Soul Saving

What is the "bottom line"?

After the crowds have gone, the lights are out and the janitors have swept out the amphitheater, what exactly remains from a Billy Graham crusade? For years skeptical critics have wondered, but there has been little follow-up research on those who come forward to make public "decisions" for Jesus Christ. Last week a Graham admirer, a Baptist research executive named Win Arn, provided some.

His findings were not altogether encouraging. As a director of the Institute for American Church Growth in Pasadena, Calif., Arn advocates a "bottom line" analysis of evangelism. In his eyes, the only reliable measure of any crusade's success is the number of people who become "responsible church members." In 1976 a Billy Graham crusade drew 434,100 people to Seattle's Kingdome in eight days, and 18,000 people "came forward" to profess faith in Christ. Arn's survey, done a year later and just released, reveals that of these, 54% were people simply rededicating themselves to the faith. But local churches received 8,400 cards signed by converts. According to Arn's study, only 1,285 of those--about 15% --ended up as active church members.

Taxed with Arn's findings about his Seattle crusade, Billy Graham mildly observes that the resulting cup of faith might better be seen as 15% full than as 85% empty. He also points out that many of his converts may join churches later.

He might also have added: How many preachers can produce 1,285 new church members in a week's work? Graham's results, moreover, are far better than those from Bill Bright's much ballyhooed "Here's Life, America" campaign. In a study of Indianapolis and Fresno, Arn's institute found that a dismal 97% of the people who made "decisions to accept Christ" over the telephone never joined a church.

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