Billy Graham

The moment

After two world wars and at the start of the nuclear age, many Americans were prosperous and uneasy. In the fall of 1949 a young preacher named Billy Graham opened a series of meetings in a tent in Los Angeles. The meetings were planned for three weeks and ran for eight. Newspapers picked up the story, and about 350,000 people attended. Some 3,000 made a decision to follow Christ.

What he did

He agreed on integrity before he needed to. In 1948, a year before Los Angeles, Graham and his small team met in Modesto, California, and listed the failures that had ruined other ministries. They made four commitments: handle money openly, guard against sexual temptation, cooperate with local churches, and report results honestly. The agreement is remembered as the Modesto Manifesto.

He used every medium and trusted none of them. The Hour of Decision radio program began in 1950. Television, films, magazines, and satellite broadcasts followed. The message stayed the same: people are separated from God by sin, and peace is offered through Jesus Christ.

He built follow-up into the work. Trained counselors met each person who responded and connected that person to a local church. The event was the beginning of the work and not the whole of the work.

He refused a divided room. In 1953, in Chattanooga, Graham took down the ropes that separated Black and white seating at his meeting, and he went on to insist that his crusades be integrated.

He worked across lines. He partnered with churches of many denominations, preached behind the Iron Curtain, and in 1974 helped gather Christian leaders from around the world at Lausanne, Switzerland. That congress produced the Lausanne Covenant.

What leaders can take from him

Write the integrity agreement while you are still small. The four commitments were made when almost nobody was watching. Rules written after a failure are damage control. Rules written before are character.

Make the agreement a team agreement. Graham did not police himself alone. The men around him held the same commitments and held him to them.

Report honest numbers. The team chose to use the estimates of local officials and not their own. A leader who inflates a small number will not be believed about a large one.

Keep the message ahead of the medium. Tools amplify whatever a leader already is. They do not supply character.

Admit what you would change. Late in life, Graham said he regretted having become too close to political power. Saying so in public was part of the same integrity.

A team can build this agreement in the One-Day Workshop, or begin with the Quarterly Integrity Review.