Saturday, November 28, 1998

Billy Graham School teaches pastors how to sell God to nonbelievers

By Sara Steffens

Knight Ridder Newspapers

MONTEREY, Calif. -- The speaker wears a conservative dark suit, holds a microphone close to his mouth, and talks about the importance of target marketing.

If you don't reach your customers, he explains, someone else will.

For this audience, the competition isn't another widget company or long-distance service. It's the devil himself.

"It is Satan's objective to try to spiritually neutralize one entire generation of young people," says the Rev. Ron Hutchcraft, a radio evangelist and author. "If he can get one, he can get all the generations to follow ... This is war."

Welcome to the Billy Graham School of Evangelism, where God's salesmen come to learn the tricks of the trade.

This low-cost school, held in hotels around the country, takes a businesslike approach to spreading The Word, offering seminars titled, "Strategies for Discipling," and "Overcoming Obstacles to Evangelism in the Smaller Church."

Consider it a revival tent for revivalists. Personal growth training for pastors. A place where professionals can refresh their enthusiasm for saving souls.

This year's sixth and final session of Billy Graham School drew more than 600 people -- most of them pastors and their spouses -- to the Monterey Hyatt last week.

"We have people from India, Myanmar, Nepal, the Phillipines, China, Sudan, Nigeria -- I have to look at a list to remember them all," said Larry Backlund, director of the Minneapolis-based school.

During its 32 years, the school has trained nearly 100,000 people to become more effective evangelists. Tuition is just $40 for four days, and many pastors also receive scholarships for hotel and travel costs.

"It is for us a pure giveaway program," Backlund said.

Costs are subsidized by the Lowell Berry Foundation and by donations to Billy Graham's ministries.

From Monday to Thursday, two dozen prominent clergy leaders led seminars and lectures at the Hyatt, focusing on everthing from effective preaching to hymn selection to "hot new strategies" in youth ministry.

During a seminar titled, "The Pastor's Personal Life," the Rev. Chuck Smith reminded that image can make or break a minister.

One of the reasons Graham remains a respected evangelical leader, said Smith, is that he lives up to an unfailing moral code. "He said there are three things the minister should never touch: The money, the glory, and the women."

Smith urged pastors to be particularly wary during personal counseling, and never to close the door when counseling someone of the opposite sex.

"The reason why the lovely lady is sitting across from you and is there for counseling is because her marriage is in trouble," he said. "It's very common for the counselee to become infatuated with the counselor. She starts bringing cookies and wants to hold hands when you pray ... There is the looking into the eyes and before you know it, you're hooked."

Next door, Hutchcraft was using overhead transparancies to track key points, such as these "Six Imperatives for Rescuing Young People":

1. Focus on Jesus.

2. Start with their need.

3. Say it in their language.

4. Package it attractively.

5. Go to their places.

6. Give them love.

Hutchcraft said churches need to think "like Madison Avenue" when trying to reach teen-agers, and he noted that three quarters of Christians find their faith before the age of 18.

"Why is it so many young people are buying the devil's stuff?" he asked "Because he has the brightest packages in the world."

But Christians can fight back, he said, appropriating such tactics for their own purposes. "We have got to take this wonderful product and think about how we are packaging it."

Information on the Billy Graham School of Evangelism is available online at

http://www.billygraham.org or by writing to the school at P.O. Box 9313, Minneapolis MN 55440.

X X X

(c) 1998, The Monterey County Herald (Monterey, Calif.).

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.