By Joe McKeever I was in a congregation of ministers in Birmingham once in the early 70s when Billy Graham entered. A shock wave moved across the auditorium. It was amazing, and I had no explanation for it. He was God’s man. No question about it. During the last years of the 1980s, I pastored Charlotte’s First Baptist Church and visited with Billy and Ruth Graham on several occasions. His sister Catherine was in my church, along with her family. Mostly, we shared a hospital waiting room while their friend and my congregant Grady Wilson was in surgery. Once I handed them a notepad and asked them to write their favorite scripture verse and sign it. That this was a presumptuous thing to do never entered my mind. Billy jotted down “Psalm 16:11” and signed that familiar name. I said, “I’m glad you wrote that because I’ve quoted that verse for years as Billy Graham’s favorite.” Ruth Bell Graham laughed and said, “My favorite keeps changing!” As I recall, she wrote Proverbs 3:8-13 and signed it. My secretary had those two notes framed and they hung in my office for years, until I donated them to a fundraiser for a New Orleans ministry. In November of 1987, the entire Graham team came to our church for the celebration of … [Read more...]