Billy Graham’s Crusade Puts Planning, Precision Into Campaign for Souls

Matthew 10:29 says that a sparrow does not fall to the earth without being noticed in heaven. At Anaheim Stadium each night, the regular overflight of a John Wayne Airport-bound aircraft neither surprises nor interrupts the Rev. Billy Graham.

Each night of the Billy Graham Crusade, the 67-year-old evangelist steps to the podium--usually between 8:05 p.m. and 8:12 p.m.--and begins an inspirational address that lasts 35 minutes, generally opening with a humorous story or anecdote and always concluding with an invitation to those in the stands.

“If God has spoken to you,” Graham says to them, “just move out.”

By 8:45 p.m., thousands of Southern Californians are streaming into the outfield, taking their first steps onto a path they believe will lead to heaven.

Appears to Run Like Clockwork

It is no accident that the crusade program appears to run like clockwork, after more than 35 years of practice. Between the fanfares of opening and closing weekends of the 10-day gathering, there is a smooth rhythm, if not a routine, that sets in throughout the stadium and continues to hum in 24-hour cycles.

Between 9:10 and 9:20 p.m., as Graham leaves the platform, counselors in the outfield are still busy speaking with those who have come forward, explaining the handbook called “Living in Christ” and, most important, filling out the follow-up cards in the center of the booklet.

By 11 p.m. the cards have been removed from the booklet and are being carried up to the Anaheim Room, behind the Angels’ press box in back of home plate, for sorting. Those cards that indicate the individual is already affiliated with a church are moved to the multilevel Rams press room overlooking third base. Members of the volunteer Co-Labor Corps go to work transferring the information on the cards to letters to be sent to local ministers notifying them of the person’s commitment during the crusade.

According to Tom Phillips, coordinator for counseling, this work continues until all of the cards are processed, usually until 3:30 a.m. on weekdays, but sometimes as late as 5 a.m.

At 9 a.m., members of the Co-Labor Corps’ secretarial pool are at work on the remainder of the cards, those where individuals have listed a denomination but no local church affiliation, or those who have listed no denomination at all. Using printout directories of churches, listed by zip code, the volunteers match home addresses to the nearest church of the same denomination, or the nearest three churches of different denominations for people who list no preference.

Elsewhere in the stadium, letters from Graham are being addressed to the individuals, and free subscriptions are started to the Billy Graham Organization’s magazine, “Decision.”

Assignment of Individuals

The ministers’ committee, about 45 to 50 local clergy members, arrives about 3:30 p.m. to review the sheets of the previously unaffiliated. Pastors of corresponding denominations double-check to be certain that individuals have been assigned to the congregation closest to their homes, since zip code boundaries are sometimes arbitrary. Those without denominational preferences are divided up through consultations among committee members.

While the crusade maintains good relations with the Catholic hierarchy, and funnels those Catholics who respond to the stadium appeals to support groups composed of evangelical Catholics, their cards are not forwarded to parish churches. Neither are cards forwarded to churches from people who list affiliations with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Unification Church, although efforts are made to put these people in touch with those denominations.

Throughout the day, grounds crews water and cut the grass as usual, hose down the aisles and go about normal maintenance. Crusade staffers come and go, holding meetings and working out details for the evening. The crusade staff and volunteers are not without humor. A hand-drawn sign, evidently speaking to the issue of litter in one area, reads: “Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.” (John 6:12). At a drink stand the sign reads: “The Lord hath provided Coke, orange drink and water only!!” Over at the Anaheim Convention Center, the Crusade’s School of Evangelism continues its classes.

Gates Open at 6 p.m.

By 5:15 p.m., members of the stadium’s staff gather in a shaded area of seats to munch dinner from the concession stands. Volunteer ushers for the evening line up at their entrance, to receive their color-coded programs, Dayglo armbands and instructions for the evening. By about 5:30 p.m., Crusade Chairman Roger Tompkins is up in one of the Rams’ suites, hosting a light dinner of cold cuts and potato salad for invited guests.

Aisle captains brief their ushers, and members of the 10,000-voice choir begin to trickle in. The gates are opened at 6 p.m., with the first rush for seats, followed by a run at the concession stands, for nachos and Zion Kosher hot dogs. Enough of the choir is in place by 6:45 for rehearsal to begin.

Most of those seated on the platform above the pitcher’s mound--not including Graham--file out of the third-base dugout about 7:10 pm. Five or 10 minutes later the evangelist, sometimes accompanied by a special guest who will sit beside him, emerges from one of the dugouts, all food concessions close and the program officially begins.

