“How to minister to others when you don’t feel like it.”
That’s how Will Graham, Billy Graham’s grandson, summed up a brief message to nearly 200 pastors and their spouses Wednesday as he encouraged them in ministry and introduced a tool to reach their communities with the Gospel.
That tool is called My Hope with Billy Graham, a grassroots outreach combining free video programs, discipleship resources and personal relationships to share your faith with non-Christians. The outreach has seen tens of thousands of people in the United States—online or through a live event—surrender their lives to Christ since last year’s effort. And thanks to hundreds of churches nationwide, many of them are being discipled.
Come November, My Hope will be presented in the U.S. and Canada for the second year in a row. Pastors gathered at the Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove in Asheville, North Carolina, Wednesday to hear more about this year’s plans—and more about the much-anticipated My Hope film called “Heaven.”
Order your free DVD copy of “Heaven.”
“I’m looking for another evangelistic opportunity,” Pastor Dennis Thurman said at dinner, before the program.
Thurman pastors Pole Creek Baptist in Candler, North Carolina, or what he calls “a country church on steroids.” The kind of place where whole families have gone for multiple generations. But Thurman is intent on reaching people outside church doors.
“We need to do more effective outreach to our community, so any tools that we can make available to our folks, we’re always looking for ways to do that,” he said.
As a former pastor and executive director of The Cove, Will Graham said he’s familiar with challenges pastors face and knows how tiring and discouraging it can be, especially with everything on a pastor’s plate nowadays.
Still, as Christians, there’s a responsibility to share our faith, he said, and evangelism shouldn’t take a backseat.
That’s where God comes in, he added. He turned to Luke 9 and read how Jesus increased five loaves of bread and two fish to feed thousands. With Christ, he said, more can be accomplished—and more people reached—than we ever imagined.
My Hope is one way to get started.
“I think it’s necessary,” Roxanne Wynn said about the outreach. “We, like other churches, have suffered a decline (in membership) over the past several years. … I think this is an awesome tool that God has provided to help us.”
Wynn, an elder and youth minister at River of Life International Church in Asheville, wants to see more people putting their faith in Christ and growing in a local church. She appreciates that My Hope, with multiple ways to reach people, is so versatile.
Many pastors who attended Wednesday’s gathering were involved in My Hope last year. They joined congregations around the country who invited unsaved friends to watch one of three half-hour films featuring Billy Graham and others whose lives were changed by Jesus Christ. The flagship program was called “The Cross” and focused on Christ’s sacrifice for our sins.
“A lot of times, people can hear the same story of the Gospel over and over and over again. Familiarity breeds contempt,” Pastor Derrick McCarson said. “But when it’s presented in a new and different way, and it’s relevant—where a lot of people are—it has a great impact.”
McCarson, who pastors Liberty Baptist in Candler, saw a good response from his church’s My Hope effort last year among youth and adults.
Steve Harris had another interesting experience.
Harris works with area pastors through the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. Last year when My Hope was taken to a nearby ministry for homeless veterans, 75 veterans came and 26 accepted Christ, including one man who turned in a gun he planned to use to kill his ex-wife and her daughter that night.
“Something told him he needed to watch that (My Hope) movie,” Harris said. The man began turning his life around.
Isaias Villar and his wife Sara said there’s also a need for evangelism resources like My Hope in the Hispanic church. They are promoting it to pastors and look forward to showing this year’s program in their home and to soccer players in their community.
During Wednesday’s meeting, pastors took turns praying for each other and for My Hope. Will Graham finished the prayer, asking for strength and courage to reach others—and for renewed trust in Christ when ministry gets tough.
“Lord, would you use us to reach one more generation?” he prayed.
Joe Mott, My Hope manager of church engagement, encouraged pastors to get their churches praying for non-Christians.
“This is a prayer-centered outreach,” Mott said. “Even if all that happens is that you get a core group of people in your church praying, have we not accomplished something great?”
Get involved in My Hope, watch the “Heaven” trailer or pre-order your copy of the film.
Find more My Hope pastor events.
The Cove is hosting two Pastors’ Institute discipleship events free for pastors and their spouses—one Oct. 16 and one Nov. 6.
Learn more about My Hope UK.
