DAVID ADAMS speaks to Will Graham, grandson of Billy Graham and the latest member of the family to hold a major evangelistic event in Australia…
Last time he was in Australia, American preacher Will Graham – the grandson of the world-renowned Christian evangelist Billy Graham – went on a tour of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in Melbourne.
“Someone said, ‘What’s the biggest record crowd you’ve ever had here?’ and the guy gave an answer and I said, “No, I think it was Billy Graham wasn’t it?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, how’d you know that?’,” he recalls. “He kinda figured out who I was because I kept asking so many Billy Graham questions.”
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Will Graham, who will be preaching the Gospel at the three day “Reality” event in Alice Springs in mid-May “I want to tell people how they can put their trust in Christ, have their sins forgiven and how they can have a new life – a life full of purpose and meaning and hope. And all that can be found in Christ through a personal relationship.” – Will Graham |
The Grahams have a long history in Australia starting with, of course, the famous visit by his grandfather in 1959 (during which the MCG record was set at more than 130,000 – some estimates put it as high as 143,750) but also including the numerous visits since made by Billy, his son Franklin, and now Will, who made his first trip here in 2008.
But Will Graham, who is coming to Australia later this month where he’ll be involved in a number of events including a three day ‘Reality’ event in Alice Springs, says he’s just coming to bring the Gospel.
“I don’t have any expectations,” the 41-year-old tells Sight over the phone from North Carolina in the US, noting that, given the population of Alice Springs – about 28,000, he’s not expecting a crowd of 50,000 or 60,000 people.
“We’re (just) coming to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ,” he says. We want to see people encouraged in their faith, we want to see people accept Christ as their Lord and Saviour and make a spiritual commitment and start going to church…”
Rev Graham, who will also be holding a one-day seminar on evangelism in Sydney, has been invited by local churches to Alice Springs and will be accompanied by musicians Steve Grace and Dennis Agajanian during the three day event from 20th to 22nd May which will feature an “outback concert spectacular” on Saturday night, and a combined churches gathering on Sunday morning.
He says that the message he will be bringing will be similar to that he delivers elsewhere: while “every city is different” and places have their own specific problems, the root cause – “the spiritual issue of trusting in God” – is the same.
“I want to tell people how they can put their trust in Christ, have their sins forgiven and how they can have a new life – a life full of purpose and meaning and hope. And all that can be found in Christ through a personal relationship,” Rev Graham says.
“So when I’m preaching, I want to give them an opportunity to respond to that message, just like my granddaddy would, and invite them to come forward and make a decision and put their faith and trust in Jesus. Every place I go in the world I do the same thing – I may just use a different text but ultimately, as quick as I can, I always get to the cross and opportunity for people to respond and that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Rev Graham was almost six-years-old when he made a commitment to follow Christ. It was January, 1981, and he’d gone to church where, now too old to go to Sunday school, he had sit with the adults. Finding he was missing snacktime, he says he brightened up when he saw the communion elements being passed out but was told by his dad, Franklin Graham, that he couldn’t have any.
“And later that night, (dad) come into my bedroom and he explained to me why I couldn’t have communion – because I didn’t have Jesus in my heart and hadn’t asked for Jesus to forgive me of my sins. (He then asked) would I want to do that? So I didn’t understand everything about the Bible but I knew one thing – that Jesus loved me and He loved me so much that He died on the cross for me. And I believed in that and I put my faith in that. And so I made that decision, right before I turned six years-old, to give my life over to Jesus Christ.”
Growing up, Rev Graham says there was never a season in his life when he rebelled against God and adds that having such a famous grandfather was never a problem for him. “Growing up a Graham made things easier for me; it was never a hindrance for me, that’s for sure.”
He says he realised early on that putting his life to Christ’s hands wasn’t “boring” but “really where life begins” – a message that he doesn’t think the church, in America at least (he doesn’t want to speak for the Australian church), has communicated very well.
“Too many people who are not Christians, who don’t go to church, they believe (the Bible) is a book of dos and don’ts, mainly don’ts, and they don’t see it as a life of pleasure…(But) God’s ways are a lot more fulfilling and we probably, as a church, have not done a very good job (of communicating that).”
Rev Graham says while it’s hard to put a finger on exactly when he knew he would become a preacher, there were a few moments in his life when, looking back now, he can see God leading him toward it. One is when he was around seven or eight-years-old and had a sense that God wanted him to be in ministry, he “just didn’t know what that meant.”
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“Too many people who are not Christians, who don’t go to church, they believe (the Bible) is a book of dos and don’ts, mainly don’ts, and they don’t see it as a life of pleasure…(But) God’s ways are a lot more fulfilling and we probably as a church have not done a very good job (of communicating that).” – Will Graham |
Another was at highschool where he remembers “surrendering to the call of going to fulltime ministry”. “I just kind of surrendered to God and said you can do whatever you want with my life, you can have it. I made that commitment when I was about 15-years-old.”
At college, Rev Graham says he “fell in love” with the Bible “all over again” and then at seminary – already knowing he didn’t particularly want to be a church pastor – he worked as one in a local church to get some experience. “And I found out that I loved it. I loved it, I loved it, I loved it. Even today I still miss being a pastor. But God called me away in 2006 to be a fulltime evangelist and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.”
A father of three children – two daughters aged 15 and 13 and a son, 10 – Rev Graham, when asked whether there will be a next generation of Grahams in the ministry, says he never wants his children to follow him “because it’s expected of them”.
“I want them to make it their own, their own faith,” he says. “And I want them to do whatever God calls them to be whether it’s to be a wife, a mother, a nurse, a teacher or to become a preacher.”
The upcoming evangelistic rally will be the first Rev Graham has conducted in Alice Springs. In preparation representatives of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association have been working with local churches in the remote central Australian town for more than a year.
“We’ve been training people in the local church to share their faith in their community…” Rev Graham says. “We’ve been trying to encourage them to build what we call ‘social bridges’ with people, to start building relationships with people that don’t know Christ or who they believe need to know Christ…so that when the Reality event comes, they have an opportunity to invite them to something, to hear some great music, to hear some testimonies and hear a message about hope and forgiveness…In a sense, it’s not about this three day event in May, it’s about this whole process.”
This also includes a further year of working with the local Christian community after the events to ensure people are followed up and connected to a local church.
“We don’t just ask people to make a decision and say ‘All, right, good luck, you know – good onya’ – we try to get them plugged into a local church so they start to grow as a Christian so they’re not just left alone…We take accountability and follow-up very seriously.”
Meanwhile, Mr Graham says that as well as looking forward to seeing some AFL and rugby, he’s also looking forward to drinking some lemon, lime and bitters.
“I can’t find that stuff in the US…” he says before adding on a more serious note that he loves the people in Australia.
“From my standpoint, Australia is the closest to America I can find outside the United States,” he says, citing what he sees as similarities between the two peoples, including an outgoing approach to life, a willingness to work hard and something of a pioneer spirit – particularly in country areas. “I feel I connect well with Aussies.”
Later this month, he’ll have the chance to do just that.
Reality 2016 runs from Friday, 20th May, to Sunday, 22nd May, in Blatherskite Park in Alice Springs.
