It’s not very often that the gospel of Jesus Christ is preached on TV. Usually you need cable so you can get some off-beat religious channel, or you have to stay up past midnight and look for the preacher sandwiched between back to back episodes of Cops and an infomercial selling a revolutionary food processor. That’s salvation for all the world, right after the law enforcement officers of Clairmont, Idaho engage in a high speed chase with a drunken mechanic. And stay tuned for the revolutionary food processor that turned one family’s dreary meals into freeze-dried fun. You’ll hear shouts of, “You have to right to remain silent,” “Go into all the world and preach the gospel,” and “The Foodco 8000 changed my life forever,” all in the same two-hour span.

Jesus doesn’t exactly fair well on television.

And then there’s Billy Graham. Right now all across the country there are one-hour blocks of time on local stations that are airing the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it’s during prime time, no less. You don’t need cable, you don’t need a satellite dish, and you don’t need the sleeping patterns of a college student. Local stations are dumping an hour of their usual network programming to show a plain and simple presentation of the gospel. That’s the Billy Graham TV Special–check your local listings, it’s on now. Granted they can’t get network TV time and have the special air at the same time on the same day across the country, like every TV show, but they work with what they have.

It’s a cultural oddity. And the strange thing is that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association usually does this four times a year. Not only that, but they usually air two specials at a time. That’s eight one-hour TV specials on major stations during prime time, all presenting the gospel. Bizarre. And Christians somehow complain that we don’t have a voice in the public square.

What I find most peculiar is how the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association decides to present the gospel on prime time TV all across the country. They usually edit together clips from recent evangelistic events into a one-hour special, complete with a few commercial-type plugs for various ministries (tonight’s was for the Billy Graham Training Center, the Cove). The basic formula for a TV Special is a few songs from two different artists that performed at one of these evangelistic events, and then one of Billy Graham’s sermons from a recent evangelistic event. Tonight’s show happened to have a few songs from Michael W. Smith and Third Day, a hymn from Cliff Barrows, and a Billy Graham sermon, all from last June’s Louisville Crusade.

Not a bad formula. But what I can’t help wondering is if it’s the best formula. Now granted I work for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association-I’m not trying to be negative here, I’m trying to be constructive. Is someone preaching for 20 minutes straight on prime time TV the best way to present the gospel? When you have over 70 channels of usually top-dollar entertainment, why would you settle for a man in front of a crowd talking for 20 minutes? Granted it’s fairly cheap and easy to do, and it certainly is effective. But is it the best method?

My wife and I kept switching back and forth from Billy Graham to “Seventh Heaven.” But I shouldn’t say my wife and I. I should say I kept switching back and forth, and my wife threatened to kill me. She wanted to watch “Seventh Heaven,” which is perfectly understandable because that’s what we do every Monday at 7:00 p.m. The only reason I wanted to watch Billy Graham is because I work for him and I was curious to see how the show came out. To put it bluntly, the only thing drawing me to the Billy Graham TV Special is that Billy Graham is a fairly captivating speaker. Unfortunately, this has more to do with the fact that he’s Billy Graham than anything he says or the way he says it.

As much as I hate to stereotype people or paint with broad strokes, it’s a fairly well-accepted fact that TV viewers watch things that are fast paced and come in small doses. Every show on TV is broken up every so many minutes with a few minutes of commercials. Even the most intense dramas don’t keep you on the edge of your seat for too long-they break to commercial. The only excpetion is movies, but then the editing is captivating enough to keep you in your seat. Have you ever seen a movie where someone stood up a podium and spoke for more than a few minutes? That’s because they know they can only keep you watching someone talk for so long. That’s why speeches on TV and in the movies are so much ridiculously shorter than they are in real life. Because on TV we have better things to do than watch some guy talk for 20 minutes.

So in short, I find it amazing that the Billy Graham TV Special culminates in 20 minutes of Billy Graham preaching. Granted it’s captivating stuff. I can guarantee you the phone centers light up with calls, people dialing that toll-free number to get some help. And it’s amazing to watch the spectacle: “Just As I Am” playing the in the background, the grandfather-esque Billy Graham imploring you to search your heart, the streams of people coming down from the nose-bleed seats. It’s emotional stuff. But is it really effective? I think if it was, David Letterman’s monologue would last a lot more than three minutes. I think the nightly news would spend a lot longer on each story, and they wouldn’t worry so much about cutting to a file clip so you don’t have to watch the news anchor fumble with their notes. I think rather than showing scene after scene of helping people, political candidates would just buy air time and talk.

But that’s not the way a television-oriented society works. We need action, drama, swelling music, shorter segments, bathroom breaks, and something to keep from reaching for the dreaded remote.

I have to give the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association credit. They’re doing what they can with what they have. They’re probably playing to a niche market. Whoever tunes in to watch Billy Graham is probably curious enough to put up with the long segments, the so-so camera work, and the boring editing, so they can get the pay-off. That’s probably what the BGEA is banking on, and that’s worthwhile. The other fact is that it’s probably a whole lot cheaper to take footage from a Crusade, splice it into an hour, and slap it on TV. Anything else would require rivaling the major networks with a television show of the utmost quality, and that doesn’t come cheap. The BGEA probably doesn’t have the financial resources to pull something like that off, so they do the best they can.

To their credit, the BGEA has recently experimented with doing something besides the 20-minute sermons. Last June they aired the recent World Wide Pictures movie, Road to Redemption. Regardless of what I think about the movie (it’s mediocre) it nails the TV audience a whole lot better than 20-minutes of an old white guy preaching. The BGEA is following this strategy again this June when they’ll be airing their newest movie, The Climb. Again, I’m not saying it’s the best movie out there, but it still beats the old white guy.

And I don’t mean that as a slam on Billy Graham. As old white guys go, he’s pretty cool. I just mean that it’s a much better fit for the audience. The BGEA is doing the best they can, and I think we have to hand it to them (since I work for them this sounds a bit self-promoting, but I have nothing to do with the TV Specials, so it’s okay). I only wish Christians across the country would whine less and support efforts like this even more. Then perhaps the BGEA could pull the 20-minute old white guy routine, and replace it with something that better hits the audience.