Crusades & Festivals

Luis Palau has been preaching the gospel faithfully for a long, long time. His message doesn’t change: ‘the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for us.’

But his methods have been transformed in the last few years, changing both the name and style of his evangelistic events.

First to go was the word ‘crusade’...

LP: We stopped calling them crusades because that was offensive to Muslims but also because that was a WW2 thought. Eisenhower called the landing on the continent the ‘crusade in Europe’ when he wrote his autobiography. Billy Graham picked up on that. At one point we started calling them ‘operations’, but then people started asking if we were having surgery! Eventually the younger guys came up with the term ‘Festival’. So in 1999 we started the first Festival, in Portland, Oregen, where we live.

The festivals that the Luis Palau organisation put on have proved to be immensely popular and fruitful. Not only have a lot of cities across the world invited him and his team in to do festivals, but the number of those attending and those responding have increased. The crowds have gone from anything from double the size to ten times the size.

In Argentina, we had a crusade in the 1980s at a football stadium, and we had 60,000 people. We went back in 2001 and had a festival in a park and we had half a million each day.

What else have you changed apart from the name?

LP: No choir. No clergy on the platform. We have a rock-and-roll-type of platform, lights, contemporary music, five bands every night; sports, skateboarding, BMX bikes, motocross. We do two days instead of a week or two weeks and that I really miss. Two days seems so short — noon till 10.00 pm. We have children with Veggie Tales characters who hug the kids, rock-climbing, balloons, and then a child evangelist gives the gospel. Then comes the sports and then the gospel, then we have the main stage, five hours of music, then the message, then more music, and in some cities we have closed with fireworks.

Overall, there are ten gospel messages given in the course of the day, but Luis only gives one of them; he is keen to let younger people say what Jesus has done in their lives.

What is the organisation trying to achieve?

LP: We have tried to make the festivals family-friendly, youth-orientated, contemporary, not outwardly religious but clearly Christian. No pulling of punches, no watering down. The message hasn’t changed one bit, but the trappings have. I say to the press that the delivery system has changed but the message is exactly the same.

And how many people respond?

LP: The average of those making commitments is the same as it has always been in my preaching — about 5%. In some countries it could be 8%, and 10% is significant. In Costa Rica (we were there in April), we have 400,000 people and about 40,000 commitments, I think. I would have to check it out. Where there is a harvest going on and there is fruit, naturally it is greater, and if it is a tough place, then it is harder.

However, the new system of holding festivals with people milling around has presented its own problems, as Luis readily admits, as well as having its own inherent strengths.

We see many more non-believers come, because they feel comfortable. When people come in now, everybody gets a pencil, a decision card and some other materials. We say: ‘Raise your hand if you have prayed to receive Christ’, and they wave and cheer. Then the counsellors — whom we call friends of the Festival — give them a CD or a book, pray with them, fill out the card and take it in, as in the old days. But in a crowd like that not everybody gets attended to, so we have bins all over the edges, and we say to the people, if nobody has talked to you, fill out the card and when you leave, there are flags with bins, throw in your card and we will send the same materials to you.

What do you do differently in different cultures?

LP: You adapt. For instance, skateboarding is not big in Argentina, so we didn’t do skateboarding. In Spain it is not big so we did BMX instead; there are some Spanish BMXers who are world-champions. You have to research the local cultures. We are going to Texas and so we are having a country-and-western singer, because in Texas they like country-and-western music and we will draw more of the adults with that.

What is your assessment of the church in South America?

LP: Including Central America and the Caribbean, the gospel is going forward amazingly. The crowds are unbelievable and churches are being planted all over. South America has now sent out 8,000 missionaries — many to the Middle East and Africa.

8,000 missionaries and the gospel have only been in South America for 130 years maximum. Brazil has sent out a lot of missionaries as well. Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico — they all have. And the church in South America is strong. Missionaries who come to Latin America now go to places where there are no churches or to teach at Bible colleges or seminaries. They have a role to play but, by and large, the church is led by the South Americans themselves, which is how it should be. All honour to the missionaries — they brought the Bible, they brought the gospel, they passed the baton and they moved on. Now when we go to a Festival it is all run locally.

What are the weaknesses of the church in South America?

LP: The churches are run too much with a single top leader — although they seem to grow and explode.

They are visionary and exciting and they lead the troops — people like a good general. But it does create a dependency that is not healthy. Some of the churches are aware of this and working on it. The best churches have multiple staff and small groups, so that they don’t fall apart so easily — no one wants that to happen.

It is said that 20% of people in some countries of South America are evangelical but it doesn’t seem to make much social or political impact. Is that true?

LP: It is not true and actually it is having a lot of political impact but it takes longer to show than we wish. It takes time for society to be changed. I was an idealist in my youth and I hoped in one generation, before I went to heaven, we would see it all happen. We have seen one or two dictators crop up again but we didn’t have a dictator for 20 years, except Castro, but now these fellows in Bolivia and Venezuela are acting like dictators, although they were legally elected. So this could be a problem. The lack of revolutions is to a great extent the result of evangelicalism. But there are businessmen in several countries (not all), who really live by ethical standards, who pay their staff properly, who do retirement pensions, who do medical coverage, who are really picking up on the biblical concepts of loving your neighbour. It is much better.

What can the church in Britain learn from other countries?

LP: I love the UK and I love to come and I hope to start a new series if I get invited but I think the one thing it could learn from Latin America and a good portion of Africa and parts of India and Asia is to get back to basic evangelisation — humbly, wisely but aggressively. You cannot win people to Christ by timid methods. You have to be bold, work together, strategise together — that is what is happening in the places where the church is growing. Britain used to do it but there has been a cooling off. Instead of spending a lot of time arguing about evangelism, get on with it and do it together as one body. The Evangelical Alliance could be the source of stimulating united efforts city-wide. The Lord speaks to cities. In South America, cities come together. They may disagree as believers on a lot of issues but when someone says let’s do a city-wide effort, they all come together, with a few exceptions. Get all the churches possible — the church is weak but it is God’s key.

What are your plans for the future?

LP: Carrying on doing the same thing, maybe with a few innovations!

Ali Hull talked to evangelist Luis Palau at the Keswick Convention in July

First to go was the word ‘crusade’...

What is the organisation trying to achieve?

And how many people respond?

What are your plans for the future?

Alison Hull

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