The Word for Graham July Crusade: Big : Evangelist’s Followers Will Pump Millions Into Area Economy
A local T-shirt manufacturer recently proposed a can’t-miss business deal to Roger B. Tompkins, chairman of Southern California Billy Graham Crusade Inc.
The T-shirt firm’s chief executive had big notions of making official Billy Graham Crusade T-shirts for the 10-day event that begins July 19 at Anaheim Stadium. But Tompkins declined the proposition, explaining, “We don’t want to turn this into a carnival.”
A carnival it is not. Big business it is.
Before the crusade departs Anaheim later in the month, it will have pumped millions of dollars into the Orange County economy and raised an additional $2 million to pay costs and provide seed money for Graham’s next crusade, scheduled for Washington, D.C., next April.
So immense is the Anaheim crusade that the 550,000-plus people expected to attend over the week-and-a-half span will rank it as the largest consecutive-day event ever held in Anaheim. It will far surpass the previous record set when the crusade attracted 384,000 devotees to Anaheim Stadium during its last swing here in 1969.
Many Followers
These numbers reflect the worldwide magnetism of Graham, who has attracted more than 63 million faithful to his crusades over the past 36 years. In 26 of the last 27 years, Graham has been named in the Gallup Poll as one of the “Ten Most Admired Men in the World.”
This popularity, however, has not happened by accident. His Minneapolis-based nonprofit organization, the Billy Graham Evangelical Assn., carefully plans each of his crusades with a keen eye toward the largest possible audience. In fact, it rejects up to 3,000 speaking requests annually for the handful it accepts, said Tompkins.
Graham’s core organization, which took in nearly $46 million in contributions last year, continues to grow. His words circle the globe through World Wide Publications, an affiliate that publishes and distributes his literature; World Wide Pictures, the organization’s film affiliate; and Blue Ridge Broadcasting Corp. and Christian Broadcasting Assn., its radio affiliate. The organization posted profits of $179,000 last year to boost its total assets to nearly $30 million. Its 1984 revenues were more than $70 million, according to the association’s annual report.
Much of the financial support behind the association, however, comes from small donations that average $17 each, said Joel Aarvold, the company’s vice president of finance. Graham personally accepts no donations for his work, but receives an annual salary of $59,500, said a spokesman for the association. Any contributions sent to Graham go directly to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn.
Free to Spectators
During the Anaheim crusade--which is free to all spectators--contributions must average $4 per person for the event to break even, Tompkins estimated. “That’s about half as much as Angels fans pay to see Reggie Jackson bat,” he said. Donations will be collected at each service by an estimated 2,800 ushers. Some donations have already been secured from area churches, volunteers and businessmen.
More than 2 million “invitations” have been printed for the event, although the 7:30 p.m. services are open to anyone. Nearly 24,000 volunteers from local churches have been trained for various jobs ranging from worship “counselors” to first aid crews. Just as medical manpower at Anaheim Stadium is beefed up before rock concerts, the first aid station will add extra personnel during the crusade. “People can get very emotionally involved at this event,” Smith explained.
All of this planning will culminate at about 7:15 p.m. on July 19, when Graham and his entourage walk out onto the field from a locker room formerly used by the California Surf soccer team. The first-night throng at Anaheim Stadium is expected to wildly cheer the popular evangelist, who will be led to the stage by a special security force that guided him earlier this year through massive rallies in England, Russia and Seoul, Korea, where more than 1 million faithful attended.
Volunteer Chorus to Sing
While the Anaheim crowd cheers, a volunteer chorus of 10,000 will burst into song from seats in the lower deck between home plate and the left field foul pole. The video image of Graham, who was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1940 and began his crusades nine years later, will be flashed on the stadium scoreboard.
Graham will climb the steps of a $7,000 stage--64 feet wide and 36 feet deep--that city workers built especially for the event. The stage will be perched atop second base and face home plate. When Graham speaks, his lecture will be simultaneously translated into 13 languages that will be broadcast on AM-band radio in designated sections of the stadium.
Behind the scenes of the Anaheim crusade, dozens of paid professionals from the Minneapolis association and tens of thousands of area volunteers from 1,500 churches have spent months arranging the spectacle. Because this planning unifies so many people in a single effort, “What leads up to the crusade is often more important than the 10 days of the crusade itself,” Tompkins said.
