

Unlike most of us, who upon checking in to a hotel room open the window curtains to let in the light, Mr. Graham would initially close the drapes. Seclusion was rare in his life, and he welcomed the sanctuary from a constant presence on the world stage and the opportunity it provided him to quiet his thoughts and speak to God. He sustained that resulting inner peace everywhere he went, regardless of the surrounding circumstances.

Authenticity

I have often heard people say, “I can’t do that, I’m not Billy Graham,” in reference to boldly lifting up the name of Jesus, sharing their faith or exhibiting behavior consistent with their beliefs. There is no doubt he was a great preacher. But his power and authority did not come from his considerable ability. It came from his availability to be used by God, Who honored his faithfulness. I once accompanied Mr. Graham to CNN studios in Atlanta for a live global network television interview on a controversial international issue in 1991. As I watched from the control room prior to the telecast, I observed him chewing his fingernails, understandably nervous, as he wanted to choose his words carefully to avoid misrepresentation. Then, he bowed his head in prayer, committing what he knew he couldn’t do on his own to the Lord in search of divine wisdom, allowing God to speak through him.

I first learned about Mr. Graham’s “audience of One” during a live interview I set up for him on NBC’s Today in the fall of 1984. Assuming he would want to have a time of prayer before going on the air, I requested a separate alcove adjacent to the “green room” for the evangelist to commit the opportunity to the Lord.

When we arrived at the studio, I informed Mr. Graham’s associate what I had arranged. My colleague smiled and explained, “When Billy got up this morning, he started praying in his room; he prayed during breakfast and in the car on the way over to the studio; he is praying right now and will continue throughout the interview. Let’s just say that Billy keeps himself ‘prayed up’ all the time.”

Personal and Spiritual Integrity

Since his early days as a youth evangelist with the mantra, “Geared to the Times, Anchored to the Rock,” Billy Graham preached a timeless message in a timely way, through biblically based and socially relevant sermons. Often in crusade cities, reporters would observe it was as if Mr. Graham preached with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper or news magazine in the other. He not only put the Gospel in a cultural context, but also would show how the Bible speaks to personal and societal problems.

Mr. Graham was the same person one-on-one over dinner as he was in a crusade pulpit or on television. Though he served as spiritual confidant to some of the world’s most influential leaders in government, entertainment, sport and business, he was able to connect with anyone — especially airport porters, hotel maids or restaurant waitpersons — and made anyone in his presence feel important.

The night before he was to speak at the dedication ceremony for the new Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., in early October 1986, I joined Mr. Graham for dinner in the restaurant at his hotel, where he had stayed on so many occasions that the staff knew him well. When it came time to order our food, the waitress — an elderly African-American woman with a huge personality, but obviously new to the facility — said to him, “Do you know who you look like?” He replied, “No, who?” She said, “Billy Graham.” He asked in return, “Do you mean the preacher?” And she retorted, “Yes sir, you look just like Billy Graham!” and disappeared into the kitchen to place our order — and inform the chef of the coincidence. Mr. Graham was immediately chagrined by having a little good-natured fun at her expense, and so when she returned, he said, matter-of-factly, “Well, I need to tell you that actually, I am Billy Graham.” The initially effervescent woman became immediately indignant and shouted, “No you aren’t, you’re not Billy Graham!” She was so adamant that he had to pull out his driver’s license to prove that he was.

Humility

Mr. Graham was modest, unassuming and lacking of any self-importance, leaving the results to the Lord to Whom he gave all the glory and honor for any accomplishments. One of the distinctive traits of his ministry was that he made positive points for the Gospel in any media situation, and in doing so God honored his faithfulness. Mr. Graham never sacrificed the long-term viability of ministry influence or nuance for the sake of short-term visibility of media publicity and promotion. Rather, he understood and cultivated the character and calling that came with his station, seeking platforms for his message, not publicity for his ministry. He viewed interviews not as opportunities for self-promotion, but as a faithful steward of the calling on his life to communicate biblical truth and a necessity to extend his message beyond audiences that attended his crusades.

In Corinthians 2:3–5 (NIV), the Apostle Paul explores the principle of spiritual strength amidst physical fragility: “I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.”

The same could be said of Billy Graham, who struggled with health afflictions throughout much of his career. On many occasions during a crusade or other ministry and media events, I saw him lose his voice or became physically weak or ill, having nothing humanly left to give. But when it came time to preach the Gospel, the evangelist would become imbued with a supernatural energy in the pulpit — a strength that could only have come from God — often collapsing again at the conclusion of his sermon.

Billy Graham had an unprecedented front-row perspective, access and influence over the colliding worldviews of the Christian faith and the Zeitgeist. He was not judgmental, recognizing that only God knows the contents of a human heart. He remained faithful in his presentation of the Gospel of God’s love, which he wholeheartedly believed and practiced in the public eye, while strengthening others in their personal faith.

