For evangelist Billy Graham, it all came down to the “invitation,” the climactic point at the end of his crusades when he invited people to leave their seats and “make a decision for Christ.”

And it wouldn’t be a Billy Graham invitation without “Just As I Am,” the slow-moving, soul-moving hymn that accompanied millions down the aisle and became Graham’s signature anthem and title of his 1997 autobiography.

“Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me,” the hymn’s familiar first verse goes. “And that thou bidd’st me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”

But “Just As I Am” was more than a favorite Graham hymn. It became — almost more than any other hymn — a sort of national anthem for evangelical Christians, a musical creed that laid out in simple terms the life-changing spiritual transaction between the sinner and the Redeemer.

“We always began with ‘Just As I Am’ because Billy felt it was the most effective invitation hymn, inviting people to make a commitment to Christ,” Cliff Barrows, Graham’s longtime musical director, said in a 2005 interview.

The hymn was written in 1835 by a British woman, Charlotte Elliott (1789-1871), who had convinced herself that her physical disabilities left her nothing to offer God at midlife.

As one version of the story goes, Elliott was struck by the words of a…

President Donald Trump’s spiritual adviser and televangelist Paula White is set to join gospel singer Vicki Yohe and controversial Pastor David E. Taylor of Joshua Media Ministries International at a cancer-busting miracle crusade this summer that organizers promise will be “huge.”

“We’re expecting thousands. It’s gonna be huge,” JMMI Minister Anthony Moreaux told The Christian Post Thursday after he was asked about a flyer for the event. He also confirmed information on the flyer that White will be in attendance, noting that she is good friends with Yohe, who has told her more than one million followers on Facebook not to miss the event.

Taylor’s ministry, which consists of more than 1,800 churches and thousands of volunteer staff worldwide, according to his website, boasts that it is the “greatest move of God to hit the face of the earth.” He regularly hosts miracle crusades and claimed in August 2016 that he raised a woman from the dead through a message sent to her on Facebook.

Minister Moreaux told CP that he has personally witnessed healings at the miracle crusade against cancer which has been happening for a number of years.

“I have seen hundreds healed,”…

Evangelist Billy Graham gained attention in 1949, with a crusade in Los Angeles. Across the decades, he preached to more than 210 million people in more than 185 countries across the world, according to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

This is a sampling of some of his largest crowds and most historic crusades, which lasted for days or weeks:

Los Angeles (1949): 350,000

London (1954): 2,047,333

Glasgow, Scotland (1955): 2,647,365

New York (1957): 2,397,400

Sydney, Australia (1959): 980,000

Los Angeles (1963): 910,445

London (1966): 1,055,368

Seoul, South Korea (1973): 3,210,000

Seoul, South Korea (1984): 1,000,000*

New York (2005): 230,000

Note: Length of crusades vary

* Largest attendance at a single-day event

Source: Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Religion News Service

Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Publication date: February 22, 2018