The purpose of the crusade is to “bring uncommitted individuals into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and firmly establish them in a local church,” according to Donald L. Bailey, the association’s director of media relations.
10,000 Counselors on Hand
Following each service, religiously uncommitted spectators are urged to leave their seats, climb down to the field and approach the platform area. There, they are greeted by counselors--10,000 will be on hand in Anaheim--who place them on Graham’s mailing list and connect them with local churches.
Since 1949, an estimated 2 million people have been placed on the mailing list.
Informal planning for the crusade actually began three years ago when Billy Graham spoke and the Angels listened. California Angels, that is.
Graham wanted a 10-day stop in Anaheim, but with baseball season in full swing and the Angels as the primary tenants of Anaheim Stadium, such an extended crusade appeared doubtful. But upon Graham’s request, the Angels petitioned the American League, which agreed to schedule an extended road trip for the Angels.
It wasn’t until last May that Graham consented to the Anaheim crusade when he was formally invited here by 400 area pastors. The crusades usually are limited to about five annually, and organizers say that Graham, at 67, will likely be conducting his final Southern California crusade.
“I love Southern California because this is where we started,” Graham said in a January interview. Graham, whose first crusade was at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1949, is currently leading a crusade in Sheffield, England, and was unavailable for comment.
Evangelism Conference
Because most crusade-goers are expected to be area residents, the biggest income generator for the city will be a School of Evangelism Conference that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn. has scheduled at the Anaheim Convention Center to run concurrently with the crusade, said William Snyder, president of the Anaheim Area Visitors and Convention Bureau.
Convention-goers have selected the Anaheim Hilton as their headquarters hotel and will occupy an estimated 1,500 rooms there, according to the bureau. The Graham staff has booked a number of rooms at the Doubletree Hotel in Orange, but the hotel’s executives are hardly expecting a windfall from the crusade.
“They’re not the type of group that wants ice carvings and fancy dinners,” said Mary I. Neister, director of sales at the Doubletree Hotel. “They’re just good people who are doing a good thing.”
From stadium parking fees alone, the city could see crusade-related revenues of $160,000, estimated Greg Smith, tenant services coordinator at the stadium. The parking fees at Anaheim Stadium will be the same as for baseball games; $3 for cars and $6 for vans and buses. To get to the stadium services, local churches have reserved an estimated 200 area buses during the crusade, Tompkins said.
Prices Going Up
The $2-million price tag of this crusade had nearly tripled since the last Anaheim rally was staged 16 years ago for $690,000. Although the city is supplying the stadium at no charge--which it commonly does for large conventions expected to generate hefty revenues in other ways for the city’s coffers--the Graham organization will spend nearly $1 million on setting up, cleaning up, utilities and maintenance.
Organizers will spend $300,000 advertising the event, said Tompkins. Full page advertisements will appear in both The Times and the Orange County Register, and some radio and television advertising has also been planned. The crusade has also sent direct mailings to more than 7,000 area churches asking for assistance.
Because the ceremonies are religious, the Graham organization usually prefers that snacks not be sold at its crusades. But since the worship services have been scheduled near dinner hour, items such as hot dogs and soda pop will be sold prior to--but not during--the services. Beer will not be sold, Smith said.
Although the Graham organization does not sell buttons, pins and posters, it will be selling tapes, records, Bibles and Christian literature from concession stands. Profits will all go directly to its Minneapolis association.
Food Drive Scheduled
A canned-food drive will take place the final three nights of the crusade, as Graham expects to collect 18 truckloads of food to be distributed to the needy throughout the Southland.
Those close to Graham say he is determined to continue his crusade for many years, but they candidly state that he has recently showed signs of slowing down. During a March crusade in Anchorage, Alaska, Graham lost his voice in the middle of a sermon and was forced to leave the stage.
Still, plans are already in the works for the next crusade in Washington and for an international conference of evangelists he plans to lead in Amsterdam in July, 1986.
“The truth is,” said Tompkins, “no one in the world can unite the church of Jesus Christ like Billy Graham.”