As the world reflects on Mr. Graham’s passing, for many it will not be a time of mourning, but rather of celebration — of a life well-lived, a Lord well-served. His is a legacy of the present, not the past, which lives on in the leaders he influenced and the countless changed lives who responded to his transformational message, the likes of which we will not see again in our generation.

https://www.guideposts.org/inspiration/inspiring-stories/motivational-stories/larry-ross-remembers-his-time-with-billy-graham

180222, Guideposts -“Larry Ross Remembers His Time with Billy Graham”

Billy Graham's trusted media representative, Larry Ross, shares his memories of the renowned evangelist.

by Larry Ross📷 - Posted on Feb 22, 2018

I have been privileged to serve as spokesman and media representative for evangelist Billy Graham for more than three decades, during which I have observed there is no difference between his public and private personality. Mr. Graham is the same individual one-on-one over dinner as he is preaching to thousands in the pulpit or millions from a TV studio.

Though he was a spiritual advisor and confidant to many top international leaders, he always makes anyone in his presence feel like he or she is the most important person in the world at that moment. Unlike many who have attended Mr. Graham’s crusades through the years, my first impression was not a memorable, life-changing experience.

When I was nine years old, my parents dragged my brothers and me to the closing ceremony of Mr. Graham’s Greater Chicago Crusade at Soldier Field. It was a hot, muggy Sunday afternoon in June with 94-degree temperatures and 97-percent humidity. I was sitting in the next-to-last row of the stadium—one of 100,000 people in the blistering sun—and Mr. Graham was just a speck far below.

Discover Billy Graham’s Wisdom on Aging Well in His Book, Nearing Home

All I can remember is how hot and thirsty I was. I didn’t meet Mr. Graham in-person until years later, shortly after graduating from Wheaton College when I was working as an intern for a company that helped organize large corporate conventions. I wasn’t quite sure what I would do with my life, but the idea of working in media appealed to me, even if I was just passing out flyers, fielding phone calls, making photocopies and hauling boxes.

I’d been working hard at a convention in Memphis for Holiday Inn franchise owners when my boss asked me, as a reward, if I wanted to meet any of the speakers. “Sure,” I said, “I’d love to shake hands with Mr. Graham,” who’d spoken at a prayer breakfast in the hotel that morning. “No problem,” my manager replied.

The next thing I knew, he escorted me across the hall and barged into a photo session Mr. Graham was doing that very minute. “Billy Graham, this young man went to your alma mater and wants to meet you.” I was mortified. What could I possibly say to the renowned evangelist and why would he want to greet a kid like me?

After all, he was in the midst of taking a group photograph with our client’s distinguished board of directors, and we’d just interrupted them. But Billy Graham did something I would see him do time and time again. He turned 100 percent of his focus on me as if I was the most important person in that room.

More significantly, he followed Jesus’ example of pivoting from an intrusion to create an opportunity; with distinguishing sincerity and authenticity, he leveraged our shared heritage as a platform to present a bold Gospel witness. It would be several years before I would meet Mr. Graham again.

Read More: How Billy Graham Changed My Life

After beginning my career with The General Motors Corporation, I soon landed at a large P.R. firm in New York, where one of my primary responsibilities was to shepherd baseball great Joe DiMaggio around to various media events. I was also tasked with assisting in media liaison for other clients, including a major whiskey distillery.

At times, I found myself conflicted with their business objectives, such as when it required securing product placement in “Seventeen” magazine – hardly the right audience for its message. As I began contemplating and praying about pursuing a new direction with my career, I was offered a life-changing opportunity from the agency-of-record for The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

They were looking to provide value-added professional public and media relations support for Mr. Graham, and needed someone with national experience and contacts for cross-over representation at the intersection of faith and culture. The mission and message was always very clear—it wasn’t about promoting Billy Graham around the world; it was about furthering his message of God’s love and forgiveness.

With his characteristic humility and dedication, Mr. Graham was simply the messenger, faithfully delivering that “good news.” There were big events, —stadium-filling crusades, network media interviews, photo opportunities and meetings with world leaders and hotel bellmen—but just as many encounters with airport skycaps and hotel bellmen.

And I was privileged to have a front row seat at the game, observing how Mr. Graham spread his message in the same way he had the first time we met, by being transparent and accessible in sharing God’s love through intentional one-on-one interactions behind the scenes with everyone he encountered.

I remember the first time I accompanied Billy Graham to do a sound check prior to a TV interview. I knew from experience that most people would just count to ten or say what they had for breakfast, but not him. As the soundman hooked-up his studio guest to a microphone and asked him to speak, there was no “Testing, testing, one, two, three” for Mr. Graham.

Read More: Prayer Tips with Billy Graham

Instead he launched into the transforming words of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall never perish, but have eternal life.” When I later asked him why, Mr. Graham replied, “In every interview, I try to share the Gospel whenever possible.

