121112 Doug Coe “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Billy Graham & Me,” “Not Mass Evangelism, but Personal Evangelism on a Massive Scale by A Man Who Loved People and Lifted Up Jesus“

An Exclusive Contribution to

“Chicken Soup for the Soul:

Billy Graham & Me.”

By Doug Coe

“Not Mass Evangelism, but Personal Evangelism on a Massive Scale by A Man Who Loved People and Lifted Up Jesus”

November 22, 2012

(1140 words)

I was just 14 years old when I first heard Billy Graham speak in 1943 at a Youth for Christ rally at Waters Field in Salem, OR.

After hearing Billy Graham preach, my mother wanted me to attend Northwestern Schools (now Northwestern College) in Minneapolis, where he served as president. She figured I could be close to the evangelist during my brief tenure as a student there, but that didn’t happen. I do recall, however, a special all-school convocation held in the fall of 1949 upon his return from his historic eight-week crusade in Los Angeles.

As I sat listening to the report and watching the films of people responding night-after-night to Billy Graham’s preaching, I was skeptical of both the person and the process. I was a mathematics major, still trying to figure out faith in my head -- not my heart -- and I was a long way from being able to relate to his transformational message of God’s love and forgiveness.

But through the providence of God our lives have intersected in many ways and on numerous occasions ever since: as a colleague, for whom I worked and who also reported to me; mentor; strategist; and dear friend.

I first met Billy Graham in the early 1950s while working as a personal assistant to Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield, who had since helped me overcome my spiritual doubts and become a follower of Jesus. In 1957 I was seconded to Billy’s organization for two years to help with the youth outreach and follow-up for his 1957 New York City held at Madison Square Garden.

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But it wasn’t until I moved to Washington, DC in 1959 to begin my life’s work with the National Prayer Breakfast family that I came to really know Billy Graham as a brother, and to observe and embrace his unique, inclusive ministry perspective as ambassadors of God’s love.

Until that time, I thought the work of God was evangelism, but I soon realized that the only person I could evangelize and disciple was myself. I learned from Billy that the Gospel message isn’t three or five “points,” it’s a Person – Jesus. He would preach that God is love, and since Jesus is God, than the Gospel is also about love.

Throughout his ministry, Billy was transparent and accessible with everyone in his life. He loved all the sinners Jesus came for, and included himself in that group. He didn’t have a judgmental spirit, but rather an almost supernatural love for anyone he met, regardless of their religious background, or none. And he was always fully present, focused and engaged with anyone -- whether a President or Senator or a waiter or bellman at his hotel.

Billy also had openness to the study of Jesus. Even though his crusade ministry was always church-based, he worked hard to overcome the pressures and influences of religion. “The greatest need of the Church” he once told me in one of our many conversations, “is to set it back 2,000 years to the time of Jesus.”

Billy kept growing in his understanding of Scripture that put him way ahead of his time. He didn’t preach a Christian Gospel, but rather the universal message of Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth, who came for all mankind, which resonated with as much relevance to audiences in Nairobi and New Delhi as it did in New York or Nagadoches.

When Billy started traveling the world, he found people who never had heard the word Christian, but whom he knew he would see in heaven because of their faith in, and relationship with, Jesus. Once, while singing “Jesus Loves Me,” with a group of Chinese children at the Great Wall, an elderly man in his 90s came up to him with tears streaming down his face and said, “I’ve known him all my life, but I didn’t know His name.”

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Billy once told me, “I became born again as a teenager, attended a Bible school, graduated from a Christian college, served as a Christian pastor, was appointed president of a Christian University, and eventually answered the call to become a Christian evangelist. Eight years later, I came to more fully realize who Jesus Christ was.”

What may sound like a distinctive without a difference to some was vividly reinforced for me during Billy’s 1994 crusade in Tokyo. I was traveling in China at the time, but saw his farewell press conference on one of the English news channels in Beijing.

A Japanese reporter asked, “Mr. Graham, Christian missionaries have been coming to Japan for 150 years, and you have just completed your second crusade here. Yet Christians represent less than .5 percent of our population. Is their something wrong with Christian religion or with the Japanese people, that they don’t respond?”

Billy replied to her and all of the assembled media, “The answer is clear. All pastors and missionaries have equated the Christian religion with Jesus – and there is a vast difference.”

Along with Senator Frank Carlson and Abraham Vereide, Billy had a seminal role in the founding of the National Prayer Breakfast in the early 1950s by encouraging President Eisenhower to attend the first of what has become an annual gathering ever since. He was the main speaker at most of the first 15, and has said a prayer or read Scripture at many others.

Though renown for his public evangelistic crusades, Billy was one of the few leaders I have known who had the vision to equip laypersons. Whenever he would meet with the House of Senate weekly prayer groups, he remained deferential, encouraging the members to share and to pray at the meetings.

One day, Billy was speaking about these prayer fellowships with Senator Sam Nunn, who exclaimed, “Billy, the Lord has used you to bring millions to faith in Christ and it is a privilege to partner with you.”

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Billy replied, “Senator, most of what you are saying is not true. I am thrilled to be used by God as an instrument, but if you as a layman would teach the Scriptures, it would be far more effective.”

When Senator Nunn told Billy he was just being humble, the evangelist grabbed him by the lapels and pulled him close. “Senator, thousands of people already know what I am going to say,” he said. “But millions want to know what you would say.”

God has honored Billy Graham’s faithfulness, through his consistent focus on Jesus, his exemplary public and private humility reflecting the spirit of the One he serves and in his empowerment of laypersons to do the work of evangelism.

Just as chicken soup is proven to heal the body in times of physical illness, Billy’s unfailing fidelity to his calling has enabled millions of individuals suffering from spiritual sickness to find nurturing for their soul. I don’t think we will see another like him in our lifetime.

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As part of the National Prayer Breakfast family, Doug Coe works individually with groups of friends around the world, including political leaders, who meet together around the person and teachings of Jesus.