■ ■ ■Sterling Huston, who serves as director of North American min-
istries for the BGEA, had his first experience with Billy Graham
and money in 1956 before he joined the Graham team. “I was vis-
iting Jack Wyrtzen’s camp (Word of Life Camp, Schroon Lake,
New York) on July 4. Billy preached, and Jack took up an offer-
ing for Billy and his ministry. After it was collected, however, Billy
got up and said to the audience, ‘With your permission, I want to
give this to Jack for his dining room.’ A fire had just damaged that
part of Jack’s main camp facility. Billy’s magnanimity in giving the
money to Jack left a deep impression on me. The generosity of
spirit was typical of Billy. Because of his love and care for people,
he’s generous almost to a fault. And there was always transparent
integrity about money.”
“And was Billy sensitive to appearances?”
Sterling affirmed that he was. “His strong concern was the
ministry not be hurt by giving the wrong appearance about
money. For instance, many years ago some of his board members
offered to buy him a plane and pay for all expenses so he wouldn’t
have to fly on commercial flights with all the hassle. ‘Billy,’ they
said, ‘you don’t have to worry about all this. This won’t have to
come out of the budget; we’ll take care of it.’ He later called the
chairman of the executive committee, however, and said, ‘I can’t
do it. I haven’t slept all night. I know it’s paid for, but people just
won’t understand.’
“It wasn’t that it was improper,” Sterling explained. “The apos-
tle Paul said, ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things speed the
gospel along. Billy’s sense of that truth was more important to
him than his own comfort.”
“In this instance was Billy right?”
“I believe he was. When you look at 1987, for example, when
some televangelists were in the headlines, it was very helpful to
be able to say to the inquiring press that Billy didn’t have a pri-
vate plane, that he was driving an eleven-year-old car, that his
home on the side of a mountain was a glorified log cabin, and that
Mobilizing Money