But if not, for whatever reason, at least I know that the cameraman heard it.” And over the years, God has honored his faithfulness in that regard. Other times Mr. Graham demonstrated the Gospel by his actions. Once I was with him in Los Angeles for a black tie gala dinner at The Beverly Hilton hotel that was taped for broadcast as a prime-time television special.

He worked hard to get his part right, shooting his interaction with the host several times until the producer was satisfied. It was a glittery star-studded event, with one celebrity after another parading down the red carpet and mingling with other guests in-between takes. At one moment a prominent actor came over to our table, greeted Mr. Graham warmly and then launched into a raunchy joke, creating a tense, awkward moment for him and the mixed company within earshot.

I could tell, I’m sorry to say, exactly where the story was going, but Mr. Graham listened with his customary courtesy and attention. When the comedian shamelessly came to the punch line, there were a few awkward laughs followed by a stunned silence as other guests waited to see how Mr. Graham would respond.

But he just matter-of-factly gave the comic a big bear hug, turned to the table and said—without a hint of judgment or condemnation, “This man has always been one of my best friends in Hollywood.” The universality of Mr. Graham’s message was powerfully impressed upon me in 1989, when he preached a stirring sermon to the Queen of England at a lavish dinner attended by the Lords and Ladies of London.

Read More: Faith in the Graham Household

Two days later I accompanied him to a park in London’s East End, where his audience was a decidedly down-market crowd of 5,000 immigrants. I asked him what message he planed to give them. “The same one I gave to the Royal Family two nights ago,” he said. Mr. Graham’s humility was clearly evident in another behind-the-scenes moment in the greenroom before an interview on NBC “Today.”

He was just beginning to exhibit Parkinsonian symptoms, making it difficult to write. While we were waiting, a producer—it could have been me that first time I met him—asked him to sign her personal copy of his just-released Memoirs, Just as I Am. “Of course,” he said. The producer stood by as Mr. Graham gripped the pen and slowly wrote his name.

Obviously moved, having come to faith at one of his crusades, the woman did something that I had never seen anyone else do in all my prior years with him. Though people were constantly asking Billy Graham to pray for them, she asked if she could pray for him. “Of course,” he said again. Then she knelt down and gave as moving a prayer as any he had offered on others’ behalf.

Afterward I took that as my practice, which I have continued ever since. At the end of a meeting with Mr. Graham, either over the phone or in-person, after I had asked about his health and family and we had covered all the necessary business, I was intentional about praying with and for him.

Though my responsibilities involved serving as spokesperson, making contact with the media on his behalf and ushering him in and out of greenrooms and studios, I made it a point to lift him up before the Lord he so faithfully served. After all, God had been a partner in his work from the beginning.

Read More: Billy Graham's Decisions for God

Though countless people over the years have asked Mr. Graham to sign things, after that producer left he was sincerely puzzled by the attention. “I have never understood why in the world anyone would want my signature,” he said. At heart he considered himself “just a country boy, called to preach.”

But he surprised me when he said matter-of-factly, “I have only asked for one autograph in my whole life.” I spent several minutes pondering who that individual could possibly be. At first I thought it was Babe Ruth, whom I knew he had greeted after a ballgame when he was 12; or perhaps it was President Truman, whom he met on the first of many visits to the White House.

Or it could even have been Winston Churchill, who summoned the evangelist to his private chambers after his successful crusade at Wembley Stadium back in 1954. I sheepishly offered my guesses. “No,” Mr. Graham said. “It was John Glenn,” telling me they had sat together at a Time magazine 75th-anniversary gala at Radio City honoring all living cover subjects in 1998.

“As we got up to leave, John asked me for my autograph. I responded, ‘I’ve never asked anyone to sign something in my whole life. Could I have yours?’ And so we swapped autographs.” Billy Graham faithfully preached a timeless message in a timely way for more than six decades. He put the green grass of the Gospel down low where “even the goats could get it.”

I have been honored to get to know him as a colleague, mentor and friend. But the way he was with me was the way he was with everybody. Anyone who met this humble messenger of God’s love.

Larry Ross is president of A. Larry Ross Communications, a Dallas-based media/public relations agency founded in 1994 to provide cross-over media liaison at the intersection of faith and culture. For more than 33 years, he served as personal media spokesperson for evangelist Billy Graham, and is responsible for the website, http://www.billygrahamlegacy.info and curator of the video streaming channel, http://bit.ly/BillyGrahamLegacyYouTube.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/books/christianity-the-brand.html

060416 NY Times Magazine, “Christianity, the Brand”

By Strawberry Saroyan

April 16, 2006

It was around noon on a sunny Tuesday last winter at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and Larry Ross, arguably the top public relations man for Christian clients in America, was presiding over a media briefing on behalf of the church, its pastor, Rick Warren, and his wife, Kay. The occasion was the Warrens' three-day H.I.V./AIDS conference, "Disturbing Voices." When Jim Towey, the director of the Bush administration's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, walked in, Ross acknowledged him and noted that Towey had been the longtime lawyer for Mother Teresa. Then Ross opened the floor to questions.

