The Shortfall in Graham's Curtain Call

The Washington Times reports that the final tally for Billy Graham's final crusade has come in, yet, the funds have come up short. How far short? Two million dollars!! The New York crusade was the most expensive crusade in the history of the Graham Evangelistic Association, coming in at around $6.8 million. One crusade - comes close to a typical mega-church's annual budget. And we wonder why the proclamation of the Gospel in America is tainted with materialism. This is not to suggest that what Graham says from his pulpit is erroneous. Yet, how prevalent it seems to be that the message is often drowned out by the trappings used to dress it up. At a projected budget of almost $7 million for a single evangelistic event, could we really still cling to the same purpose of ministry the Apostle Paul advocated? "For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God" (1 Corinthians 2:2-5).