Over a series of coffees, they learned a legacy of shared faith tracing back to their grandfathers—Jay’s grandfather came to faith through Billy Graham’s ministry. As for Graham’s heritage, in addition to his maternal grandfather and namesake, the famous evangelist, Graham’s other grandfather—Alfred Dienert—was a Christian advertising executive who helped establish Billy Graham’s national platform by connecting him to radio and then television in the 1950s. Together, they understood the changing cultural landscape of the mid-20th century and utilized the new media for a new generation.
Graham remembered watching his evangelist grandfather on a black-and-white TV and still marvels how fast in those days they could pack a stadium full of people to hear about Jesus.
At the same time as they shared ministry, the Grahams and Dienerts also merged their families. Billy’s daughter, Ruth, married Alfred’s son, Ted—Graham’s mother and father.
Graham’s assessment of his family is not altogether positive. In fact, he told Jay “everyone was a little off their rockers”; consequently, he had little interest in religion. At the same time, in his endless and passionate pursuit of excesses that could never satisfy, Graham said the legacy of his famous grandfather always remained on the edge of his periphery.
At the end of himself, he felt God calling him to return and start his own similar—but different—legacy.
Together, Graham and Jay attended a meet-up group of atheists and agnostics at Scully’s Bar in downtown Asheville, a city afloat in alternative. The idea behind the gathering was simple: Everyone gets to share personally, respectfully, what they believe. Graham and Jay stepped into the opportunity.
It might not be the same as preaching to 90,000 people at a crusade or drawing 30,000 people to a megachurch, but Graham and Jay were learning together the power of something which begins, against all reason, in the small.
At the end of each meeting at Scully’s Bar, Graham would sum it up this way (as he does with every other meeting):
Just Be Jesus.
Jay learned that the phrase was more than a mantra for Graham—he also envisions a line of clothes called Bejesus. Entrepreneurial by design, Graham explained his desire to start a company that would promote Jesus without saying a word. His business partners in the clothing initiative are an atheist, a nonpracticing Catholic and a Buddhist. Graham believes the three see Jesus differently than before as a result of their acquaintance. Graham is also a field manager for a construction firm where Jesus is mostly a swear word. As for him?
Just Be Jesus.
Jay says during almost all their times together, Graham’s rant would run something like this: “Modern-day Christianity needs to do away with its game plan. It’s a new generation living in a new culture. Christians largely evangelize to Christians. We’ve got to stop doing that and just start loving people. We just need to be Jesus.”
As they have come together in relational ministry, Graham and Jay have helped each other learn a different perspective concerning legacy.
As the grandson of Billy Graham, Graham received a once-in-a-generation model of a man who lived what he preached. At the same time, he has struggled to the point of anger—even bitterness—with inconsistencies he has experienced in the church and from other Christians. Jay has helped him to see how easy it is to commit the same sin he rails against: judging others instead of loving them.
Jay reminds Graham: Grace is where we all live.
As the grandson of an impoverished refugee saved at a Billy Graham crusade, Jay has learned from Graham that the era of big numbers is over. In the emerging culture, church success will be measured real and raw not big and wide.
From Graham’s own suicidal experiments with excess—thrill, power, money, things—he serves to remind Jay of a deeper hunger.
Jay, intoxicated by the dominant church strategy of power in numbers, learned the sobering truth from Graham about the inverted engine of the kingdom—a power that begins small and broken. In each moment of each day with each person, a small blessing possesses unimagined power.
As offspring of the Crusades, Jay and Graham are convinced: In our culture, people don’t want to just hear about Jesus; they want to see and experience him as real. In their relationship, they see proof of a movement that unveils “at the speed of one.”