"Yeah," Warren said into his mike. "I'd like to know why Mother Teresa needed a lawyer." The crowd cracked up. No one answered, but it was the kind of question that might have been asked about Warren himself: Why does Rick Warren need a public relations man?

Of course, in his case, there's an easy explanation. Warren's book "The Purpose-Driven Life" has sold more than 25 million copies, making it the best-selling hardcover book of nonfiction ever published in the United States, and some say Saddleback has more in common with Google or Starbucks, at least in scope, than the typical church. Warren has a public and a brand to manage.

But when you speak to Ross for even a short length of time, it becomes clear that he sees himself as serving more than Rick Warren -- or Billy Graham, or the men's ministry Promise Keepers, or films like "The Passion of the Christ" (he has represented them all). The Kingdom of God itself is a client of sorts. Publicity, marketing and branding are his ministry. So the real question becomes, Why does God need someone to sell him?

It is a query Ross has spent the last 25 years answering. In 1981, Ross began working with the evangelist Billy Graham and trailblazing the new world of Christian P.R. Ross has counseled Graham through the Nixon-tapes crisis (Graham was heard voicing anti-Semitic sentiments to the president) and helped keep him squeaky clean during the televangelist scandals of the 80's. And earlier this month, when Graham made the New York Times extended best-seller list with his book "The Journey," Ross could be heard pitching him as the oldest author ever on the list. Ross has also represented T. D. Jakes, the African-American pastor whom Ross says he signed when he was "Bishop Who," and films like the prophetic end-times "Left Behind" series and "The Prince of Egypt." For the latter, an animated movie that came out in 1998, he helped pioneer some of the contemporary church-marketing techniques that were used later to promote Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ." Ross has largely stayed out of politics, but he did sign up Rod Parsley's Center for Moral Clarity in 2004; Parsley, a rising evangelical, is not publicly aligned with a political party, but he worked to mobilize voters in the swing state of Ohio, which went for George Bush in the last election.

Ross is not the sole powerful figure in Christian P.R., but only Mark DeMoss, who worked with Jerry Falwell for eight years before starting the DeMoss Group in Atlanta in 1991, enjoys comparable status. Ross, who is 52, has witnessed -- and most likely contributed to -- the increased attention to Christianity in the wider culture. He notes that some of the biggest national stories since 9/11 have touched on faith, including Gibson's film, the "values voters" and even Hurricane Katrina ("We're the good news behind the bad news," Ross says, referring to the consolations of faith in the wake of natural disasters, as well as the welcome that religious voices often receive in the press in such situations). And Christian-product markets are expanding rapidly. "The Chronicles of Narnia" took in more than $290 million at the box office domestically last winter. ("The Passion" grossed $370 million.) Christian music now racks up $700 million in sales annually. In 2004, sales of religious books reached $1.9 billion. Packaged Facts, a market-research firm, predicts that Christian products will generate $9.5 billion in sales by 2010. Then there's the Bush factor. "Any time religion is linked to power, attention to religious news increases," says Debra Mason, executive director of the Religion Newswriters Association.

In Hollywood, there is Paul Lauer's Motive Entertainment (Lauer orchestrated the marketing of "The Passion" by enlisting 15 firms, including Ross's, to handle different tasks) and Jonathan Bock's Grace Hill Media, whose projects have included "Narnia." Other marketing firms include the Internet-focused BuzzPlant, based in Tennessee, and Renegade Idea Group, out of Texas. Ross claims that in the past decade smaller firms have emerged that handle Christian P.R., which he differentiates from marketing (his firm handles both). Ross works with many of them and acts as a sort of Vernon Jordan of the Bible Belt, making introductions and forging strategic alliances.

Ross opened his company, A. Larry Ross Communications (his first name is Arthur), in 1994, after a 13-year stay at Walter Bennett Communications, where he first began working with Billy Graham. When the agency urged him to focus on expanding a P.R. base that included secular clients because Graham wasn't "the future," Ross and his wife, Autumn, took what was supposed to be a down payment on a house and started a business instead; she calls the step "a bungee jump for God." (Autumn is not involved in the firm's day-to-day business.) Today the Dallas-based firm has 13 staff members and roughly 20 to 30 clients at any given time. Ross says that he rarely chases after a client and is able to operate on the principle of attraction, relying on good word of mouth and referrals to win clients. (DeMoss claims to work this way, too, and the two say they are not competitive with each other, although they have represented half a dozen of the same clients at different times.) Ross, quoting Autumn, characterizes his clients as "anybody that we will be with in heaven someday." While he declines to be specific, he does admit to annual billings "in the seven figures." When asked if a client like Rick Warren helps to underwrite the cost of a client with fewer financial resources, Ross replies, "That's not the way it works." He says the firm bills according to time, with rates varying according to the experience of those assigned to a client.

