GRAHAM'S ST. LOUIS CRUSADE DRAWS 40,000 THE FIRST NIGHT

ST. LOUIS -- Racial harmony can be found when people begin to repent their sins, said the Rev. Billy Graham.

The problems of the world aren't social or racial or even educational, but sinful, he said.

Graham spoke to 40,000 people Thursday night at the Trans World Dome in St. Louis. It was his third crusade in St. Louis and his last for the year. Graham, who began his ministry in 1949 in Los Angeles, held crusades here in 1953 and 1973.

Organizers for the Greater St. Louis Billy Graham Crusade were unsure how many people to expect for the crusade since no tickets were issued. Doors opened at 5:30 p.m., but people had been lined up for much longer.

Attendance typically builds as the crusade continues, organizers said. Services continue at 7 nightly through Sunday.

Bill Killian, a member of Calvary Temple Church in Fredericktown, said he has been listening to Graham all his life and wanted a chance to see him.

He and 40 other people from his church filed off church vans outside the dome at 5:45 p.m. so they could stand in line for a seat.

Killian said: "I have a respect for him and think he's one of the greatest preachers. And I just like the gospel."

Graham, 80, spoke about basic Christian tenets in words and examples that even children could understand.

"When we break Gods's moral and spiritual law, we pay a price," he said.

He told how people who speed are given tickets and suffer the consequences for breaking the law. The same is true with sin, he said.

Graham said there is no excuse for sin, but there is a solution.

"God loves you whatever your background," he said. It doesn't matter what sort of mistakes you have made or how many sins you have committed, he said.

What it takes is faith. There is a mystery to Christianity, he said. "Yet by faith we believe."

Graham admitted he didn't have answers to every spiritual question. There are some things that can't be proven by scientific means, he said.

"You can't put God in a test tube or prove it with a mathematics formula," he said. "You don't see him on a computer screen, but by faith."

It takes faith to come forward and make a commitment to Christ, said Carolyn Kirsten, a native of Delta who lives in St. Louis. "You have to believe," she said.

More than 2,500 people responded when Graham extended his altar call at the close of the two-hour service. The hymn "Just As I Am," a staple of the Graham crusades, played while people went forward. Counselors were designated to answer questions of those who went forward seeking spiritual guidance.

Anyone who sought more information about how to become a Christian was to be connected with a church in their hometown, said a representative of the crusade office.

Graham took the stage about one hour after the crusade began.

Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton told how God and her relationship with him had been important to her. She said she is helping people earn "gold medals every day by sharing their faith."

Christian-music artist Michael W. Smith also performed several songs. Smith has been performing at Graham crusades since the mid-1980s.

Seeing Graham was sort of like noting a passing era, said Leonard Fiedler of Concordia Lutheran Seminary in St. Louis. "You just don't know how long he can keep doing this," he said.