Growing as a Christian

William Franklin "Billy" Graham, Jr. is an American evangelist and an Evangelical Christian. He has been a spiritual adviser to multiple United States presidents and was number eight on Gallup's list of admired people for the 20th century. He is a Southern Baptist. He rose to celebrity status due to his sermons being broadcast on radio and television.

Graham has preached in person to more people around the world than any other Protestant in history. According to his staff, as of 1993 more than 2.5 million people had "stepped forward at his crusades to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior". As of 2008, Graham's lifetime audience, including radio and television broadcasts, topped 2.2 billion.

 Billy Graham, the American Christian evangelist, is best known for his worldwide evangelistic crusades preaching the message of Christianity to more people than anyone in history. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) reports, "nearly 215 million people in more than 185 countries" have been reached through his ministry. In his lifetime, he has led many thousands to make a decision to receive Jesus as personal Savior and to live for Christ. Graham has been an adviser to many American presidents and according to Gallup Polls is regularly listed as one of the "Ten Most Admired Men in the World

      In 1934, at age 16, Graham made a personal commitment to Christ during a revival meeting conducted by Mordecai Ham. He graduated from the Florida Bible Institute, now Trinity College of Florida and was ordained in 1939 by a church in the Southern Baptist Convention. Later in 1943, he graduated from Wheaton College, pastored the First Baptist Church in Western Springs, Illinois, and then joined Youth for Christ.

      In 1950 Graham founded the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which later relocated in 2003 to Charlotte, North Carolina. Billy Graham has authored more than 26 books, which have been translated into several languages.