At The High Calling, we don’t often address the unique vocational, relational, and spiritual challenges of working for a Christian non-profit organization. So we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to interview William Franklin Graham IV, the grandson of evangelist Billy Graham and the son of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) President and CEO Franklin Graham. Now an associate evangelist with BGEA and Assistant Director of the Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove in Asheville, North Carolina, Will has a lifetime’s worth of exposure to these challenges. Here’s the first question:
The High Calling: People often idealize working for a Christian organization. Are we wrong to expect a
Christian workplace to be different?
Will Graham: When we hire people, one of the things that we really try to listen for is if whether or not they feel called to ministry with our organization. We’ve gotten a lot of resumes from qualified people, but if they’re not called, ultimately, they’re not going to fit. They may be wonderful Christian people, but they’re not who we’re looking for.
BGEA has some of the best employees; we really do. But at the same time, we’re all human, and we all have bad days. When there is an issue, we’ll sit down and pray about it. Employees will get together and pray about it. Sometimes it still doesn’t work out. We may have to move people to a different department because their gifts aren’t being used – maybe we put them in a bad spot that doesn’t meet their strengths. On the other hand, we have some great administrators who have helped us in this area. My dad is a wonderful administrator. My granddaddy hired George Wilson, who really kind of shaped the Billy Graham organization administration-wise when it first was founded.
As a staff, every morning we start off in devotions, looking into God’s Word together, praying together for the needs of the ministry. We pray for one another. BGEA is a wonderful place to work, and I’m blessed to be a part of it. It’s tough working for family, but we do it because we love each other. …
Read the whole interview at The High Calling.
