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Billy Graham has done it all, it seems. Carolina tent revivals. Football-stadium prayer meetings. He preached to more than a million people in a single sitting in Seoul, South Korea, beamed his crusades electronically with his Global Mission from Puerto Rico, and now he has appeals on the Internet promoting his meetings.

But Graham, who turned 79 last month, did something different in his recent Bay Area campaign: He combined three crusades into one. Graham knitted together more than 1,400 churches from a metropolitan area that includes three of California's largest cities.

Graham's typical pattern in recent years has been to preach five consecutive nights in one city. But this time, in the course of a month, he took his ministry first to San Jose, then to San Francisco, then to Oakland—circling the Bay to evangelize in cities that have distinct and competing cultures and whose churches rarely talk to one another.

The campaign, which concluded October 26, was a logistical nightmare that required close to two years of planning. But it worked. About 250,000 people attended nine events, pastors talked about a historic bonding of Christians around the Bay, and Graham predicted a "spiritual awakening" for the region.

UNCHURCHED TERRITORY: More than the geography challenged the Graham ministry. The Bay Area is hardly a notch in the Bible Belt. Churches in San Francisco average fewer than 100 members, and only 4 percent of city dwellers attend church, compared to 38 percent nationally. Graham, who last preached in San Francisco in 1958, called San Francisco the most challenging city he has faced. With a lower than usual number of churchgoers to help in the planning, Graham turned to the Internet for creative publicity, such as an ad that read, "50,000 sinners in one place and you don't think you'll have fun?"

In San Francisco, with a large population of homosexuals, Graham issued an invitation "whatever your sexual orientation." But at the crusade, he stressed that sex is intended for "a man and a woman who are married."

Graham called homosexuality wrong, but not chief among sins. "The Bible says the greatest sin is idolatry, worshiping things other than the true and living God."

He preached that sin is sin, that millions of people are empty inside, looking for answers and ultimate meaning, regardless of where they live. He said the gospel is relevant to the fast-paced and technologically obsessed Silicon Valley. He lectured on expanding galaxies and divine creations that dwarf the greatest achievements of high technology.

BED REST ORDERED: The evangelist, who has Parkinson's disease, walked slowly but looked fit, taking time between each leg of the crusade to rest. Because he experienced recurring back pain, doctors ordered him to spend five days in bed resting before finishing the campaign in Oakland. He lamented that Ruth Graham, his wife of 54 years, could not attend because of her own health problems. "This is the longest period we've ever been separated since we've been married," he said.

Following a 1995 crusade in nearby Sacramento (CT, Dec. 11, 1995, p. 62), several San Jose pastors asked Graham to return to their city, where he had last preached in 1981. In subsequent discussions, the crusade expanded to include the entire Bay Area—a mammoth organizational job. They put together a snowballing effort that drew from 103 denominations and ended with 17,000 people accepting Graham's invitation to "come forward" and dedicate their lives to Jesus Christ.

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December 8 1997, Vol. 41, No. 14