Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 20, 1994 TAG: 9411220010
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ATLANTA LENGTH: Long
"Xers" - those born between 1961 and 1981 - are the latest sociological fad; successors to the much-larger Baby Boom generation.
Xers are supposed to be disengaged, disinterested and shallow - frustrated loners who are restless, angry and alienated.
Lotz, 24, says he believes "it is not helpful to label anyone 'Generation X.'''
Besides, at some point, "leadership is going to come from Generation X," Lotz says. "That is exciting."
And Lotz acts like a man who plans to be ready to assume such a role, taking a graduate course in leadership at the hands of a master, his grandfather "Daddy Bill."
To the rest of us, that's Billy Graham.
Lotz is getting advanced training as a member of the Atlanta Billy Graham Crusade team. He began organizational work in Atlanta in June, worked through the Oct. 25-29 crusade, and is a member of the follow-up team that will continue to work into December.
While Lotz has been learning the ropes as a Billy Graham "crusade brat" off and on for almost a decade, his parents get the effusive praise for helping him become the man he is.
"Dad is my hero."
Dad is Danny Lotz, a successful Raleigh, N.C., dentist, star member of the 1957 University of North Carolina national championship basketball team, and leader in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
Jonathan Lotz also has high regard for his mother, Anne Graham Lotz, the second child of Billy and Ruth Graham. She is a widely respected Christian teacher and author, who heads AnGeL Ministries in Raleigh. Her preaching skills are reputed by some observers to rival her father's.
"Mom and Dad have made a consistent walk in life," following Christ's example publicly and privately, Lotz said in an interview during the Atlanta crusade.
Lotz wants his parents to be proud of him, but "I strive to serve Jesus Christ. I'm grateful to Mom and Dad, but I don't live to please them. I strive to do that, but I strive first to please Jesus Christ."
Lotz, who is 6-foot-8, wanted to follow in his father's footsteps. He attended public schools in Raleigh, then spent a year at Fork Union Military School in Virginia hoping to raise his grades while improving his basketball game. But no invitation to play at UNC came, and he had to give up his dream of medical school.
"God wanted me at Baylor," a large Southern Baptist-affiliated university in Waco, Texas, where he majored in sociology and religion.
He graduated earlier this year and is dating another recent Baylor graduate who now teaches third-graders in Dallas.
Growing up the son and grandson of famous ministers wasn't the burden for Lotz that some "preachers' kids" have felt.
"I was loved, supported and encouraged at home," which made it easy to "make an early stand" at school that "Christ is the foundation of my life."
"The kids I grew up with knew where I stood," Lotz said, "not whose son I was."
Consequently, he says he didn't feel any particular extra pressure to rebel from parental constraints.
He is the kind of man who consistently addresses older adults as "sir" or "ma'am." He is clean-cut, quick to smile, neatly but casually dressed for an interview. He confidently speaks of God's call to Christian ministry, even if he is still trying to figure out exactly how he will answer that call.
Lotz has applied for a position as youth minister at large Dallas church, and he's interviewed with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. But where he'd really like to work is with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
The association "is at the top of my list. Daddy Bill may not be around another 20 years" waiting for Lotz to have gained experience at another job first. "It would be the opportunity of a lifetime."
"If Billy Graham passes away, the association might shrivel up because God raises up someone else" to fill the void, Lotz said.
"We look at that. Only the Lord knows. The Lord has used my grandfather in a way nobody else has been used. The Lord will raise up leaders. We're confident of that."
But, "Who knows if there will be a Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in 10 years?"
It is an uncertainty that seems not to bother anyone working at the Atlanta crusade, least of all Graham's family.
"We know there is [an association] today, and we're excited about that."
Lotz took the opportunity to work full time with the Atlanta crusade even though there was no promise that he'd get a continuing job with the national organization.
"I don't get any special treatment," Lotz said, a fact confirmed by other crusade workers, unless you count the first night of the crusade when, "as Daddy Bill walked off the podium, I gave him a kiss and a hug."
On the third night of the Atlanta crusade, Graham mentioned Lotz's work with him while he was expressing his grandfatherly pride in all of his 19 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren.
All of Graham's five children are involved in Christian ministry in one way or another, as are many of the grandchildren.
In Atlanta, Lotz was assigned to help generate interest in younger crusade-goers.
He organized a youth rally, slam-dunk and three-point basketball competitions, and worked with campus ministers at Georgia Tech, Georgia State University and other Atlanta colleges.
Working with some of the college students, women and men of almost his own age, was an education. "I was surprised how many do not know who Billy Graham is."
In a way, that may have made Jonathan Lotz's job a little easier. People who don't know Billy Graham aren't distracted when the messenger preceding him is his grandson.
"I put a lot of pressure on me," Lotz said as he got ready to set off to be a "pack mule" for another day of the Atlanta crusade.
"As an athlete, if I have to play against an All-American, I have to defend him. I have to do what Jonathan is capable of doing.
"My decision to follow Jesus Christ was my own. My grandfather could not do that for me. My mother or father could not do that for me.
"When I meet people, they often ask, 'Aren't you Billy Graham's grandson?'
"I say, 'Yes, but I'm Jonathan.'''
by CNB