We All Want Unity

The Saturday youth night at a Billy Graham crusade has always mingled pop music with an altar call, but racial reconciliation took top billing at youth night in St. Louis in October. As 57,000 teenagers danced and sang along to dc Talk's song, "Colored People," a dc Talk member shouted out, "Look at all of us here tonight. We're like a batch of M&Ms! Aren't we all, in fact, 'colored people?'"

The members of dc Talk were not the only ones with racial themes on their mind. The local organizers of Graham's St. Louis crusade saw racial reconciliation as one of their community's deepest needs.

"St. Louis is a polarized community. It's almost like a line is drawn in the sand in some places," says Donte Smith, representing 19 minority-owned Church's Chicken Restaurants. "But the Graham people made a concerted effort to get the black community involved. It gave us a chance to build contacts and network with each other."

Blacks held eight of the 17 places on the crusade's executive committee. A high percentage of the pre-crusade choir rehearsals, church-leader events, and counselor training classes occurred in the black community.

"It's been said the Civil War is still being fought here in St. Louis because of how the city is racially divided," says Ronald L. Bobo Sr., pastor of the 69-year-old West Side Missionary Baptist Church. "But a number of us were determined to work together in this shared outreach."

Bobo served on the crusade's executive committee and was cochairman of the prayer committee. His church, which welcomes 700 to 1,600 worshipers on Sundays, hosted several pre-crusade events, including a choir rehearsal with Cliff Barrows.

Billy Graham reiterated the racial unity theme during the crusade. "Like the Samaritans and the Jews, we just don't know each other," he said. "People who are different have a difficult time living next door to people not like them. We judge each other by the color of our skin. That's not right. But Christ can make it right. People will look at how we live, not just what we say."

The celebrity-heavy lineup of crusade guests further reflected the targeted inclusion of blacks and young people. Half the program participants were African Americans, including baseball Hall of Famer and former St. Louis Cardinal Lou Brock, hip-hop gospel singer Kirk Franklin, CeCe Winans, and surgeon Benjamin S. Carson, known for his innovative work in separating Siamese twins.

Age Of The Artist:

The crusade's emphasis on celebrities, Jumbotron screens, and flashy lighting and staging troubles some who fear that an emphasis on images will replace the written or spoken word.

Eddie Gibbs, a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, says the trend is a reflection of the times. "We no longer live in the age of the orator. This is the age of the artist. There's a lot of God talk in our culture today. Our prophets are the lyricists."

"Billy's preaching will always be the ultimate focus," says Rick Marshall, director of crusades for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. "But you have to move the audience gently through cycles of music or a video presentation, because that's the world people live in."

The youth night's "Concert for the NeXt Generation" attracted the largest and most enthusiastic crowd of the four-day crusade. Nightly attendance ran 40,000 for the other three nights of the crusade.

"Billy has a love for young people and they know it," Marshall says. "Kids respond to his sincerity, honesty, and integrity." Graham's animated oratory is slower and more deliberate than in past years because of his Parkinson's disease. Franklin Graham, 47, now accompanies his father to crusades and was prepared to preach if necessary. The senior Graham often walked with a cane and held the pulpit firmly as he spoke.

Despite uncertainty about Graham's health, planning continues for the next crusade, scheduled for June 1-4 in Nashville. Graham also plans to lead a nine-day conference for 10,000 evangelists on July 29-August 6, 2000, in Amsterdam.

Work Of Discipleship:

Meanwhile, St. Louis churches are working to assimilate the 12,820 people who became Christians at the crusade.

West Side Missionary Baptist received 40 crusade referrals. "Our churches have all been greatly energized by an influx of new people," Bobo says. "Plus, several of the pastors who worked together on the crusade are strategizing about what we can do next to continue our fellowship."

African American businessman Sterling Moody, who owns a chain of large grocery stores in the black community, hopes Christians can continue to build on the theme of racial harmony. "I hope people looked around and noticed that there were whites and nonwhites sitting together at the crusade, sharing something in common. I hope they said to themselves, 'Maybe we can build community.' It takes more than the church you attend to make you believe it's the right thing to do. We all want unity. We just need help to achieve it. This is a good start."

Local crusade director Scott Lenning believes the crusade's effect will be felt for years. "St. Louis is a major metropolitan area, but it doesn't have the huge transient population of similar-sized cities," he says. "That means people who attended the crusade will probably remain here. Those who made commitments will be the leaders in area churches in the next 20 to 30 years."

Youth leader Chris Whitney expects the same encouraging results at St. Louis Family Church in the predominantly white and upscale suburb of Chesterfield, Missouri. Whitney chaperoned 240 teenagers from his church to youth night. His church's young people invited their non-Christian friends to a pizza party before the crusade. Sixty teenagers made decisions for Christ at the end of the evening.

"Now we're gearing up to disciple them, to help them grow and to share their faith in their schools," Whitney says. "We're also praying the crusade will be the catalyst for racial reconciliation in our city and in our schools. About 20 percent of the students at our local schools are minority students bused in from the inner city. So we have a wonderful opportunity. At the crusade, kids could look around and see kids of all colors worshiping the Lord together. Now it's up to us to 'walk it' everyday."

Related Elsewhere

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association web site has an area for attendees of the crusade, news releases summarizing what happened, and daily reports from the crusade.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a special report on the Graham crusade, available online. The articles cover the crusade budget, Graham's failing health, even an examination of a possible link between the Graham crusade and the Rams' 5-0 start.

Copyright © 1999 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.