Photos from Festival Victoria with Franklin Graham
More than 92,000 people attended a three-day festival at Melbourne's Telstra Dome last month, and more than 6,200 accepted an invitation from evangelist Franklin Graham to come forward and commit their lives to Jesus Christ.
More than 92,000 people attended a three-day festival at Melbourne's Telstra Dome last month, and more than 6,200 accepted an invitation from evangelist Franklin Graham to come forward and commit their lives to Jesus Christ.
Graham, who was well-pleased with the festival, said "It's so different from 1959, because at that time maybe 50 percent of people went to church, but now this country is unchurched.
"To see what happened over the three days, and to have more than 800 churches involved, is tremendous," he told Melbourne's The Age news agency,
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He said he found the audience "very receptive, very warm - delightfully so."
According to the Age, buses brought people from throughout the suburbs and the state – youth groups on Saturday night, church congregations Sunday afternoon – bringing non-Christian friends and family with them.
Festival coordinator Paul Molyneux said 55 percent, or about 3,400 of those who came forward at the conclusion of the three-day event were first-time converts. The rest were people renewing their commitment.
Meanwhile, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association reported that of those who made decisions for Christ over the course of the Festival, more than 4,100 were under the age of 18.
The Festival, which was held Mar. 18 - 20, was Graham's first visit to Melbourne, and the biggest evangelistic effort in the city since his father, Billy Graham, mesmerized the city in 1959, drawing 143,750 to the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Billy Graham also visited in 1969.