One choral selection and congregational song led by Cliff Barrows is normally followed by a word of welcome and the first of two musical guests, who perform no more than two numbers. After a short testimony by a celebrity or sports figure and a second musical selection, the offering begins, by about 7:40. Ushers reach into white shopping bags for the paper buckets used to take the collection, as the choir sings again. After another congregational song and a solo by George Beverly Shea, it is a few minutes past 8 p.m., and Billy Graham steps to the podium to begin the cycle again. He is so well prepared that he knows what time each night a plane from John Wayne Airport will pass over the stadium.

How you see Billy Graham may depend on where you sit:

- As at many egalitarian gatherings, at the crusade some are more equal than others. There is an enclosed section of the press box behind home plate set aside for celebrities and VIPs, guarded by a stadium usher, two plainclothes security men and a tight-lipped member of the crusade staff who refers all questions to Larry Turner, the crusade director. The accommodations, Turner said, are set up to provide for those who might not attend under any other circumstances.

- In the “good seats” downstairs--some sections of which are set aside for invited guests and those attending the School of Evangelism--even those sitting just behind the railing focus much of the time on the large image of Graham on the left-field scoreboard, rather than on the closer, live figure in the infield.

- Away up in the rafters there are more packed dinners from home than downstairs, and an abundance of tow-headed boys with ice cream cones scampering up and down the steep aisles. Perhaps because of the altitude, people are more inclined to clap along with the choir than sing.

There are as many as six ways to see Billy Graham inside the beige television trailer where the crusade is being taped for three hourly broadcasts in early September. Facing a wall panel of more than half-a-dozen screens, Roger Flessing directs the taping in much the same way as network directors, snapping his fingers and calling the shots while shifting a pencil from hand to hand.

A Bit of Irreverence

Inside the Greene, Crowe Productions trailer, located just outside the stadium, the mood is very professional, as elsewhere in the crusade, but a trifle, well, irreverent. On Wednesday night, as part of his message, Graham recounted the crusade’s relationship with television over the years, pointing out such benchmarks of technological advancement as color and satellite transmissions.

Sitting in an upholstered chair behind Flessing, Ted Dienert, Graham’s producer and son-in-law, corrected dates and details of Graham’s chronology. As the evangelist passed the midway point in his talk, Dienert said to the screen: “Gimme the telephone number!” a reference to that point when Graham reminds television viewers to call a number scrolled across the screen for counseling. But before the signal can be sent to the platform, Graham makes the reference, as if he can sense Dienert. On Thursday night, Graham refers to Dienert with pride, and takes the opportunity to say hello to him on camera.

Concealed in the podium is a countdown clock that begins ticking off five minutes before the end of the 35-minute time slot.

Dienert, fingering his passport the night before in preparation for an upcoming trip to Romania, is equal in his admiration for his father-in-law, telling a visitor, “It’s an amazing thing. Here is a man at the apex of his career.”

Commenting on a shot--not used--of a less-than-enthralled viewer in the stands, Flessing says, “nice yawn.” As with many televised athletic events and political gatherings, attractive young women are more likely than any other type to appear in reaction shots. One middle-age woman with a touch too much makeup, those at the panel agree, was probably a “third runner-up” in one beauty pageant or another.

Dress at the crusade is not especially decorous, unless Southern California casual is the standard, wherein shorts, knee socks and running shoes would qualify as formal attire. Some young people appear in rock group T-shirts, tight pants, camouflage fatigues, even motorcycle “colors”--leather jackets without sleeves, with insignias on the back. The only people wearing suits are crusade staff members and plainclothes security men who need jackets to conceal their pistols.

Crusade officials don’t like to dwell on security, for obvious reasons, but the off-duty professionals volunteering their services are easy to spot: They look like generic plainclothes police officers anywhere, and many don’t bow their heads during the prayers. There are between 60 and 65 of them, about a third of whom are deployed around the infield during the services, linked by white earplugs as they scan the crowd or keep an eye on the platform.

Simple Precautions

Simple but effective precautions are taken. Until the last minute, for example, no one knows which dugout Graham will step out of to walk toward the platform, or what path he will use, coming or going.

“You don’t want to establish a pattern,” says Larry Turner, crusade director. Under the direction of Richard Grace, a Cal State Los Angeles professor of law and criminal justice, the security is “well-orchestrated and planned,” Turner said. “It’s designed to be low profile, to be there for the protection of the crowd as much as to see that nothing happens with regard to the platform.”

Grace, a heavyset, balding man, is sometimes seen sweeping ahead of Graham as he crosses the infield. In the evangelist’s wake, carrying a small black bag, is Dr. Tim Munzing, son of the Rev. George Munzing of Trinity United Presbyterian Church of Santa Ana.

