Graham University began. But the price for the Graham organi-
zation would also be high—approximately $10 million during the
first year and $3 million per year for the next five years.
“I consider this a major decision in my life,” Billy said, as he
wrestled with the pros and cons.
Clearly, Billy was concerned about education. He supported
others in their efforts to provide quality Christian education—most
notably through the Graham Center at Wheaton College in Illinois
and his efforts as a board member to strengthen Gordon-Conwell
Divinity School in Massachusetts and Fuller Theological Seminary
in California. He placed high value on the life of the mind.
Ultimately, after long discussions with coworkers and members
of his board, he decided the university would divert too much energy
and funding away from his primary mission, evangelism. He backed
out of the project, a decision that offended MacArthur and alienated
the directors of the foundation that administered his wealth.
At times, maintaining focus is costly, but ultimately the deci-
sion enabled Billy to move forward with many major initiatives,
including bringing tens of thousands of evangelists together in
Amsterdam in 1983, 1986, and 2000, and to put his resources and
energies into evangelistic campaigns all over the world.
Jay Kesler, longtime president of Youth for Christ and later
president of Taylor University, told us “Billy’s great strength is his
ability to intuitively go to the center of things. German pastor Hel-
mut Thielicke has written about the difference between the evan-
gelist and the philosopher-teacher-pastor,” Jay said. “Thielicke
says the evangelist is like a man hunting a stag. If you want to
hunt stag, you can’t shoot at rabbits. If you shoot rabbits, you’ll
never see a stag. In my mind, Billy Graham was no rabbit shooter.
He was always going for the stag.”
■ ■ ■Billy was so focused on bringing his message in every venue,
whether with Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Larry King, Diane
Sawyer, or a sitting president, that he would somehow always
Lasering In on the Mission