BILLY GRAHAM CRUSADE

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29128, 13 February 1960, Page 11

BILLY GRAHAM CRUSADE

City Film Screening Next Month

Scenes of the huge meetings at Lancaster Park during the visit of the American evangelist, Billy Graham, last April, will be seen again in Christchurch when the Billy Graham film mission begins in the Civic Theatre on March 16. For this crusade, which will last for a week, the main difference from the actual one in Lancaster Park is that there will be no choir, no preaching and onl ya closing hymn at each meeting. The whole three-hour service will centre around two films, at the end of which members of the audience will be invited to go forward to make their “decision tor Christ.” The films to be shown will be “Southern Cross Crusade,” the official 70-minute black-and-white documentary of the Australian and New Zealand crusade and a technicolour film, “The Heart is a Rebel,” which is a story based on a case from the Billy Graham crusade held in New York in 1957. Preparations for the mission include counsellor training classes which will begin on Monday. Encouragement is being given to those who went forward and “committed” themselves at the park last April to act as counsellors. The procedure at the crusade for dealing with “inquirers” will oe the same as last year. Persons who go forward after the films have been shown will be counselled on the stage. Prayer meetings are being arranged and letters have been mailed to churches of all denominations in the city to share in the prayer preparation programme. The mission, although headed with Billy Graham’s name, is not being directed by the former crusade executive. The mission is a spontaneous move by local churchmen in the Evangelical Alliance and has no connexion with the Billy Graham organisation.