He was born legally blind and has never walked, but the pastor of evangelism of First Baptist Church, North Mobile, in Saraland has dedicated his life to helping other people see Jesus and take those first steps of faith.
Billy Graham, age 50, has served at First, North Mobile, for the past six years. Operating from a wheelchair, Graham centers his ministry around mobilizing others to become witnesses for Christ.
Graham, who grew up in Texas, was born with muscular dystrophy. Originally diagnosed with the most deadly form of the disease, doctors forecast his death by age 8.
Instead, he was 8 when he followed his brother down a church aisle professing faith in Christ, a “clueless” act that didn’t result in genuine conversion, according to Graham. By junior high school he had became lonely and depressed over his disability. By his senior year he was praying that God would kill him in his sleep. “I didn’t want to live, but I was scared to die.”
When he heard a visiting evangelist’s testimony, Graham identified with it so strongly that he believed that God must have been calling him to preach, too.
“So I dedicated my life to preach without knowing God at all.” Just 19, he first took an associate position in his church and then began traveling with a gospel band and, later, an evangelist. When he married his wife, Kathy, they began to travel the church circuit with her singing and him preaching.
“This was before the days of Joni Eareckson or David Ring,” Graham noted. What should have been a high point in his ministry — speaking at the evangelism conference during the Southern Baptist Convention in Los Angeles more than 20 years ago — became a low point instead.
He missed his flight out of LA and spent the hours alone in the airport. “I felt like a phony. I felt so empty inside.”
Finally, he began to confront the real root of his problems, not his blindness or his lack of mobility, but his lostness. He called Jimmy Draper, then his pastor at First Baptist Church, Euless, Texas, for counsel.
“He said to stay on my face till I got it worked out.” Finally, Graham was ready to trust God. “I don’t know if God’s going to let me stay in the ministry,” Graham recalled saying, “but for the first time in my life I’m free.”
Instead of removing him from ministry, God empowered his message. Immediately after, he shared his experience with a small congregation of about 60, and five people were saved.
“I just kept praying, ‘Lord, is this what you want me to do?’” Graham said.
Apparently so, because 20 years later Graham remains in ministry. Since truly accepting Christ, self-pity has not plagued him, not even when Kathy died of a brain tumor 15 years after they wed.
If anything, Graham figures he frustrates those around him. A self-described risk-taker, he is more independent than others would prefer, according to Graham.
He is a certified scuba diver, bowls and drives a jet ski. He once rode on a motorcycle, went horseback riding and spent a month in Mexico to learn the language to prepare for missions opportunities.
He understands that his wheelchair has actually opened doors to the gospel. “The very fact that I’m in a wheelchair becomes a platform for me.”
When he speaks at a penitentiary, for example, he reminds prisoners that he knows “what it’s like to do a life sentence.”
One Catholic woman in Mexico, adamant about refusing to speak with evangelicals, opened her gate to him because of the effort he put forth to be there, and she subsequently received Christ. It was another example of “God in His sovereignty using what the world calls a defect.”
In his role at North Mobile, Graham trains others to witness through Evangelism Explosion (EE), directs counselors for respondents to the church’s weekly TV outreach broadcast, The Great Adventure Outdoor Show, and teaches during the Wednesday night service. He also helps coordinate missions endeavors and is planning to go to Japan in August.
Graham teaches and preaches from memory, memorizing each Bible verse he references.
To teach EE, he memorized the entire training book. He uses a computer with an optical scanner to scan books so they can be played back audibly.
Graham now has 700 books stored on his computer.
Volunteers provide transportation for Graham, often fulfilling their own need to serve. For example, one church member volunteered to take Graham to the hospital each Friday and ended up being trained in EE, too. “As someone ministers to me, it provides an opportunity to minister to them.”
Graham remarried last January, marrying a woman he met while serving an interim pastorate in Tucson. With his wife, Teresa, at his side, Graham contemplates a future filled with God-shaped possibilities.
“I never thought I’d be doing what I’m doing. I’ve learned not to tell the Lord what I’m not going to do,” Graham said.
Graham offers this counsel to those who are letting perceived limitations restrain them:
1. Realize that you are no accident. Whatever your limitations, they are part of God’s divine creation. “I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” Graham points out, quoting Psalm 139:14.
2. Don’t let the world tell you that you can’t do something. What God calls a man to do, God will equip a man to do. Think outside the box.
3. Once you know your spiritual gifts, heart and passions, “get your eyes off yourself.”
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