I visited Ross in Dallas over several days in November. At our first meeting there, he rolled up in a giant black Chevy Avalanche. He is 6-foot-8, and as I took him in, perhaps wide-eyed, he laughed. "I don't do medium," he said in his Texas twang. "Everything is Paul Bunyan-size to me." It was a Sunday, and we were off to his church, Bent Tree Bible Fellowship. Autumn and their oldest son, Harrison, then 17, were appearing in a musical skit during each of Bent's Tree's services that day. Ross, perhaps feeling guilty for being on the road so often, was planning to attend three of them. Later he would tell me that his battle with workaholism was one of the defining issues of his personal life: "If I was a vacuum-cleaner salesman working 100 hours a week, people would say: 'You're an idiot. You're crazy.' When you're in ministry, they say, 'Praise God."'

When we arrived, I met Autumn, a big-haired brunette dressed in an emerald green suit, and her and Ross's three sons: Harrison, Richard, then 15, and Cameron, 10. Ross, who is gregarious and jokey -- at the Saddleback press conference, he looked at Warren's Hawaiian shirt and remarked, apropos his own, more formal attire, "Out of deference to our hosts, I do have pineapple boxers on" -- sang along enthusiastically and took notes when the service hit full swing. Afterward we went backstage, where Autumn was conversing with her fellow volunteers, and the talk turned to what attracted her to Bent Tree. "It allows me to be contemporary, but it's not watered down," she said. "I feel like I'm eating steak every Sunday."

Ross's religion is conspicuously central to his work and life -- our second meeting, with his entire staff, started with a prayer -- and that is one of the things that draw clients to him. "We're church guys, O.K.?" David Chrzan, Rick Warren's chief of staff, told me. "Media is a totally different animal to us." Chrzan says that Ross has been able to help Warren by providing access to and connections within the world of mainstream media -- and also through his ability to spin various situations into, well, Christian parables. Take the case of Ashley Smith, the Atlanta woman who became famous last year for reading passages from "The Purpose-Driven Life" to her captor, an escaped murder suspect named Brian Nichols. A problem arose when it came out that Smith had given Nichols crystal methamphetamine. "What did everyone talk about?" Chrzan said. "They talked about her drug use and her giving drugs" to Nichols. Ross helped Warren respond to this mainstream reaction by emphasizing their story, which was, in Chrzan's words: "God can use anybody. Here, God used a tweaked-out speed freak to get a guy to realize he'd done something wrong and turn himself in."

Ross characterizes part of his job as finding the sweet spot where faith and the culture intersect, because religion on its own often isn't enough, as he sees it, to generate mainstream press. He offers his handling of T.D. Jakes as a typical example. Today Jakes is the pastor of the Potter's House in South Dallas, one of the fastest-growing churches in the country, with 30,000 members; he is also behind the "Woman, Thou Art Loosed" novel, film and gatherings, and he created the Metroplex Economic Development Corporation, which sponsors homeownership conferences and organizes training sessions for would-be entrepreneurs. After listening to hours and hours of the pastor's sermons, Ross realized that what might appeal to a broader audience were Jakes's efforts to economically empower African-American youth -- Jakes was a business story, in other words. Not long after that, Jakes landed a Page 1 profile in The Wall Street Journal. It was the preacher's first major national exposure.

Ross also has an eye for the odd coupling. He booked Rod Parsley, a flamboyant Charismatic Pentecostal and a staple of Christian television, including the Trinity Broadcasting Network (the world's largest Christian network), on "Dennis Miller" and "Larry King Live." A client known as Dino, a sort of Liberace in Christian circles who plays a crystal-covered piano, told me that Ross tried to get him onto "Jimmy Kimmel Live," the late-night talk show, during the holiday season (the two sides couldn't settle on a date). "Larry thought I might be off the wall enough," Dino said.

Perhaps the most intensive training that Ross offers is his "media and spokesperson" sessions. These can last as long as two days and usually include several mock interviews, which are taped. Ross encourages his clients to engage the media, but he wants to prepare them for worst-case encounters, so he administers tough questioning. To loosen clients up, he shows them an old "Bob Newhart" episode in which a talk-show host suddenly turns on Newhart. "It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen," Ross says. He advises clients to avoid ecclesiastical language when addressing the mainstream ("Somebody talks about the Holy Ghost or the Army of God -- that sounds like a revolution and it's coming out of Iran," says Lawrence Swicegood, who has worked for Ross and DeMoss) and to use metaphors because they stick in people's minds. Toward the end of a session, Ross looses a "bulldog" interrogator, a role played these days by Giles Hudson, a former writer for the Associated Press, who poses questions ranging from financial queries to "Do homosexuals go to hell?" "Obviously not," Hudson says is a good response to this challenge. "Each person has their own relationship to Christ. People don't just go to hell because you're an alcoholic." Sometimes Ross and Hudson add a separate, ambush interview. After taking a "break" from a session with Promise Keepers, Ross's team confronted its president in the reception area, camera crew in tow.

