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Thursday, April 16, 2009

Evangelis remembered


16/04/2009 12:00:00 AM
IT WAS the largest attended event in Australia in the 1950s and no religious gathering in Australia has equalled it until Catholic World Youth Day 2008.

More than 150,000 people packed grandstands and fields at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) on May 10, 1959 to hear the charismatic American evangelist Billy Graham (pictured) preach while thousands of others tuned into radios, televisions or read front pages of the newspapers.

Among the SCG crowd was Sans Souci St Andrew's Church Reverend John Lance who was then training to be a minister. Mr Lance said he profoundly affected by Dr Graham's sermon.

``Journalists tried to catch him out to see if he was in it for the money but he was squeaky clean,'' Mr Lance said. ``It was his conviction, you could see it in his face, he was sincere. He was the true deal.''

A documentary film called Remembering '59 hosted by Gymea Baptist Church senior pastor Karl Faase which looks at the effect of 1959 Bill Graham crusade across Australia and New Zealand will be screened at St Andrew's Church auditorium at Sans Souci on April 18, at 10am. Details: 9529 8626.

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