There is also reluctance by crusade officials to talk about the offering, at least until the crusade is over. When the collection is completed each night, the paper buckets full of money are collected at the head of each aisle, placed in white shopping bags and spirited off by brisk men in white shirts. Where it goes, they do not say. About $100,000 is raised each night, and the Billy Graham organization is scrupulous about maintaining the integrity of its finances, which will be outlined in detail in an audit prepared by the firm of Deloitte, Haskins and Sells. They are honest, but they are not stupid.

‘Security Is Necessary’

“Security is necessary when money is concerned,” says Hudson Saffell, treasurer of the Southern California crusade. “We have refrained somewhat from focusing on the offering,” he said, “but we do want to be fiscally responsible.”

The most moving moments of the crusade are in the outfield, after Graham’s call. On television, the coming forward is a little deceptive, but not intentionally so. The first two or three rows of people around the stadium, those who come down first, are counselors. Thereafter, supervisors feed counselors down the aisles in roughly equal proportions to those responding to the call, so that there will be about the same numbers of counselors and seekers.

For some reason, no one is exactly sure why, the crowds in the stands at Anaheim Stadium have broken into applause as others move onto the field. One night Graham said it was “the first time I’ve ever heard that at this juncture,” adding that he was going to tell his wife, Ruth, that when she arrived she would see “the clappin’-est crowd you’re ever going to see.” One crusade official said he thought the applause was for the appearance on the field of individuals carrying signs indicating one of the numerous ethnic groups. It may simply be the response of people used to providing a big hand whenever anyone is asked to “come on down.”

Sense of Commitment

There is no denying the sense of commitment evident in the outfield among those who have responded. There are some tears, but not many, and few extravagant displays of emotion. Young people, teen-agers especially, have been coming forward: an unshaven boy counseled by a large man in a pin-striped suit, as the boy’s mother looked on, a mixture of hope, pride and expectancy on her face; a Hawaiian woman, dressed in a muumuu, a large gardenia in her hair, her arms around three young people in a prayer huddle. A chance encounter on the base paths: “Hi Lenny! You became a Christian? (pinching the boy’s cheek) I’m so happy for you!”

Wandering the playing field, even wearing press credentials, one is apt to be ambushed by an embrace by one of the exuberant faithful, proclaiming that “Jesus loves you!”

Crusade organizers have made vigorous efforts to draw racial and ethnic minorities to the stadium. While 70% of the crowd is white, 20% to 30% has been minority, principally Asian-American. For his part, Graham has repeatedly sounded a theme of pluralism, and racial and ethnic understanding, night after night.

“We could be one big happy family in Southern California,” Graham said Thursday night, “if we knew Christ.”

The crowd, said the Rev. John Hoffman Jr., pastor of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church of Newport Beach and a crusade counselor, is “microcosmic of Orange County,” but there is “a demography within the demography” in the outfield that encompasses “an incredible amount of diversity.”

Every weeknight at 9.30 p.m., as the crusade lets out, the fireworks at Disneyland begin. On several nights that is also when the minor theological fireworks begin at the State College Boulevard and Pacifico Avenue exit of the stadium begin.

The most persistent have been four members of the Church at Whitehall, Md., who continued distributing their literature to departing motorists despite arrests, threats of arrests and a hostile reception.

According to Bernard Haygood, a lay minister, the group’s primary objection to Graham is that the evangelist does not require baptism as a prerequisite to salvation. In one piece of literature, entitled “An Open Letter to Billy Graham,” Haygood writes: “Billy, you can be safe in concluding that you are teaching a heresy.”

Standing on toll booth traffic islands, in the dark, the four attempted to pass their literature in stop-and-go traffic to motorists who had been warned several feet before that what they were about to be offered was “not Christian literature.” The results were extremely condensed theological arguments shouted through car windows. Young supporters of Billy Graham engaged the four in spirited dialogues that sometimes degenerated into a shorthand discussion composed solely of Biblical citations.

‘Save That Car’

Not far from where these exchanges were going on, a smaller group that identified itself as being from Bible Baptist College in Springfield, Mo., urged departing drivers, not only to save themselves, but to “save that car” by painting scriptural citations on the exterior, as they had done with their own pickup truck.

Another evening, a group from Rosemead, the Emmanuel Christ Church, stationed themselves near the exit with signs and literature particularly critical of Graham’s cordial relations with officials of the Roman Catholic Church.

Larry Turner, the crusade director, said that the appearance of such groups around the fringes of the crusade was “not unusual” and emphasized that “we have never pressed charges” against them.

Turner and Roger Tompkins, the crusade chairman, acknowledged that the disputes some groups have with Graham are not trivial. One night, Cliff Barrows reminded those in the stands that “all crusade literature is handed out in the stadium.”