On a Monday morning last November, Ross gathered his staff for a devotional around a rectangular table in the firm's conference room. Ross read a passage about the battle of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, who drew on God's strength to do battle. "How many times do we, even in our work on behalf of clients, feel like it's on us to go out there and slay a few dragons or whatever?" he asked. "There's a difference between doing God's will and doing our will in God's name." A woman in a dark blazer, Roe Ann Estevez, whose clients include Promise Keepers, nodded. After praying, the group broke up for coffee and bagels, laid out in gingham-lined baskets. I took the opportunity to check out the offices, which occupy a suite on the second floor of a low gray building in a North Dallas office park. Beside the desk of the receptionist, Susan Gromatzky, there was a plaque: "'When God is your client, eternity is in each account' -- Proverb 16:3." A nearly footlong brass key rested on a side table; Gromatzky said it was part of Autumn Ross's collection of keys. Did it refer obliquely to the Kingdom? Gromatzky nodded yes.

Ross's first meeting that day was at the Dallas Theological Seminary. Ross and Hudson were upbeat when we arrived at the school's leafy 17-acre campus. A seminary staff member named Robert Riggs greeted us. As we followed him, the subject of press releases came up. "I love the headline that we've got for 'Left Behind,"' Hudson said, referring to the third and most recent in a series of movies based on the popular books about the Second Coming; "Left Behind: World at War" had come out a few weeks earlier. "It talks about 'The End of America Coming to a Church Near You."' He and Ross looked amused. (The film's marketing included having it open in churches instead of theaters last fall.)

Once we were settled in our second conference room of the day, I asked Riggs what his role was. Ross interrupted: "Wait, I thought you were Giles's parole officer. Isn't that why we're here?" The three bantered and waited several minutes for the school's president, Mark Bailey, to arrive but soon gave up and turned to the first item on the agenda. The seminary was introducing podcasts that would address pop-culture phenomena like "The Da Vinci Code" from a Christian point of view, and Ross's team had put together a press release. "Putting God in the Pod" was its headline.

There was a moment of silence after Riggs read it. He grimaced. "The title of putting God somewhere -- it implies that he's not everywhere," he said. "Can we do something else?"

Hudson thought about it. "Can we take out 'putting'? And then it's just God in the Pod, and it acknowledges he's already there?"

Ross said he believed that would take care of the problem. Riggs concurred. "That would cover me."

When Bailey showed up, he seconded the original concern ("That, I think, is a little over the top," he said), but he agreed it was catchy. The final decision was to headline the release "Putting the Message of God in the Pod."

In some ways, Ross finds it easy to reconcile the sacred and the profane. Part of the evangelical approach is to be "in the culture but not of it," and it has been argued that Ross's profession has its antecedents in the work of Jesus himself. "You talk about a show stopper," Jerry Beavan, who organized Graham's crusades from 1950 to 1962, told me, referring to Jesus and making the point that there's nothing wrong with promoting the Gospel. "He raised people from the dead." In 1925, a best seller, "The Man Nobody Knows," written by Bruce Barton, a founder of what became the BBDO advertising agency, portrayed Jesus as the original businessman.

Ross takes pains to distance himself from the more unsavory associations with publicists. Once he playfully asked me, "So, where would a P.R. man fit on the social scale between used-car salesmen, lepers and incurable lepers?" But he also tries to serve his two masters fairly. When he was working with "The Early Show" at CBS during a Graham crusade in 2005, he was approached by "Good Morning America." He recapped the incident for me: "Their ratings are significantly higher, but I said, 'I have to tell you, we're here with CBS, and we have to honor the fact.' I feel dutybound. It's not enough to do things right -- we have to do the right thing." Ross also said he is attuned to the spiritual needs of his colleagues in the media. On one occasion he spoke to a producer from a network newsmagazine for six hours, answering her personal questions about Christ. "We have people who come to the crusades to report the story and put down their pens and microphones and commit to God," he said.

Still, there's no evading all of the incongruities of combining P.R. and the Lord's work. One publicist's disaster can be another's divine intervention. Consider the example of Billy Graham's scheduled appearance on the Terry Wogan talk show in London in 1984. At the last minute, it was canceled, initially a cause for dismay. But here's how Ross described the rescheduled appearance, which took place several weeks later: "I'll never forget it. It's an overcast day, O.K.? And they say, 'And now we're going to Billy Graham--"' Graham was appearing via satellite from Bristol, outdoors, where he was about to begin a crusade. "Well, as soon as he started, the sky opened up. It was like, if you had the soundtrack for it, it would have been a choir going, 'Aaahh-haaa!' Terry Wogan went: 'Whoa! What just happened?' The skies opened up, and this beam of light came down on Billy." Ross concluded, "I praise God for that."

