Mourners are gathering to pay their respects to the Rev. Billy Graham at a funeral that marks the culmination of more than a week of tributes to “America’s Pastor.”
The service, scheduled to start at noon Friday, is to include performances by musicians who shared the stage with Graham at his crusades. The Rev. Franklin Graham will deliver the main funeral address for his father after personal messages from Billy Graham’s three daughters and younger son. President Donald Trump is expected to attend, but isn’t scheduled to speak.
The funeral planning began a decade ago with Billy Graham himself, and grew into his family’s desire to capture the feeling of the crusades that made the world’s best-known Protestant preacher of his era.
“His fingerprints are on this service for sure,” family spokesman Mark DeMoss said in a phone interview. “The Graham family has long considered that his funeral eventually would