Advertisement

NC evangelical minister, the grandson of Rev. Billy Graham, hospitalized with COVID

Jonathan Lotz, the grandson of Rev. Billy Graham, is hospitalized and in critical condition due to COVID-19, according to social media posts by his mother.

Anne Graham Lotz, the founder of AnGeL Ministries in Raleigh, said Sunday that her son is in the intensive care unit at an unidentified hospital. She asked for people to pray for her son’s recovery.

“Fifty years ago I could hold my son in my arms,” she said in a post Saturday. “Now I have placed him in the arms of Jesus.”

Saturday’s Facebook post has garnered over 54,000 reactions and 21,000 shares since Saturday.

Jonathan Lotz, an ordained minister, directs Jonathan Lotz Ministries and has preached around North Carolina and the country, according to his website. He spent time in Raleigh growing up, according to news reports.

Sunday at 6:35 p.m. Anne Graham Lotz updated her Facebook page with her son’s condition. She said he texted her earlier Sunday, saying he is “physically exhausted yet spiritually overflowing.”

“Pray he will not have to go on a ventilator, that his oxygen levels would increase, that his lungs will be strengthened, healed and that his health will be fully restored — with no long-term complications,” Anne Graham Lotz wrote. “My heart is filled with gratitude for your prayers.”

Jonathan Lotz is one of three adult children of Anne Graham Lotz and the late Danny Lotz.

He worked for his grandfather from 1994 to 2002 doing advance work before his large-scale crusades, according to an interview with The Winston-Salem Journal. In addition to his ministry work, he also managed a Chick-fil-A in Clemmons, The Winston-Salem Journal reported in 2018. Lotz lived in Mocksville, the Journal said at the time.

He is a cancer survivor, according to a story in Forsyth Family magazine.

The Rev. Billy Graham, a Charlotte native, became one of the most prominent American evangelical figures over the course of his life. He died in 2018 at the age of 99.

Anne Graham Lotz is one of his five children.

The Lotz family did not respond to The News & Observer’s request for information.