March-April 1998
Reviving the Nations
Join me -- follow Luis Palau for a day as the evangelist kicks off a crusade. Plan to start early, finish late. And you better eat your Wheaties.
by Kimberly Claassen
Kansas City.
Monday.
8:30 a.m: Elected Officials Breakfast
U.S. congressmen, state legislators, mayors, judges, and nearly 200 other officials in Kansas City greeted each other as they arrived for breakfast at the Adam's Mark Hotel. They couldn't deny being a bit curious.
For several months now they'd seen the speaker's picture on billboards and yard signs around greater Kansas City. Jovial as the best politician, he greeted each man and woman within handshake range, remembering those he'd met on previous visits. Laughter and smiles came easily, and his accent -- a remnant of his Argentine childhood --made him all the more approachable.
But Luis Palau wasn't there to make a political statement.
"Jesus Christ truly has influence over societies that respond to his message," Luis told them. "We're trying to bring people in America back to God through our Lord Jesus Christ, because Christ is relevant."
10:00 a.m: Press Conference
Personnel from television, radio, and newspapers gathered at the same hotel. They, too, had seen Luis' face throughout the city. An evangelist. Would this one have anything new?
"What are our goals?" Luis asked, anticipating their questions. "First of all, to bring together the leadership -- political, church, and business. In America we need to emphasize what unites us. And we must insist that in God and in America we are one."
"Help us with the reporting. Don't talk too much about me -- talk about Jesus Christ. That's the best thing you can do. I can't do the job in one week to let all of Kansas City hear the voice of God without the help of the media, so give me a hand."
4:00 p.m.: Leavenworth Penitentiary
Almost 200 men in this federal maximum security prison entered the room, some eager for Christian fellowship, others simply looking for a diversion. Luis moved from man to man, shaking each ones hand, speaking with them. And his compassion grew. These murderers, bank robbers, and drug dealers were still young --many in their 30s and 40s -- and some would be here until their age doubled.
"Christ has come to set you free," Luis told them after the band had played. "And if Christ sets you free, you are free indeed --even though you are incarcerated."
9:00 p.m.: Night Talk
The Nielsen ratings for Luis' live call-in program on KSMO-TV estimated a total of 250,000 people watched over five nights as he gave biblical answers to callers' questions. On this first night, Ryan called.
"I grew up with religion," Ryan told Luis. "Despite all the talk of how great God is, he never really did anything for me. He was never there when I needed him."
"There's a difference between religion and a relationship with Christ," Luis answered. "Knowing Christ is not a burden you bear, but an experience that's fabulous when you understand Jesus Christ and when you give him your life."
Over the next six days, Luis spoke at a women's luncheon, business and professionals' luncheon, and men's breakfast; counseled 20 people on Night Talk; encouraged students at two seminaries, a college, and a school of theology; answered interviewers' questions on two drive-time radio programs; and challenged men, women, and children at six crusade rallies.
He had audiences and exposure beyond most politicians' dreams. And everywhere, he proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
How does he sustain his high excitement and energy? "I get it from two sources," Luis told those gathered at the press conference. "First, Kansas beef. Second, and most importantly, the power of the Holy Spirit."
The power of the Holy Spirit is the only thing, Luis will tell you, that has brought him where he is.
The Making of an Evangelist
By most standards, Luis Palau was an unlikely candidate for international evangelist -- son of a poor widow in Argentina, no connections, sole supporter of his mother and five younger sisters.
"There was no chance, from a human standpoint, that my dreams of becoming an evangelist to masses of people would be fulfilled," Luis will tell you. "But one day the Lord." And so the story begins.
Luis has long had a deep desire, a drive, to tell people about Jesus Christ -- about the change Christ can make in a heart, a family, a community, a country. But, originally, Luis planned to help change the world through other methods.
His father died when Luis was 10 years old. Though the family had been affluent, a friend of the family squandered their money. Within three years, Luis, his mother, and sisters were destitute and in debt.
So, Luis determined to be a lawyer, defending widows and orphans -- free of charge -- the rest of his life. Then he began calculating exactly how many widows he could help. If he were quick and had good assistants, he thought, maybe 5,000 in 50 years. That wasn't enough. "If I present Christ to them," Luis decided, "I can help them in a better way."
Luis doesn't discount social action. But he says, "The people of this world create the problems of this world. If we can lead them to Christ, we will create a climate for other positive, practical changes to take place." If he could reach people through mass evangelism, holding crusades in stadiums throughout the world, he could reach not just thousands, but hundreds of thousands --even millions.
At age 25, Luis left his job as a rising bank executive in the Bank of London's Cordoba, Argentina, branch. At the insistence of Ray Stedman, a California pastor who met Luis during a mission trip to Argentina, Luis came to America for graduate theological study at Multnomah Biblical Seminary. There he met and married his wife, Patricia.
Within two years, he was an American citizen and the first two of their four boys -- twins -- were born. Then Luis, Pat, Keith and Kevin were off to Latin America as missionaries with Overseas Crusades [now OC International].
