Over the course of 50 years, Billy Graham may have helped 12 million people come to faith in Jesus and begin a life of discipleship to Him. That is a significant number, and I thank God for the work of Billy Graham (and other evangelists like him).

But have you ever stopped to think about the hundreds of millions of dollars that were spent for those 12 million converts? The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association currently spends about $100 million per year. I wonder if there might be a more effective way of spending hundreds of millions of dollars for evangelistic purposes than Evangelistic Crusades? For example, studies say that relationship evangelism is the most effective form of evangelism. What would have happened if hundreds of millions of dollars were spent training and supporting relationship evangelists?

Evangelism Math

The estimates for the number of evangelical Christians in the world range from 300 million to 700 million. Let’s just say that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association had decided to spend their money on relational evangelism training instead of crusades, and that in 50 years of operations, they trained only 1% of the lower estimate of 300 million Christians worldwide, or 3 million Christians. Studies report that people who are trained in relational evangelism see about one friend, coworker, neighbor, or family member become a follower of Jesus every year. But let’s err on the side of caution here as well, and say it is only one every four years.

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Crusade evangelism is a strategy that has been used since the First Great Awakening in mid-1700’s. It began in England and American where popular preachers gathered together large crowds of people, and preached the Gospel to them.

Some of the leading evangelists to use this strategy include D. L. Moody, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, Charles Finney, Billy Sunday, and in more recent years, Billy Graham, Franklin Graham, Luis Palau, and Greg Laurie. And should we include Tim Tebow’s dad in there as well? Check out the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association.

Without a doubt, millions of people around the world have heard the Gospel and received eternal life as a result of these crusades. They are, and continue to be, a meaningful and effective way of spreading the good news about Jesus Christ.

Crusade Evangelism Statistics

And yet, in a 1990 interview with PBS, Billy Graham himself stated his believe that only about 25% of those who come forward at one of his events actually became Christians. In recent years, studies have shown that only 6% of people who “come forward” at an evangelistic crusade are any different in their beliefs or behavior one year later. Of course, it is estimated that Billy Graham preached to more than 200 million people, and 6% of 200 million is still 12 million. That’s significant.

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We have looked at several types of street evangelism, and found them all to be lacking in both effectiveness and Christlikeness.

So how to most street evangelists justify their actions?

Information in the Age of Jesus

Most of those who engage in street preaching find justification for it in the pages of Scripture. They notice that Jesus, Paul, and others would go into the busy streets and marketplaces of towns and cities, and proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God and eternal life. And this is true. Such methods were used.

But what few people realize today is that such a method of spreading news was commonly practiced in the first century Roman Empire. They didn’t have printing presses, newspapers, or even a postal system. So when merchants, or philosophers, or government officials wanted to spread the news about something, they would send out a herald or an emissary to stand in a busy area of town, or walk through the streets, shouting the news. This is how announcements and messages were spread back then.

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