cover image Igniting the Fire: The Movements and Mentors That Shaped Billy Graham

Igniting the Fire: The Movements and Mentors That Shaped Billy Graham

Jake Hanson. Barbour/Shiloh Run Press, $14.99 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-63058-448-1

Before Billy Graham was filling stadiums and preaching to millions, he was a North Carolina farm boy with little interest in religion. All that changed one November night in 1934 when the 15-year-old Graham recommitted his life to Jesus at a local revival service. Drawing deeply on letters and other writings and on new interviews, Hanson traces the forces that shaped Graham’s life in this straightforward account of the evangelist’s formative years. Focusing on the evangelistic environments of the Florida Bible Institute and Wheaton College, the many mentors in Graham’s life, and Graham’s energetic and relentless pursuit of holiness, Hanson chronicles the ways that each of these sources kindled Graham’s flame for reaching others for Jesus. For example, John Minder, dean at the Florida Bible Institute, taught Graham a lesson about preaching that Graham embraced for the rest of his life: know your subject, believe your message, preach with conviction. Hanson’s book offers the portrait of the preacher as a young man, though it reads like a long college paper. (Jan.)