Instead, he will continue a team effort his ministry has successfully established in other American cities, moving away from the centuries-old crusade model made famous by Billy Graham.
Christian celebrities are part of the plan to combine fun and faith in a party-like atmosphere. They include actor-turned evangelist Stephen Baldwin, gospel artists CeCe Winans and Steven Curtis Chapman, skateboarder Christian Hosoi and surfer Bethany Hamilton.
"They're all giving short messages with an opportunity to surrender to
Christ," Palau said in an interview. "The message is sacred. It never
changes. ...The only difference is the delivery system for this
generation."
The 86-year-old Graham has defined large-event Christian evangelism with
a fabled career that presents the gospel in stadium crusades. Palau -- a
youthful 70 -- has reached millions of people featuring a slogan of "Great
Music! Good News!" It has been so successful in attracting young people that
some see it defining evangelism in the early part of this century as Graham
shaped it in the latter part of the last century.
Gone is the term "crusade" and the series of testimonials leading to a
single climax -- an altar call from the featured evangelist. In fact, even
though Palau, a native of Argentina, draws tens of thousands to revivals in
Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia, he's not at all troubled when
teenagers like April Lundholm don't even picture him when they think of his
festivals.
"I caught the end of him, I think," said Lundholm, a teenager who
attended the August 2004 Twin Cities Festival in Minnesota. "But I really
came to hear (the Christian band) Third Day."
The Luis Palau Evangelistic Association, based in Portland, Ore.,
doesn't rely on celebrity to carry the Christian message to people across
the United States, said Kevin Palau, executive vice president of the
organization and the son of Palau, a man frequently called "The Billy Graham
of Latin America."
"You know, a Billy Graham Crusade is an event. A happening. No matter
what the generation," Kevin Palau said. "We are not Billy Graham. But we do
share the passion to reach the unchurched, so we had to change."
A Palau Festival looks more like a fair or street party than a
traditional revival.
The upcoming Washington event will feature sports demonstrations, a
children's area, a food drive and a health fair. Bob and Larry, the popular
characters from the VeggieTales children's series, and a family-friendly
ventriloquist named Mark Thompson also are scheduled.
Since 1999, when Kevin Palau first advocated for this festival approach,
there has always been a professional-sized skate park, a place where
national champions of the once grunge sport of skateboarding perform.
More than 850 churches in the District of Columbia, Maryland and
Virginia are expected to spark a turnout for the latest version. Organizers
expect a wide range of people to be drawn to the event, where they will
likely spend much of their time walking around the lawn of the National Mall
rather than sitting in the stationary seats of a stadium-based crusade.
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But tallying up those who respond to the dozen or so invitations to "surrender their lives to Jesus Christ" is more difficult.
"I would say that we only get to talk to 50 percent who actually said, 'I gave my life to Christ,'" the evangelist said.
The festival concept has appealed to corporate and community leaders,
Luis Palau said. He finds it's easier to get churches to cooperate with the
festival idea. Corporate sponsors, who now fund about 15 percent to 20
percent of the costs, lend legitimacy.
"It was not so much for funds but to make it a community festival, to
let the community know, look, these are normal people," the evangelist said.
"They're not weirdos with some extremist views hiding in a cave doing some
mysterious religious rite or something. They're just regular people who eat
at McDonald's and drink Coca-Colas and drive Chevrolets."
Despite the changes, Palau festivals are rooted in an approach that
builds on Graham's legacy. After all, Palau got his start in U.S. evangelism
in the 1960s when he worked with Graham in California. A decade later, the
Billy Graham Evangelistic Association helped Palau start his own
organization.
"I follow in his steps with humility and gratitude and trying to pick up
part of the mantle because his son Franklin has picked up the big one," the
younger evangelist said. "Nevertheless, his model is an ideal model for a
mass evangelist: integrity, the humility, the persistence, the sticking with
the basics and not ever switching the message even one iota. That is what I
hope to transmit to the next generation myself."
Palau's organization is now packaging its Christian message with a
sports-themed DVD, "Livin It." Released in March, the disc has its own
national tour, which concludes at the DC Festival. Baldwin stars in the
film, but skateboarders Hosoi, Lance Mountain and Ray Barbee have taken the
message to mini-festivals in cities across the U.S. A sequel DVD, "Livin It
-- LA, is scheduled for release in March.
All of this innovation makes sense within the history of Christian
outreach in America, according to Bill J. Leonard, dean of the divinity
school at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. He's an expert on
American evangelism.
Palau is doing what preachers like George Whitefield, Charles Finney,
D.L. Moody and Billy Sunday did in this country from the late 18th century
well into the early 20th century, he said. "They're bringing the Christian
message out of the church and into the culture."
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