While we knew both Billy and Rick had Southern Baptist
roots, we hadn’t realized the personal and pastoral relationship
between them. “How has Billy influenced you as a leader?” we
emailed back.
“We’ve pretty much kept our relationship out of the limelight,
but he’s taught me so much about being a Christian leader and
statesman who can cross denominational and international
boundaries and serve everybody. My personal goal is to finish the
ministry God assigns me in the twenty-first century with the same
level of integrity and humility that Billy modeled in the twentieth
century.”
We were intrigued. We hadn’t realized the significant way that
Billy had shaped Rick’s ministry.
We knew Rick’s The Purpose-Driven Lifehad spawned “40 Days
of Purpose,” a program of spiritual emphasis that more than
40,000 churches of all denominations across North America had
used. We hadn’t realized his vision for a cross-denominational
effort had been inspired by watching Billy Graham. But it made
sense. Like Rick, Billy had never been ashamed to admit his par-
ticular Southern Baptist roots and affiliation, but he never allowed
it to confine his relationships. He embraced a wider circle. He
thought about “the whole world all the time.”
But Billy’s breadth of vision and his personal integrity aren’t
the only leadership lessons that Rick learned from Billy. One of
the most profound influences, we discovered, was the model of
Billy’s approach to a leadership team. Rick consciously sought a
similar team relationship at Saddleback Church.
“Billy and his team have been the model of teamwork for our
leadership team at Saddleback. We intentionally modeled after
them,” Rick wrote. “Billy’s top team—George Wilson, T. W. Wil-
son, Cliff Barrows, Grady Wilson, George Beverly Shea, Tedd
Smith, Sterling Huston—they’ve been together forever. The
advantage of this is that you become best friends, and there are no
egos or internal politics involved. They all just love each other as
dear friends. There have been times when I’ve sat on stage and
watched Cliff Barrows watch Billy during a portion of the crusade,
Igniting Other Leaders