The Rev. Billy Graham was named by U.S. pastors as the country’s most influential living preacher, according to a recent survey by LifeWay Research.
The study, conducted last November, interviewed more than 1,000 Protestant pastors by telephone. The participants were asked to “name the top three living Christian preachers that most influence you.”
Graham was cited as most influential by 21 percent of clergy, followed by pastor and author Charles Swindoll, at 8 percent. Charles Stanley, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Atlanta, and Rick Warren, senior pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., followed closely behind Swindoll with 7 percent of the vote each.
What? Why isn’t CPM on the list?
Rev. Graham said many decades ago that the two things most likely to derail a pastor were sex and money. The years since have proved him right in spades.
His single greatest achievement may have been to avoid any entanglement with either.
I recall after the 1979 crusade in Sydney (the only one I’m old enough to remember, although my father was converted at the ’59 crusade) the accounts were audited by an independent firm of chartered accountants and published in the daily newspaper a few weeks after the crusade finished. That alone did a lot for his credibility.