BILLY GRAHAM

(1918 – Till date)

A remarkable visionary who allows himself to be used by God for His purpose.
You are to go into all the Good news to everyone, everywhere.Mark16:15 TL

A Visionary Evangelist to mankind.
At the time the Billy Graham evangelist ministry was fully established – in the 1950s – the goal of Christianity for “evangelizing the world” was fading. Tensions between colonialism and national churches, as well as competition among missionary societies, had combined to diminish the vigor of Christian outreach. Communism and atheism were strong forces in many nations. Fifty years later, Communism had collapsed, and evangelism had again become a top priority of the Christian church. The central figure in this resurgence was Billy Graham.
In his life, Graham has preached to more people in person than anyone else in history – more than 210 million – with more than 2.8 million people responded to his invitation to “come forward” to accept Christ as Savior. More than 2.5 billion people in 160 nations are estimated to have heard his Easter Sunday sermon in April 1996, a televised message that was translated into forty – eight languages. From the 1950s onward, he has appeared in the annual Gallup – poll top – ten listing of “the most admired American.” He is the speaker on an international radio network of more than a thousand stations and a columnist in newspapers with a combined circulation of more than 7 million readers. His books have been translated widely, with millions of copies sold. He received the congressional Gold Medal in 1996 and was called “America’s Pastor’s by President George Bush.
While Billy Graham’s father prepared him to be a farmer, his mother insisted that her children memorize a Bible verse each day. His personal conversion to Christ came on the night before his sixteenth birthday during a revival crusade held in his hometown. He subsequently attended Florida Bible Institute and Wheaton College to prepare himself for ministry.
Early in his ministry, Graham made a statement that became a hallmark for his life: “I had one passion and that was to win souls.” Youth for Christ International gave Graham has first national platform, but it was a telegram sent by newspaper giant William Randolph Hearst to “Puff Graham” that propelled graham into national fame in the wake of Los Angeles Campaign in 1949. A crusade in London in 1954 marked the beginning of his international evangelism efforts. He held major campaigns in India and the far East (1956), Australia and New Zealand (1959), Berlin (1966), Nagaland (1972), Korea and South Africa (1973), and Poland (1977 – 78). He made his first official visit to Moscow in 1982 and to China in 1988. As a major watershed moment for evangelism, he convened the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism in 1974. The collapse of Communism in 1991 opened the door for him to preach to fifty thousand Russians in Moscow’s Olympic Stadium in 1992.
Graham summed up his ministry in 1994 in a statement made after he had preached to the Queen of England and members of the royal family: “My job is to be faithful, to proclaim the Gospel wherever I am. It is always a time of tremendous soul searching, and great privilege, with a sense of humility and unworthiness, to preach the Gospel at any time.