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Leading with Love
The secret to Billy Graham's remarkable ministry to the world.
By Harold Myra and Marshall Shelley
 1 of 6
Whom you would change,
You must first love.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
Our first interview for our book, The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham, was with John Corts, a key employee of Billy's organization for 35 years, ten of them as its president. After a dinner conversation that ranged over the decades, we asked, "John, what would you say is the bottom line distinctive of Billy's leadership?"
John paused a long while. Finally he said, emphatically, "Love. The difference between him and so many other leaders is that whatever the circumstances, Billy always led with love."
As we continued interviewing and researching, John's assertion was confirmed throughout the process. Billy led with love.
Yet some would ask: What's love got to do with it? Aren't the essential requirements of leadership to be results oriented and to personify authenticity and employ a variety of techniques and emphases?
Not in the Billy Graham model. Billy often quoted the Bible's familiar words, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son," as well as Scripture's profound assertion, "God is love." Yet how did he balance this off with the leader's necessity to face brutal facts and take action on them, and to deal with life's rugged realities? After all, the Bible also speaks of God's wrath and judgment, which Billy warned about. Some religious leaders are viewed as emphasizing lots of wrath and little love, lots of anger and little compassion.
Somehow, in the most difficult situations, Billy has communicated a heart full of love for others. People sense it. His internalizing love has deepened through the years as he has listened intently to the Spirit, whose first fruit the Bible says is love. In a Christian Century article, Billy explained what had been happening to him after a decade of international ministry.
I am now aware that the family of God contains people of various ethnological, cultural, class, and denominational differences. … Within the true church there is a mysterious unity that overrides all divisive factors. In groups which in my ignorant piousness I formerly "frowned upon," I have found men so dedicated to Christ and so in love with the truth that I have felt unworthy to be in their presence. I have learned that although Christians do not always agree, they can disagree agreeably, and that what is most needed today is for us to show an unbelieving world that we love one another.
In his meetings, Billy has often asserted, "God is saying to you, 'I love you. I love you. I love you.'" His love has been obvious to others and has radiated to his colleagues and those he leads, as well as to the watching world.
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