Spiritual Crusade Takes Down-to-Earth Work

When it comes to planning for evangelist Billy Graham’s Greater Los Angeles Crusade, nothing is taken on faith alone.

Four months before hundreds of thousands are expected to file into the Rose Bowl for the Nov. 18 to 21 crusade, preparations already are underway that would awe the most seasoned of political operatives in this year’s presidential campaigns.

“A crusade is like an iceberg. Scientists tell us you see just about 10%,” Los Angeles crusade director Jeff Anderson said in an interview this week in Pasadena, where the organization has leased 10,000 square feet of office space on East Green Street. “The very visible part is what is seen by the community -- four days of public meetings attracting hundreds of thousands of people. But what the watching world does not know about is the 90% of the crusade that is not seen -- the prayer, the local leadership, the evangelical training, the outreach and the logistics.”

The Pasadena headquarters looks like a political campaign office. A large map on the wall has divided the crusade’s six targeted counties -- Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside and Santa Barbara -- into 21 organizing regions. There is a 23-person full-time staff, 10 of them from Graham headquarters in Minneapolis. The office is crowded with Bible study guides and other materials. A large banner with a picture of Graham hangs in a makeshift meeting room.

Anderson said 1,037 churches representing 91 Christian denominations have enlisted to participate in the crusade, 766 individuals have volunteered to serve as ushers and section captains, and 2,355 of the needed 6,000 counselors have signed on, as have 1,993 local church choir members who will be part of a hoped-for 6,000-voice choir. Graham’s sermons, delivered in a weaker voice than in his younger days, will be simultaneously translated into 14 languages and beamed by low-power transmitters to special sections in the Rose Bowl.

Lighting, sound systems and big TV screens had to be ordered. A set had to be designed. Contractors had to be hired.

Each crusade is self-supporting. The Rose Bowl event will cost almost $5.4 million, Anderson said, with equal shares borne by funds from local churches, receipts from a direct mail campaign, gifts from major donors and the offerings of attendees.

The details are staggering.

For example, after the crusade ends, women, men and youths may wonder how they received a letter from the renowned evangelist encouraging them on their Christian journey only a day after they left their stadium seats and walked onto the field to accept Graham’s invitation to conversion.

The reason: Within hours of their decision, cards they will have filled out with their name and address will be entered into a computer database by 100 volunteers on 100 computers located just off-site. Their local church, if they have one, also will be notified the same day. If they don’t attend church, a participating church near their home will be notified. During the San Diego crusade last year, 16,000 such letters went out. Graham himself is a member of a Southern Baptist church.

What about the counselors who are expected to greet them and speak one-on-one about faith in Jesus Christ? In February, March and April, 14,000 prospective counselors attended four training sessions at 19 locations throughout the Southland. Additional sessions are planned in September. So far, there have been 45 organizational meetings involving local pastors and other church representatives.

This year’s crusade will come near the 55th anniversary of the 1949 weekend when the then young and vigorous Billy Graham closed his first Los Angeles tent revival, which launched him into worldwide prominence. Since then he has preached the Gospel to more than 210 million people in more than 185 countries, his organization estimated.

He held crusades in Hollywood in 1951, and in Los Angeles in 1958 and 1963. He returned to Los Angeles in 1974 for a 25th anniversary celebration at the Hollywood Bowl. He also held crusades in Anaheim in 1969 and 1985.

As Graham has aged -- he is now 85 -- there has been widespread speculation that every crusade would be his last. He has Parkinson’s disease. The upcoming Los Angeles crusade was originally scheduled this month. But when Graham fell in his North Carolina home in May and broke his pelvis, the Los Angeles event was pushed back to November. A planned crusade in Kansas City also was delayed.

(Pastor Greg Laurie’s annual Harvest Crusade, which is being held today in Angel Stadium in Anaheim, was reduced to one day instead of the traditional three or four, to avoid competition with Graham’s original July date at the Rose Bowl.)

Anderson, who has worked for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn. for 28 years, seems to take it all in stride. “I’ve done nine ‘last Billy Graham crusades,’ ” he said.

As early as December, Graham’s staff began asking key local pastors if they thought Los Angeles area churches would be open to a crusade. The Rev. Lloyd Ogilvie, the former senior pastor at Hollywood Presbyterian Church and chaplain to the U.S. Senate, was asked to organize an executive committee to set the planning in motion. Ogilvie is honorary chair of this year’s crusade, which is co-chaired by Pastors Kenneth Ulmer of Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood and Jack Hayford of the Church on the Way in Van Nuys.

“We need a spiritual revitalization, a spiritual awakening in our community,” Ogilvie said. “I think we need it in a way that brings together the many different facets of our diversified population and represents all phases of the churches in our community. There’s no one today who could bring the community together in a focused concern for spiritual awakening other than Billy Graham. He’s become like a citizen of Los Angeles.”

Anderson said organizers keep in mind the bottom line: “It’s to expose as many people as possible to the good news of the gospel, that Jesus Christ came into the world, that he died and that he rose again, and that he offers hope and peace and life,” he said. “This is the message that Billy Graham has taken around the world for more than 55 years and he comes back to Los Angeles to share it again. All we are doing is preparing the way for this special gospel message to be presented.”