Photo courtesy BGEA

Will Graham shared the Love of Jesus in Alabama

A total of 19,700 people attended the three-day East Alabama-West Georgia Will Graham Celebration -- the most ever for a Will Graham Celebration -- including the Sunday night overflow crowd of 12,000. More than 795 came forward at the invitation to surrender their lives to Jesus Christ, reports Michael Ireland, chief correspondent, ASSIST News Service.

The Celebration reached a crescendo as Will Graham, alongside some of the top bands in Christian music, presented the Gospel at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum on the campus of Auburn University.

Throughout the weekend, Will challenged the audience to look at eternity.

"Some of you are out there thinking, 'I'm going to do some good things, and hopefully they'll outweigh the bad things and I'll get to Heaven.' My friends, nothing can be further from the truth," he shared from the stage. "Truth is not an idea. Truth is a person; the person of Jesus Christ."

Will was joined on stage by a variety of Christian musical artists, including hip hop artists Trip Lee and Canton Jones, southern rock band DecembeRadio, country music legends Diamond Rio, and two 2010 Dove Award nominees for Artist of the Year: Skillet and TobyMac.

Matthew West, who has the most played songs on Christian radio in 2008 and 2009, performed every evening. Matthew came to know Jesus at the age of 13 through the preaching of Will's grandfather, Billy Graham.

On Saturday afternoon a special program for children, called KidzFest!, featured musical group GoFish and speaker Tommy Toombs.

"I've had friends from Columbus, Georgia., to Birmingham, Alabama, who have told methat their faith has been impacted and deepened by Will's messages and the words and music of the artists," said Banks Herndon, the chairman of the local Celebration executive committee.

The crowd waited more than two hours to get seats; photo courtesy BGEA

"Nearly everyone I've spoken with has said that the most powerful part of the services was seeing firsthand hundreds of children, students and adults respond to Will's invitation to let Christ become the Master of their lives."

Rev. Clifford Jones, pastor of Greater Peace Missionary Baptist Church and the chairman of the Celebration's pastor's committee, added, "Almost two years ago we started on this journey, and as we traveled on our way God has done a marvelous work in this city. God has brought together churches, denominations and ethnicities, and we continue to work together today. This is just the beginning."

As Will prepared to return home to the mountains of North Carolina, he said, "It's my prayer that those who came forward these past few days will ultimately change Auburn, Lee County and beyond. This has been a blessed weekend."

Will is the third generation of Grahams to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ under the banner of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Will is the grandson of Billy Graham and the oldest son of Franklin Graham. Since beginning his evangelistic ministry with youth-oriented, one-day events in Canada, Will has spoken to audiences across North America, Australia, India and other parts of Asia and South America.

Jerri Menges writes in Decision Magazine that when Billy Graham came to Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama, in 1965, the Rev. A.L. Wilson sat on the platform, one of several African Americans on the executive committee that had organized the event.

"In front of him was an uncommon sight in racially troubled Alabama --thousands of blacks and whites sitting together, side by side, in the university’s Cliff Hare Stadium. Many people of both races walked forward together that night to accept Christ," Menges writes.

“That was right on the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, so one thing we were seeking was good race relations,” Rev. Wilson said. “We wanted to get people to know each other, so we thought the church would be a good place to start.”

Menges says that the Auburn Crusade was one of four conducted by Dr. Graham as a result of a request from President Lyndon B. Johnson. Sixteen thousand people attended the event and later that summer, Mr. Graham canceled a vacation in Europe to hold a 10-day Crusade in Montgomery. Nearly 100,000 people attended those meetings, and more than 4,000 accepted Christ, Menges says.

“Out of the Auburn University meeting we began to associate with various other churches in Lee County,” Rev. Wilson said. “Each year, since that time, we have held a meeting in a black church with a white pastor or in a white church with a black pastor. We exchange choirs as well.”

Matthew West leading praise and worship; photo courtesy BGEA

Dr. Graham’s Alabama meetings followed months of racial unrest in the South -- Gov. George Wallace’s failed attempt in 1962 to block the University of Alabama doors from African American students; the 1963 bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, in which four young black girls were killed; the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; the march from Selma to Montgomery to gain voting rights for blacks, and the burning of the bus carrying the “Freedom Riders,” a group of civil rights activists traveling South to ensure that civil rights laws were being enforced.

Menges reports that Will Graham’s East Alabama/West Georgia Celebration "has been a testimony to how churches in Auburn and nearby Opelika have continued to work together across denominational and racial lines."

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TAGS: USA Will Graham Billy Graham Will Graham Celebration Auburn University Trip Lee Canton Jones Skillet TobyMac Matthew West

[04/02/2010]

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