Crusading in Quake Country : Evangelist Luis Palau Will Preach 5 Evenings in Van Nuys

Who is this Luis Palau whose name shows up on posters, lawn signs and bumper stickers across Los Angeles and is the buzz of the evangelical churches?

He is an Argentine-born evangelist who is believed to have preached en masse to more people--10 million souls in 60 countries--than anyone but Billy Graham. Despite that, he is a little-known figure outside the world of evangelical churches and traveling crusades.

That could change beginning today when the 59-year-old Palau brings his crusade to earthquake country, in the secular surroundings of the Birmingham High School football stadium in Van Nuys, for a series of nighttime events to include entertainers Pat Boone, Smokey Robinson and Dean Jones.

The emotional and spiritual shivers sent up by the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake and its aftershocks are a big reason why organizers expect to draw heavily from the San Fernando Valley, where nearly 200 churches have helped organize the events.

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“The timing of the crusade is providential,” said the Rev. Scott Hilborn, pastor of Canoga Park Presbyterian Church. Hilborn said he does not believe God wrought the 6.8-magnitude quake as any judgment on the local scene. But, he said, “It seems very clear to me that God has used this earthquake in very positive ways for the spiritual well-being of Los Angeles.”

“The quake heightens everybody’s awareness of a need for an anchor that goes deeper than job and family,” said the Rev. Scott Bauer, a crusade official who is senior associate pastor at Church on the Way in Van Nuys.

Palau said Tuesday that he and his aides a year ago were describing the planned San Fernando Valley crusade as the “Hollywood-Burbank Crusade” because few people knew where the Valley was. “When the earthquake hit there was no need to say Hollywood-Burbank anymore,” he quipped during a news conference at the crusade site.

Palau was invited by 50 pastors, mostly in the Valley, with the 8,000-member Church on the Way taking the lead in organization. The church provided office space for a year and the crusade’s honorary co-chairmen, Pat Boone and car dealer and philanthropist Bert Boeckmann, are church members.

Local organizers and staff officials from the Luis Palau Evangelistic Assn., based in Portland, Ore., say interest has been unusually high. About 2,800 people have turned out for classes to learn how to assist and encourage crusade participants to commit themselves as Christians.

“We’ve trained twice as many people as counselors than we have for any other crusade,” said crusade director Colin James, of Portland.

Palau, who patterns his programs after Graham’s popular crusades, has earned the confidence of church leaders because he has steered clear of sexual scandal, politics of the religious right and unconventional teachings.

Most of the participating pastors and churches fall into the charismatic/Pentecostal and evangelical range of the Christian spectrum. Nonetheless, the crusade’s backers include three United Methodist congregations, three Episcopal parishes and two Lutheran churches that are affiliated with liberal-to-moderate denominations.

More than one pastor noted that among the many socially and religiously conservative churches taking part, there are conflicting views on women’s ordination, baptism and other issues.

“We have churches that have put aside differences for the sake of unity,” James said.

Queenie Walcott, a member of Lake View Terrace Baptist Church, is typical of the kind of person the crusade’s organizers want to attend the rallies. “I need more spiritual growth to learn about relying on Scripture to deal with different situations,” Walcott said.

She also plans to bring a couple of friends with her--people who she said have intermittently gone to church or Bible studies but have yet to make strong commitments. Those are also the kind of people organizers hope will attend.

One conspicuous non-supporter is Pastor John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, which averages a total of 8,000 people at its three Sunday services.

MacArthur is a fundamentalist in doctrine who has been critical of charismatic/Pentecostal churches because of their supernatural claims of healing and speaking in tongues, but the Rev. Lance Quinn, senior associate pastor, said that Grace Community elders decided not to become involved in the crusade because of their own effective ministry.

“We have 100 to 150 visitors each Sunday who have never been to our church before,” Quinn said. “We are not discouraging anyone from participating as individuals,” he added.

The decision by church elders forced the Rev. Daniel Lozano, pastor of a 400-member Spanish-speaking congregation meeting at Grace Community, to withdraw from the Latino committee for the Palau crusade.

“I knew Luis Palau back in Argentina some 30 years ago,” said Lozano, pastor of Grace Community’s Spanish Department. “We preached in each other’s churches in Cordoba.”

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Lozano and some other Latino Protestant leaders in the Valley have been disappointed that the crusade did not include bigger plans for Palau to preach in Spanish. All five evenings of the crusade are in English with simultaneous translation in Spanish for those who bring radios and earphones.

The one Spanish service linked to the crusade was held Saturday night at Church on the Way and attracted 2,500 people. Organizers said they limited the Spanish outreach because they worried that holding rallies in Spanish and English on consecutive nights would be confusing to people.

The unusual venue came about because the Valley has no professional sports arena or major stadium. So the Palau organization had to be content with the bleachers and temporary field-level seating at Birmingham High School’s football field, which can accommodate 15,000 people.