For Wilshire Baptist Church
Billy Graham died last week and the media and social media especially was abuzz with recollections of a man who may have touched more lives for good than anyone else in the 20th century.
Some of the memories shared were universal and relatable, such as all the people who recalled having attended a Billy Graham crusade. Some were uniquely personal, like the photograph on Facebook of a very young Milton Brasher-Cunningham sitting on Graham’s knee.
My own memories are somewhere between the universal and the personal. In 1971 I boarded the buses with family and friends at First Baptist Church in Richardson to hear Graham preach several nights at the brand new Texas Stadium in Irving. A decade later as a freshly minted newspaper reporter I was sent to cover the Southern Baptist Convention in New Orleans and found myself at a dinner of the Religion Newswriters Association. It was a small room with maybe six tables occupied by the luminaries of religious journalism at the time and some of the leading voices in evangelical Christianity, most notably Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell.
The common thread running through many of the memories of Graham was that we were convicted and challenged by his simple, unflinching message of salvation for all people, and we admired and even appreciated his honesty and integrity when so many evangelists had fallen short. And, if we happened to find ourselves in the same room with him, we were drawn to his celebrity. I remember thinking to myself, “don’t stare at him,” but I did and what I saw was an unassuming presence. He wasn’t the program that night; he wasn’t “on” as they say. He sat at a table like the rest of us, legs crossed, coffee cup in hand, listening to others speak.
Upon hearing of Graham’s death, my brother posted on Twitter: “Many people are asking today, ‘Who can replace Billy Graham?’ Well shouldn’t we all try? No, none of us will probably ever fill stadiums but we each have a lost and dying world right around us. Folks thirsty for rivers of living water that you and I freely drink from everyday!”
Isn’t that the position we should take? Instead of lamenting the loss of perhaps the last great, global preacher of the Gospel, shouldn’t we try to find ways that we can share the message of hope – whether speaking boldly from a stage or sitting quietly at a table? If not with our voice, then with our actions? If not far away in a mission field, then across the street or at the office?
I think it starts by slowing down and taking the time to discern what our role might be. Billy Graham always took the time, and that was part of his message. After all, he was the one who always said at the end of his sermons, as he invited people out of their seats to accept God’s gift of salvation, “the buses will wait.”