While living in Colombia, Luis began regular Gospel radio broadcasts, now known as Luis Palau Responde and Cruzada, heard daily by millions of people in the Spanish-speaking world.
The next year, 1965, saw Luis on television for his first live television counseling program in Quito, Ecuador. In 1966 he spoke to 20,000 people at the Presidential Plaza in Bogota, Colombia, on the opening day of his first large-scale evangelistic crusade. He formed the Luis Palau Evangelistic Team in 1967 within the framework of OC International and, with the blessing of OC, formed an independent organization in 1978.
"I couldn't foresee any of it," Luis says. "I didn't twist God's arm or people's arms. I just waited for his timing" (not always patiently, he's willing to admit). "God simply wants you to be surrendered and available to him, wherever he's placed you. Let him make you into a powerful weapon of righteousness.
"I don't expect that a five-day visit to Thailand (or any other country) is going to change the nation, except in the sense of motivating believers to think in those terms. I've always hoped people would think, If God can use Luis Palau from South America, why can't He use me?"
Changing a World
Thirty years have passed since Luis first formed his evangelistic team. He's spoken to hundreds of millions in radio and television broadcasts in 95 countries and face to face to more than 12 million people in 64 nations. In addition, he's written 42 books and booklets -- the latest, God Is Relevant, is the first evangelistic book published by a major New York publisher since Mere Christianity in 1960.
But again, it's not enough. The fire that pushed him to evangelize the slums near his Argentine home at age 17 drives him to accept another dozen invitations at age 63.
"I feel the urgency even more now," Luis says, "because, though by God's grace we've done a lot, it's still a drop in the bucket. A completely new generation has come on board the planet. Hundreds of millions have never heard about the cross of Christ and his saving work. We need to keep going and keep encouraging those who do evangelism."
Luis' urgency translates into a full schedule. This year shows more evangelistic crusades and rallies than ever before: Patagonia, Argentina; South Bucks, England; Cairo, Egypt; Olympia, Washington; Rapid City, South Dakota; Toronto, Canada; Guam and the Palau Islands; Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico; East Midlands and Barnsley, England; and Montevideo, Uruguay.
Similar to mass evangelism made popular by Billy Graham, Luis' crusades draw thousands to stadiums, bullrings, and other large venues to hear how Jesus Christ can change their lives.
At the "Hope for Eternity" crusade in Hong Kong a few weeks before the territory reverted to Chinese rule last year, 127,000 men, women, and children thronged to the stadium. More than 12,000 people responded to Luis' clear-cut Gospel invitation.
"They invited us to come do the last crusade of old Hong Kong," Luis said. "We call it the first crusade of the new China." He expects to preach in Shanghai -- perhaps before the end of this century.
Since 1990, however, Luis has devoted as much as 50 percent of his ministry to his adopted homeland. Kansas City, Chicago, Fort Worth, Miami, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Tulsa are among nearly 20 cities where he's led a crusade.
"America needs a spiritual revival, and that only comes from people's conversions," he says. "No amount of counseling or good works that show our love are going to change people. Only the Gospel changes people."
"I'd like to lead American evangelicals in a new wave of national evangelization," Luis says. "I'd like to encourage God's people to be totally unashamed of Jesus Christ, and unapologetic about boldly proclaiming him by every possible means."
The One Thing That Matters
But that new wave won't begin, Luis says, until Christians get serious about following Christ. "We must begin to pray that God will bring back an attitude of holiness to those who profess to be Christians. We are not going to really shake the cities and towns of America -- we may put on a good show, and have a wonderful time with those who come -- but we're not going to have power in a big way unless we have holiness in the church. We need to ask the Lord to show us how to attract God's people to the glory of what the Christian life can really be like."
Unless Christians first understand the glory God offers them, Luis believes they'll continue to lack fire and seriousness for reaching the lost. "At least 15 percent of the Christians in any given city love evangelism and are willing to throw themselves into it. But the other 85 percent perhaps wish it well from a distance, but are not serious enough to get fully committed to evangelistic activity," he says. "Many local churches don't even have a budget line for evangelism.
"I fear that, unconsciously, we are becoming cowardly when it comes to speaking the name of Jesus. Not that we are ashamed of Jesus, but we're embarrassed at what people are going to think of us. Jesus said, 'If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels' (Mark 8:38). The question is: Whom do we fear the most?"
So, with confidence Luis shakes the hand of revolutionaries, inmates, military leaders, presidents and royalty, telling them Jesus' words.
"The Gospel is the only thing in the world," Luis says. "Everything else is peripheral. 'For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost' (Luke 19:10). How can we do less?
"There is nothing more fulfilling, more exciting, that gets you up in the morning with a bounce, with a purpose, than doing the one thing that counts in the whole universe."
Kimberly Claassen serves as associate editor for the Luis Palau Evangelistic Association in Portland, Oregon.
Upcoming Crusades:
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