Close to 600 churches across the North West are getting ready for a major evangelistic event in Manchester next month, where Franklin Graham is expected to address thousands at the Co-op Live arena.
The ‘God Loves You Tour’ will come to Manchester on October 3, with churches across the region encouraging members to invite friends, relatives and neighbours to hear the American evangelist preach, said organisers, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA).
Alongside Graham’s message, the event will feature live music from three-time Grammy Award winner Michael W Smith, worship artist Charity Gayle and British Christian rapper Faith Child.
Admission is free, with no advance ticket needed.
BGEA says thousands of Christians have already seats across hundreds of free coaches travelling to the event, including one making the journey from Swansea in South Wales.
The Manchester gathering will mark Graham’s 9th ‘God Loves You Tour’ event in the UK since it launched in the country in 2022, after visits to cities including London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow and Sheffield.
Graham, president and CEO of the BGEA, said he was particularly looking forward to returning to Manchester because of his family’s historical ties to the city.
His father, the late evangelist Billy Graham, preached there in 1961.
“I couldn’t be more excited to preach in Manchester,” he said. “This is an incredible city, and it is a privilege to return to the place where my father preached 65 years ago.”
Graham said that although Manchester had changed considerably since then, “God’s Word doesn’t change.”
“In this day and age of AI and global misinformation, many are wondering what truth is and what is real,” he continued. “I want people to know that there is truth and it is found in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, who is ‘the way, the truth, and the life’ (John 14:6). I’m looking forward to sharing this message of Good News with the people of Manchester.”
BGEA has also been training local Christians to speak with and support people who respond to the Gospel message on the night.
Church leaders involved in the event say there is a growing openness to questions of faith, meaning and purpose in Manchester, particularly among younger generations.
Senior pastor of Ivy Church Manchester, Anthony Delaney, said his congregation was among those seeing more young people looking for “meaning, hope and belonging”.
“They’ve found that the promises of media, materialism, and ‘me first’ culture leave their deepest questions unanswered,” he said. “But where the Gospel of Jesus Christ is shared clearly, courageously, and confidently, young people are all ears - and we see lives transformed.”
Similarly, the founding director of Manchester-based charity Redeeming Our Communities, Debra Green OBE, said the event was arriving at a time when many people were wrestling with questions around “purpose, belonging, identity and hope”.
“The greatest need in Manchester is hope - and the sense that we don’t have to face life alone,” she said.
She added that the tour offered Christians “an opportunity to say something simple: you are loved, you are not forgotten, and there is hope in Jesus Christ”.
Graham has increasingly focused his evangelistic efforts on Britain and wider Europe in recent years, arguing that cultural change and secularisation have created an urgent need for renewed Gospel outreach.
Speaking to Christian Today in 2024, he said the UK had undergone “great cultural and demographic shifts” over several decades and that every new generation needed to be evangelised.
That emphasis has also formed part of his wider message to European churches.
At a BGEA evangelism congress in Berlin in May 2025, Graham called for Christians across the continent to be “unafraid” and “unashamed” in proclaiming the Gospel.
His most recent London event demonstrated the scale of interest the tour has attracted.
Around 17,000 people attended or attempted to attend the gathering at ExCeL London in June 2025, according to the BGEA.
Some 15,000 filled the venue, while an estimated 2,000 more were unable to enter because it had reached capacity.
Many remained outside and joined in worship, while hundreds inside reportedly came forward in response to Graham’s invitation to put their faith in Christ.
