The Modesto Manifesto...

Today is a between the chapters devotional.

Cliff Barrows, the song leader of the Billy Graham crusades, passed away on Tuesday.  He was 93 years old.  He joins George Beverly Shea who sang solos at the crusades that died at the age of 104 and Grady Wilson who was also an evangelist in the association who died at the age of 68.  These 3 men along with Billy Graham were in Modesto, California in November of 1948 holding another crusade that was seeing thousands answering the call of Christ.

They met in a motel room on South Ninth Street and came up with these 4 points that made up the Modesto Manifesto.  It was a manifesto to guide them about how they would conduct themselves personally and also how they would deal with the popularity that came with the crusades.  The United States had experienced many of these traveling evangelists falling to scandal and they wanted to avoid being another.  Even though this was never written down, it could be articulated by the four and I remember hearing Billy Graham in interviews speaking on these 4 points.

1.    Money

It was common practice among evangelists to put a lot of emotion and flourish into taking love offerings.  This could bring unnecessary criticism – and temptation.  The men vowed not to emphasize the offering.  To avoid criticism they would always have the local campaign committees oversee the offerings and disbursements of funds – they would accept a straight salary regardless of how high the offerings were.

2.    Immorality

Religious leaders especially those who traveled were regularly falling to this temptation.  The men agreed continually to pray for God to guard them from it.  They also set up some rules to follow.  They would never allow themselves to be alone with women – lunches, counseling sessions, or rides to auditoriums or airports.  And they would always get their hotel rooms close together as another safeguard.

3.    Exaggeration

The phrase evangelistically speaking has been coined to label exaggerated figures of the number attending meetings or the number saved.  The men vowed not to fall to this practice.  If numbers were mentioned they were the ones generated by the local police, fire departments, or arena managers.

4.    Criticism

Often evangelists would criticize local pastors and churches from pulpits.  The men vowed not to do this, nor would they ever criticize pastors who openly criticized them.

Billy Graham said in his autobiography, Just As I Am about the Modesto Manifesto,

“In reality, it did not mark a radical departure for us; we had always held these principles.  It did, however, settle in our hearts and minds, once and for all, the determination that integrity would be the hallmark of both our lives and our ministry.”

How these 4 have played out over and over again in the life of the church.  Money, immorality, exaggeration, and criticism have plagued the church and church leaders who start to live outside of God’s instruction given in the Bible.  We start by flirting with any of these issues.  We flirt with the money and start acting like it is our own.  We flirt with immorality and say that would never happen to me and I’m too strong to be tempted in that way so I am exempt.  We flirt with exaggeration and start to puff our ministries and ourselves up to impress others and to keep the machine going.  We flirt with criticism and start to cut others down to show how much we are superior to them.

We start with a flirt and then it proceeds to a caress of  ungodly activities that ultimately leads to the act of adultery of God’s principles.  Those men in that motel room were very wise to listen to the counsel of God and put it into practice with accountability to each other.  It lasted through their whole ministry and while they were criticized over the years and intensely scrutinized, no scandals rocked the ministry.  May we as Christians and the church take wise counsel to walk in the ways of these 4 young men 68 years ago and see God’s blessing on our God directed efforts here at Union.  Let’s pray.

“Lord, thank You for the faithful ministry of the Billy Graham Association and for the integrity of the men who served you.  May others and we follow what they followed as they see their ultimate reward of following after You.  Amen.”

Pastor Adam