Ross also says he believes he is helping to fight forces of evil and compares the unseen world in which he does battle with that in the "Matrix" films. "I can't tell you how many times I've had a press conference at a crusade and the copier doesn't work" -- a small example of what, he says, is "spiritual warfare." A more striking instance took place when he was approached by a prostitute in the parking lot of his office while he was on his cellphone discussing AIDS programs for Africa with Rick Warren's wife, Kay. "Is that coincidental?" he said. "Why is that?"

Ross was raised by Christian parents mostly in Wheaton, Ill., where his father, Arthur, was a Greek New Testament scholar at Wheaton College's graduate school. His mother, Ruth, was a second-grade teacher. Ross says he "accepted Christ into his heart" at 5, after hearing the story of a little boy who froze to death but had, luckily, been "saved" beforehand. "I remember being impressed with the upside of it," he says. He describes his adolescence as free of rebellion. "I was the prodigal son's older brother -- you know, loyal in the field," he says. He does admit, though, to having attended 25 Grateful Dead concerts. Without drugs? "I would go in an Army jacket with a couple of apples, and I would eat the apples," he told me. "I just liked the music, you know?"

One of Ross's first P.R. jobs, after he graduated from Wheaton, a private interdenominational Christian college, was at General Motors. He was hired in 1978 to travel the country in a blue van with 2,000 pounds of electronic and scientific equipment and to perform the company's long-running stage show, "Previews of Progress," at junior-high and high schools. Ross says he had a blast performing tricks like the one in which a kid pushed him 50 feet across a stage using just a hair dryer. The students were wowed. But what may have been more important was that this was his first encounter with what you might call dual -- or at least multilayered -- marketing. "If you're a reporter from The New York Times Magazine, I'd say, 'Oh, this is a noncommercial program for G.M. to get out into the community,' " he told me. "But in my heart of hearts. . .I knew, the real impact was when it came time for Mom and Dad to buy a car, Junior's at the table saying: 'Hey, let's go look at a G.M. car. I remember the car the G.M. man was in. It was really cool!"'

When Ross talks today of operating on two tracks, it's not children's science and grown-up car sales he has in mind. What he means is mainstream and Christian. Take what he calls "faith and family" films. "The average teenager sees 50 movies a year -- about one a week," he says. "That makes Mel Gibson one of the high priests of our culture. We're forming values, and to be able to do that through entertainment, which is further upstream from politics, is huge." Ross's most high-profile job in this vein has been his work on "The Passion." Initially he was brought in to help quell the controversy surrounding the film, and to that end he was instrumental in prompting the publication of several high-profile mainstream-media articles. Ross was also in charge of securing coverage in Christian print and online media. And he acted as facilitator too, introducing Gibson to Graham and dozens of other mover-and-shaker pastors, who got to see the film at previews Ross helped organize. He even hooked Gibson up with a clever telemarketing agency, the Broadcast Team, which had Gibson tape a message directed at pastors when they were likely to be out. "They want an answering machine because then the pastor says, 'I just got a call from Mel Gibson!"' Ross told me. "He plays it for his staff, he keeps it, he records it. It's viral. And it's less than 10 cents per call."

With "Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie," Ross and his former employee Lawrence Swicegood also applied two-track marketing techniques. Swicegood says they pitched "Jonah" to the mainstream as an all-stops-out special-effects extravaganza. "But," he says, "it was also 'Let's go to churches and influential religious leaders and have them preview it so they can recommend it to followers."' So Ross created a marketing kit for the film that he distributed to about 10,000 churches, which was a practice he first employed on behalf of Graham in 1986, when he mailed out "church communications packets" to encourage prayers for an international evangelist conference. The free "Veggie Tales" packets included inserts for church bulletins and Sunday-school guides, a poster, a DVD of the trailer and a script for a pulpit announcement introducing the picture to churchgoers. Swicegood and Ross sent materials to specific members of congregations who were considered, in Swicegood's words, "low-hanging fruit," like the pastors and teachers in charge of the church curriculums for elementary-age children. "It's easy for them to embrace it, so you give them tools for them to e-mail to their constituents or families," Swicegood says. "You can do an Evite -- 'Click here and see the trailer' and all that stuff."

