day in 1983, Hillary Clinton, wife of then Arkansas governor Bill
Clinton, requested a private conversation with Billy Graham. He
agreed to have lunch with her at a table in the center of a public
restaurant in Arkansas.
- Badmouthing others doing similar work. “We had observed the
tendency of many evangelists to carry on their work apart from
the local church, even to criticize local pastors and churches
openly and scathingly. We were convinced, however, that this was
not only counterproductive but also wrong from the Bible’s stand-
point. We were determined to cooperate with all who would
cooperate with us in the public proclamation of the gospel, and to
avoid an antichurch or anticlergy attitude.”
This relationship with local churches became a strategic dis-
tinctive of the Graham team. They would not go to a community
unless the local church leaders had invited them and agreed to
host their meetings. In turn, the Graham team agreed to refer
those who responded at the meetings back to the churches for
ongoing follow-up in the spiritual life.
They recognized that while it’s often easier in the short-term to
operate independently, it’s better in the long run to work with oth-
ers. Lone Rangers have the luxury of making decisions unilaterally;
they don’t have the complications of working with the varying inter-
ests of diverse allies. But Billy knew that if he could develop a coali-
tion around his core mission, the results would be far more lasting.
- Exaggerated accomplishments. “The tendency among some
evangelists was to exaggerate their successes or to claim higher
attendance numbers than they really had,” wrote Billy. “This like-
wise discredited evangelism and brought the whole enterprise under
suspicion. It often made the press so suspicious of evangelists that
they refused to take notice of their work. In Modesto we commit-
ted ourselves to integrity in our publicity and our reporting.”
Credibility is a precious commodity. Without it, people won’t
follow. When a leader exaggerates in one area, followers wonder
if they’re getting the unvarnished truth in other areas.
At Modesto and in the years since, the Graham team deter-
mined to avoid any appearance of padding the numbers. They
The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham
