FAITH & REASON
Billy Graham project unveiled in Calgary
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is launching its successful My Hope ministry in Canada and the United States next year.
The association says it has in the past five years helped 10 million people in 58 countries become Christians.
Key Canadian church leaders got a sneak peek on Wednesday when the BGEA unveiled My Hope during a launch event at First Alliance Church in Calgary.
“Our founder, Billy Graham, although 93, still has a deep concern for people in Canada and the U.S. who don’t yet know the love and saving power of Jesus Christ,” says Fred Weiss, BGEA’S executive director in Canada. “He has asked us to undertake an urgent and unprecedented effort in Canada to present the gospel and call millions of people into a personal relationship with our saviour.”
My Hope was launched in 2002. It works through local churches to train Christians to invite neighbours, co-workers and friends into their homes. While there, they watch a BGEA television broadcast or DVD presentation. Then the trained host or hostess tells how he or she came to faith, and invites everyone to make a similar commitment.
The target date for the My Hope telecast in Canada is November 2013. Until then, the association will work on recruiting churches across Canada so they can train their evangelism-minded congregation members, it says.
“It’s really a media-based delivery, but it’s co-ordinated with the local churches and ultimately it’s delivered right into people’s homes,” Weiss says. “It’s just a way of helping believers with their own, personal evangelism. Often as believers, you want to have an ability to share what you believe with your friends and neighbours and family, but you don’t always feel equipped.
“So what we’re doing is speaking with pastors. We’re going to go across the country meeting with pastors and just casting this vision of My Hope as a way for the people in their congregations to just take their personal evangelism farther. It equips and trains people along the way. We make resources available to individuals. It’s just about reaching our country for Christ.”