Billy Graham - Interactive guide to the Greater New York Crusade

Posted June 23, 2005

Associates recall evangelist's decades of ministry as 417th crusade kicks off

By GARY STERN, The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News

The Billy Graham team likes to joke that the nation's preacher has been doing his last crusade for at least 10 years.

Each ''last" crusade, each presumed farewell, has given way to another stop at another city, adding tens of thousands to Graham's global congregation. But something is different this time.

Billy Graham's upcoming crusade in New York - Friday, Saturday and Sunday - may well be the last of his unparalleled preaching career, a lifetime really.

Graham's top associates, who have been with him for more than six decades, confirmed that everyone is on the same page as the crusade at Flushing Meadows Corona Park nears.

''For me, this will be the last one," said the 96-year-old George Beverly Shea, who has been singing in Graham's crusades since 1947 and is believed to have sung to more people in live audiences than anyone in history. ''It's time, after all these years," Shea said from his home in Montreat, N.C.

''Being with Billy has been a great joy, a great privilege. He is a truly great man. There will be great crowds in New York. A proper way to go out."

Cliff Barrows, 82, who has run Graham's crusades since 1949, wasn't quite ready to close the book but said the New York visit feels like a final chapter in a very long tale.

''Whether this is the last one or not, only God knows," he said from his home in Marvin, N.C. ''But the consensus is that it may well be, because of the strength and energy required and the difficulty that Billy has getting around. This last year, he wanted to the go to the West Coast, which we did, to the middle of the country, which we did, and back to New York City. It seems like this is the culmination of his ministry in North America."

What a ministry it's been, in North America and beyond. He's preached to about 220 million people in more than 185 countries since he was ordained a Southern Baptist minister in 1939. At 86, he looks like a white-haired biblical patriarch and spends most of his time at home in the North Carolina mountains. His hands shake from Parkinson's disease. He has been fighting prostate cancer. Last year, he broke a hip and his pelvis.

Certainly, not everyone appreciates Graham's close ties to every Republican president since Eisenhower. And Graham's reputation briefly tottered when anti-Semitic comments to Richard Nixon were heard on an old tape, prompting him to apologize.

Still, Graham is received most everywhere he goes as the closest living thing to a founding father. Consider that Graham first appeared in the ''Ten Most Admired Men in the World" poll in 1955 - 23 years before Pope John Paul II was elected.

''As far as American religious figures, he's our pope, emotionally speaking," said the Rev. Eric Swensson, pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in New Rochelle. ''If you want to see Billy Graham, this is the time."

Swensson is one of hundreds of pastors from across the New York area who have been helping to plan the crusade for more than a year.

Rosa Bennett of Spring Valley, N.Y., a lifelong churchgoer, said it has always been a dream to participate in one of those big Billy Graham crusades she saw on television. Now, she'll have her chance, singing in a 1,500-person choir all three nights.

''When I was coming up, he was always playing in my home," said Bennett, who has her own employment business and now worships at the Beth Rapha House of Healing in Pomona, N.Y. ''I was always impressed by how he could bring people to Jesus. Now my dream will be fulfilled, and at his last crusade."

This will be Graham's eighth crusade in the New York area, dating back to his historic, 16-week revival at Madison Square Garden in 1957. Most recently, he preached before 250,000 people at Central Park in 1991. Ads for the crusade have flooded TV and radio in recent weeks, implying that this will be the last chance to see Graham. Interestingly, the Graham team aims their ads not so much at nonchurchgoers but at people with church backgrounds who may be thinking about attending.

''When church members invite their friends, we want them to know this will be a major event," team spokesman Kent Withington said. Art Bailey, director of the New York crusade, said he has prepared for this event no differently than for others around the world.

''We won't know for sure which is the last crusade until Mr. Graham goes home to be with the Lord,' he said.