Billy brings 'em in:
McCarthy, Abigail
OF SEVERAL MINDS Abigail McCarthy BILLY BRINGS 'EN IN PREACHING A RELEVANT MINISTRY It isn't what comes to mind when you hear of one of Billy Graham's evangelistic campaigns-that it might...
...Perhaps the simple lesson to be learned from the experience of the Graham crusade counselors is that one does not minister to multitudes but to one person at a time, if the love of Christ is to be communicated...
...Archbishop Jose Saraiva Martins, secretary of the Congregation, is quoted as saying that in many seminaries there was only "a dim approximate idea" of the social doctrine of the church...
...despite the music and the showmanship, each crusade has much in common with old-time parish retreats, as it has with old-time gospel meetings...
...OF SEVERAL MINDS Abigail McCarthy BILLY BRINGS 'EN IN PREACHING A RELEVANT MINISTRY It isn't what comes to mind when you hear of one of Billy Graham's evangelistic campaigns-that it might stimulate clerical vocations in the Church of England...
...The canon in charge of recruitment was forthright about it when interviewed by the Times...
...Those of us who remember post-Vatican II American seminarians demonstrating, riding in police cars to learn the city, and in ambulances to learn about suffering, and those who recall the worker priests of France, are aware that it is necessary to prepare a priest for immersion in his people's world...
...despite the sophisticated preliminary advertising, the elaborate organization, and extensive staff...
...And the delivery of the message is not too different: the rousing, impassioned affirmation of the basic tenets of Christianity...
...Certainly some tentative ones...
...These had come not so much from the ranks of those preached to but from the local volunteer counselors...
...The Vatican seems to have reached such a conclusion...
...Those who have watched Billy Graham preaching on television may have a vivid memory of the emotional finale of each evening when hearers are urged to come forward to accept Jesus...
...Are there any conclusions we can draw from the above about vocations to the priesthood in general...
...It suggests a study program covering issues such as terrorism and guerrilla warfare, the environment, East-Westrelations,humanrights,the third world, and the international economy...
...What they may not remember is that those who do so are also urged to make a commitment to a church, either to the one of their youth or another...
...I recall an English priest saying to me in the sixties, "The churches in America are lucky to have been revitalized and made needed by the civil rights movement, but this sense of uselessness will catch up with them, too...
...How many little churches all over England-places with names like Church Brampton and Chapel Brampton-have as pastors men who were inspired by the man from a Bible college in Minneapolis...
...One could say that Billy Graham has become retreat master to the world...
...Graham's evangelism apart from that of more narrow gospel preachers and has earned him the cooperation of the main-line churches...
...This practice has set Mr...
...The counselors are there to help them do that...
...the threat of hell and promise of heaven...
...Graham preached here we had a significant increase in those applying," he added hopefully...
...But that is exactly what the English bishops were hoping for when he launched his crusade in London this June...
...Despite the national outreach of each Graham campaign...
...and they discovered great satisfaction in doing so...
...That there has been such a precipitous falling off in recent years in the Church of England, in which there is no law of celibacy, underlines what we already know-that failing to see the priesthood as relevant in today's world, or as ministering to the truly needy of body and spirit, deters vocations just as much as does the prohibition of marriage...
...The last time the Reverend Mr...
...The number of applicants for clergy formation had been going down-from 900 to 800 in the past year alone...
...The document just issued by the Congregation for Catholic Education calls for more training of seminarians in modern social problems in order to prepare them to be effective in the modern world...
...The document also recommended that priests in training have contact with business executives, workers and trade unions, social organizations, and the "marginalized sectors" of society, by which I suppose is meant the poor and homeless, minorities-perhaps even women...
...The purpose is the same: To stir up fervor, to rescue sinners and fallen-aways, to promote a personal relationship with the Savior...
...The Anglican counselors found that they could help people seeking God, that they could bring them to the church...
...the assurance of the abiding love of Jesus for his own...
...For many, the shock of reality was too profound and the bridge to the rectory too fragile to sustain the connection...
...As unlikely as American gospel meetings might seem as seedbeds for a crop of future curates, vicars, and canons for England's established church, that is what Graham's meetings have been...
Vol. 116 • September 1989 • No. 15
