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The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) is a non-profit Christian outreach organization that promotes multimedia evangelism, conducts evangelistic crusades, and engages in disaster response. The BGEA operates the Billy Graham Training Center in Asheville, North Carolina, and the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina.[ citation needed ]
The organization was founded in 1950 by Billy Graham in Minneapolis, Minnesota; it later moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. [1]
The organization broadcast the Hour of Decision radio show for more than sixty years. [2] In August 2018, six months after Graham's death, the BGEA launched the Billy Graham Channel on SiriusXM to broadcast Graham's sermons. [3]
Franklin Graham serves as president and CEO. [4] Several times a year, he and his son, Will Graham, preach at evangelistic crusades [5] modeled after those Billy Graham was known for holding.[ citation needed ]
The BGEA's internet evangelism ministry, Search for Jesus, was launched in 2011. [6] The outreach is aimed at sharing the Christian gospel with people around the world through websites in multiple languages. More than 50 million people have visited the websites since 2011, according to the BGEA. [7]
The organization produces a television special [8] each month, which is broadcast on TV stations across the United States [9] and posted online. The organization also publishes Decision magazine monthly.[ citation needed ]
The BGEA began an international evangelism project in 2002 called My Hope, in which Christians invite friends, neighbors, and relatives to their homes to watch a national telecast featuring Billy or Franklin Graham, translated into their language. BGEA claims that the project helped more than 9.8 million people "make decisions for Christ." [10]
Billy Graham and his ministry were also instrumental in founding Christianity Today Magazine , the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, and the Internet Evangelism Coalition. [11]
BGEA's Charlotte headquarters is the site of the Billy Graham Library, which was formally dedicated on May 31, 2007, with former U.S. Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton in attendance. Former U.S. Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump visited the Billy Graham Library to pay their respects following Billy Graham's death. [12]
William R. Bright was an American evangelist. In 1951 at the University of California, Los Angeles, he founded Campus Crusade for Christ as a ministry for university students. In 1952 he wrote The Four Spiritual Laws. In 1979 he produced the film Jesus.
Cru is an interdenominational Christian parachurch organization. It was founded in 1951 at the University of California, Los Angeles by Bill Bright and Vonette Zachary Bright. Since then, Cru has expanded its focus to include adult professionals, athletes, and high school students. In 2020, Cru had 19,000 staff members in 190 countries.
William Franklin Graham III is an American evangelist and missionary in the evangelical movement. He frequently engages in Christian revival tours and political commentary. The son of Billy Graham, he is president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and of Samaritan's Purse, an international Christian relief organization. Graham became a "committed Christian" in 1974 and was ordained in 1982, and has since become a public speaker and author.
Samaritan's Purse is an evangelical Christian humanitarian aid organization that provides aid to people in physical need as a key part of its Christian missionary work. The organization's president is Franklin Graham, son of Christian evangelist Billy Graham. The name of the organization is derived from the New Testament Parable of the Good Samaritan. With international headquarters in Boone, North Carolina, the organization also maintains warehouse and aviation facilities in nearby North Wilkesboro and Greensboro, North Carolina.
Parachurch organizations are Christian faith-based organizations that work outside and across denominations to engage in social welfare and evangelism. Parachurch organizations seek to come alongside the church and specialize in things that individual churches may not be able to specialize in by themselves. They often cross denominational and national boundaries providing specialized services and training.
William Franklin Graham Jr. was an American evangelist, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, and a civil rights advocate whose broadcast and live sermons became well known internationally in the mid-to-late 20th century. During a career spanning six decades, Graham was a prominent evangelical Christian figure in the United States.
Ruth McCue Bell Graham was a Chinese-born American Christian author, most well known as the wife of evangelist Billy Graham. She was born in Qingjiang, Jiangsu, Republic of China, the second of five children. Her parents, Virginia Leftwich Bell and L. Nelson Bell, were medical missionaries at the Presbyterian Hospital 300 miles (480 km) north of Shanghai. At age 13 she was enrolled in Pyeng Yang Foreign School in Pyongyang, Korea, where she studied for three years. She completed her high school education at Montreat, North Carolina, while her parents were there on furlough. She graduated from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois.
Luis Palau Jr. was an Argentine-American international Christian evangelist. He was born in Argentina but moved to Portland in his mid-twenties to enroll in a graduate program in Biblical studies.
The Way of the Master (WOTM) is a United States-based Christian evangelism ministry, founded in 2002 and headed by New Zealand-born evangelist Ray Comfort, American former child actor Kirk Cameron and American radio host Todd Friel. The organization produces a television show, a radio show, books and tracts, an online course in evangelism, small-group training courses, and a website. The ministry's logo incorporates the letters, WDJD, standing for "What Did Jesus Do?" and a reference to Mark 16:15: "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."
World Wide Pictures (WWP) is a film distributor and production company established as a subsidiary of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) in 1951. It is involved in the production and distribution of evangelistic films, the production of Graham crusade films, and publicity for Graham crusades.
George Beverly Shea was a Canadian-born American gospel singer and hymn composer. Shea was often described as "America's beloved gospel singer" and was considered "the first international singing 'star' of the gospel world," as a consequence of his solos at Billy Graham Crusades and his exposure on radio, records and television. Because of the large attendance at Graham's Crusades, it is estimated that Shea sang live before more people than anyone else in history.
Clifford Burton Barrows was a longtime music and program director for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. He had been a part of the Graham organization since 1949. Barrows was best known as the host of Graham's weekly Hour of Decision radio program, and the song leader and choir director for the crusade meetings.
The Wheaton College Billy Graham Center was founded and opened in 1981 on the campus of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Named after Billy Graham, the center is the primary location for many of Wheaton College's bible and theology classes, as well as the graduate school's main headquarters, and host to multiple museums and auditoriums.
The Hour of Decision was a live weekly radio broadcast produced by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. First broadcast in 1950 by the American Broadcasting Company, it was a half-hour program featuring sermons from noted evangelist Billy Graham and hosted by Cliff Barrows, a very close friend of Graham and the long-time musical director and MC of Billy Graham's Crusades.
Billy Kim is a prominent Christian evangelist and humanitarian. He was the president of the Baptist World Alliance from 2000 until 2005 when he was succeeded by David Coffey.
The Billy Graham Library is a public museum and library documenting the life and ministry of Christian evangelist Billy Graham. The 40,000-square-foot (3,700 m2) complex opened to the public on June 5, 2007. The library is located on the grounds of the international headquarters of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in Charlotte, North Carolina, a few miles from where Graham was reared. The library is styled after a dairy barn, with a mechanical "talking" cow, to reflect Graham's farm-based childhood. The main galleries within the library showcase numerous presentations, pictures, music, artifacts, and voices from throughout Graham's ministry. One gallery is entirely devoted to Ruth Bell Graham, the wife of the evangelist. There is a dairy bar café and bookstore called "Ruth's Attic." All visitors enter the Library through doors at the base of a 40-foot (12 m) glass cross. Also located on the Library grounds is the Prayer Garden, where Ruth Graham was buried on June 17, 2007.
William Franklin Graham IV is an American Christian evangelist. He is the Executive Vice President and associate evangelist of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Graham is the third generation of Grahams to preach under the banner of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). He is a grandson of Billy Graham and the oldest son of Franklin Graham.
The New York Crusade was a major evangelistic campaign conducted in 1957 in New York City by Billy Graham. It was preceded by two years of preparation and lasted from May 15 to September 1. It was the largest evangelistic campaign ever organized in New York City.