Jeremy L. Berg

This is the first of a series of personal tributes to Billy Graham as we celebrate and remember his life.

I snuck away from a leadership conference in Chicago awhile back to indulge in one of my favorite pastimes — checking out the local used bookstore. My eye caught the front cover of a Billy Graham book called Invitation: Billy Graham and the Lives God Touched. 

There’s a ton of such books out there, so it wasn’t the title that caught my attention but the photograph on the cover. I looked closer and thought it might be a crowd sitting in the Metrodome Stadium.

Inside the book there was a centerfold poster of the same photo and sure enough, I recognized that same dark blue outfield fence Kirby Puckett had leapt up against to rob that home run in the 1991 World Series.

As I scanned the crowd, the clothing styles definitely looked mid-90s, as well as the haircuts. I was transported back in my memory to about 9th grade when I joined a few friends in attending the Billy Graham Crusade in Minneapolis. Could this be a photo of that very event I attended?

I still remember taking in the whole experience. I was a Lutheran boy, and the kind of things going on in that stadium certainly didn’t seem very Lutheran! 30,000 people singing hymns in unison is Lutheran enough, and was quite moving. But the rest of the night made me think about things in a different way.

I can’t even remember my own sermon from last Sunday, so I certainly don’t remember what Billy said that night 20 years ago as my teenage brain sat there pondering the gospel. What I do remember is that, unlike the sermons I listened to every Sunday back then, this one ended with a very direct call for a decision.

I was a believer at the time. I knew God loved me and had died on my behalf to rescue me from sin and death. As a good Lutheran, I knew it was by faith, and faith alone, that I was saved. Luther made clear there was nothing left for me to do.

So, what was this bold preacher doing at the end of his message? He was inviting 30,000+ people to respond with a specific action, to do something. As “Just As I Am” was echoing throughout the stadium, people left their seats and walked down hundreds of steps down onto the field, and went forward to “make a decision” to do a few important things. 

First, Billy asked people to repent of their sins, to admit all the ways we have tried to live our lives apart from God.

Second, Billy invited people to receive the gracious gift of salvation. Its not exactly hard work to open your hands and receive a gift, but its still an action. We can refuse the gift.

Third, Billy invited people to trust Jesus with their lives and make Him their Lord. This is called “faith” , and its hardly “work” but its still something people needed to do — even good Lutherans!

So, back to standing in that Chicago bookstore, scanning a random photo from a random book, I found my teenage self in the middle of the crowd, looking on with curiosity. Yes, this was the Metrodome. This was the 1996 crusade. That was the very night I attended!

What are the chances? Of all the hundreds, if not thousands, of Billy Graham events hosted in stadiums in every city of every country all over the world over a 50 year career, this book featured a center-fold spread of the exact one that I attended!

I’m sitting in the bottom left corner of the photo (circled below). I don’t believe I went forward that night. I knew I was “saved” and didn’t need to “make a decision.” Or did I?

About five years later I would make the decision I needed to make. I had already decided to believe in God and trust Jesus with my eternity. The decision I would make in college was to move beyond just trusting Jesus for the next life; I needed to choose to follow Him in this life. I decided to move from mere “believer” to an active “follower.”

One seed that was sown at that Billy Graham event would come to flower years later when that young Lutheran teenager would find himself planting an Evangelical Covenant church and standing in that pulpit preaching to my own small crowd of listeners. I was determined to make sure my sermons included a degree of personal “confrontation” with the demands of the gospel, and invite people to “make a decision” of some kind as often as possible. 

Now, my messages and calls to decision don’t usually follow the “formula” that Billy and others used. Most of the time I’m preaching to a room full of people who already have made a “profession of faith”, so I’m inviting people to make other faith decisions and commitments — e.g., last week I invited people to let God lead them into 40 days of uncomfortable self-denial for Lent.

Billy Graham died today at the age of 99. He spent his life inviting people to get off their seats, to walk forward, and make a decision for Christ. An estimated 200 million people heard that invitation in person, and millions more via the radio and TV.

So, standing in a random Chicago bookstore, holding an obscure photo of me sitting in the crowd of people, watching people go forward is not without its irony. I’ve spent the past several years now preaching my guts out, inviting people off their butts, out of a passive kind of faith, and into a faith that calls people forward — not to an altar for a one-time decision, but life-long commitment to following in the footsteps of Jesus, now and for eternity!

Thank you Billy for showing me that the gospel demands a response and true discipleship begins with a decision. I love you. I’m so glad you’re now seeing your Savior face to face!

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must [make a decision to] deny themselves and [make a decision to] take up their cross and [make a decision to] follow me.” -JESUS