Given his embrace of these tactics, it may seem surprising that Ross's work for the secular Creamer Dickson Basford P.R. agency in the early 80's -- which directly followed his job at G.M. -- ever came into conflict with his Christian principles. But he says the final straw was a four-hour meeting with Seagram's executives in which he and his colleagues were reprimanded for not doing enough to create "franchise" drinkers. The Creamer crew tried having cocktail waitresses bring out tumblers of VO whiskey and V8 as a new way to serve the product. But several of the six Seagram's executives didn't drink. "I'm not talking about they didn't want to have a drink," Ross says. "They were smart enough that they didn't drink." Disillusioned, Ross left Manhattan and moved into the nearly nonexistent profession of Christian P.R. On his way out the door, he says, his boss told him he was "committing career suicide."

One afternoon in a Dallas coffee shop, I asked Ross about mistakes he has made. His director of accounts, a man named Phillip Roth, was sitting with us, and neither one made a sound. The only other time I had seen them this quiet was when they were praying. (Roth left Ross's firm last month for a job in secular P.R.) Finally, Ross admitted that there must have been some, but that he was still drawing a blank. (Ross eventually came up with several mistakes, ranging from overworking his staff when he took on too many clients to being quoted in connection with a controversial client when he had agreed to stay below the radar.)

This struck me as a little odd -- if ever there was a landscape rife with moral swamps and pitfalls, wouldn't it be public relations? Yet this near-refusal to acknowledge anything other than the glowingly positive was a reaction I encountered several times in talking with Ross. It wasn't until later that I heard a possible explanation: according to what several Christians told me, Christians sometimes don't want to let on to anything negative because they fear it will reflect badly on God.

It is these sorts of freighted complexities that Ross and his colleagues in the world of Christian P.R. grapple with. When I spoke with Mark DeMoss, he made it clear that it wasn't advisable to make oneself the story. "My style is very, very understated and straightforward," he said. "I'm not a big rah-rah kind of guy." He chuckled when asked if he meant to imply that Ross was more of a spinner than he. "I was going to refer to my e-mail address -- I was going to refer to what it's not," he said. DeMoss was clearly referring to "mrspinmeister," which several people had told me was Ross's online address. (When I asked Ross about it later, he said he stopped using the address last summer.)

Others, however, are willing to explain at some length why it's O.K. for Ross to do what he does. "He chooses his clients well," says Joe Battaglia, who has known Ross for 25 years and runs Renaissance Communications, a marketing firm for companies that want to reach the Christian market. "I've never known Larry to represent someone of questionable character. Of course, that may be subjective -- I mean, it really isn't," he says and laughs. "It's always important to surround yourself with people you believe in." Someone like Ronn Torossian, whose 5W Public Relations has worked for Coca-Cola and McDonald's but who also represents the Trinity Broadcasting Network and Benny Hinn Ministries, is not so delicate, but he makes it clear that Ross and men like him are necessary in the current cultural climate. "Larry Ross, DeMoss -- they're excellent communicators in terms of helping the media understand there really is a face to the person who votes Republican," Torossian says. "Yes, there really is a face -- and he doesn't drool -- for the guy who votes against abortion."

Ross and his staff seem alternately comfortable and uncomfortable with the roles they play. One evening, Hudson appeared to fear being too candid. "If 50 percent of America identifies itself as Christian, you'd think the dominant media of the day would reflect that," he said, but soon reprimanded himself. "I said I was going to shut up. I have to shut up." It turns out that Ross isn't necessarily above criticism. Though he has said he takes on only clients who will reflect well on Billy Graham, Ross's client Rod Parsley had his church governance and fund-raising practices questioned in an article last winter in the left-leaning American Prospect. (Ross says that much of what was reported occurred "way before our time" and is "not consistent with the man and the organization" he has been working with for the past 18 months.) When I returned from my time with Ross in Dallas, I found that he had also worked with Benny Hinn, who has been criticized for everything from preaching the prosperity gospel to making supposedly false claims of healing. Instead of admitting as much, Ross borrowed a page from the politician's playbook. He initially denied "representing" the pastor. Whoops, wrong word. Did he "work" with the pastor? Yes, he told me, on a consulting basis -- but he kept his distance for Billy Graham's sake, using letterhead that didn't identify his firm and never letting himself be quoted in print in association with Hinn.

But Ross seems to be mostly at peace with his role and described it to me one afternoon this way: after invoking a biblical story about Moses' engagement in a lengthy battle for the children of Israel, he said: "Moses stood there on top of a cliff, and as long as he held up his arms, the children of Israel won. Well, after a while he got tired, so there were two men that came and held up Moses' arms so they could win the battle. That's my job -- to hold up the arms of the man of God, like Billy Graham or Rick Warren, in the media." But his eyes really lighted up when he moved onto another topic -- the press reception Graham received during his New York crusade last June. "He ended up doing 15 interviews, including all the major talk shows," Ross told me. "At the press conference itself we had 250 journalists."

Strawberry Saroyan is the author of "Girl Walks Into a Bar," a memoir.

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