When Billy Graham spoke at a packed Tacoma Dome in 1983, a 15-year-old altar worker stood nearby, hanging on every one of the pastor’s words.
“It truly shaped me,” said Dean Curry, who is now lead pastor at Life Center Church in Tacoma. “I could say that I’m a pastor today because of what I saw in the Tacoma Dome.”
Graham, who died on Wednesday morning at age 99, made multiple visits to the Seattle region over the years, attracting enormous crowds who absorbed, and were shaped by, his teachings.
Life Center Church now holds annual crusades at the Tacoma Dome, modeled off of the stadium gatherings which Graham popularized all around the world. The events shun politics and contentious issues, and keep Jesus in the spotlight, Curry said.
“He wasn’t divisive, although he was a person of conviction. He really was a trailblazer in being above the fray,” Curry said. “He was for everybody.”
Pastor Kevin Gerald, lead pastor at Champions Centre Church in Tacoma, says there are people in his congregation who can trace the beginnings of their faith back to one of Graham’s Washington events.
"It changed their lives," he said, Wednesday.
Graham’s preaching helped guide a generation of young pastors, like Gerald, who sometimes wondered about the purpose of their work. They saw the huge crowds Graham attracted in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and that energized them, Gerald said.
"It gave us hope that what we were doing could make a difference,” he said.
According to published news reports, Graham drew 434,000 people to the Kingdome during a seven-day visit in 1976, and 24,000 gathered at the Tacoma Dome for the one-night 1983 visit. Graham returned to Seattle and Tacoma in 1991.
Life Center Church plans to pay tribute to Graham this Sunday, by asking congregants who were influenced by the preacher to stand, Curry, the pastor, said. They will also hold a moment of silence, and reflect on how to carry on his legacy.
“I wept for a half an hour, out of gratitude that I got to be influenced, impacted by the life of the greatest evangelists and representatives for Jesus in my lifetime,” Curry said.
