93,000 attend religious festival in Portland
Religion Today, August 26, 1999
Oregon may be one of the most unchurched states in the country, but you couldn’t tell it last weekend in Portland.
Huge crowds clapped, sang, and danced to contemporary Christian music in a downtown park, and evangelist Luis Palau preached. The two-day attendance of 93,000 at Portland Festival ’99 was the largest ever at one of Palau’s rallies in the United States. The festival was organized by his ministry, the Luis Palau Evangelistic Association.
The festival, a free concert, featured some of the country’s hottest Christian bands, including Bob Carlisle, Point of Grace, 4Him, Audio Adrenaline, dc Talk’s Toby McKeehan, Third Day, Nikki Leonti, Dawkins & Dawkins, T-Bone and The Tribe Called Judah.
Ten mobile cameras depicted the action on Jumbo-Tron screens so everyone in the crowd could see. A food drive received 25,000 pounds of nonperishable items to be distributed to those in need in the area.
Police estimated the crowd at 38,000 Friday night, Aug. 19, and 55,000 on Saturday, Aug. 20, making the festival the largest event ever held at Tom McCall Waterfront Park, along the Willamette River. Some boaters anchored to hear Palau’s message and the music.
Palau gave a 30-minute Gospel invitation each night, offering Christ’s message of hope and salvation. “It shook the whole city for two days,” Fred Baye, a Palau spokesman, told Religion Today. Much of the crowd, if not most of it, was unchurched, he said. An estimated 32 percent of Oregonians attend church.
It was Palau’s first evangelistic rally in the city, where he has lived for 31 years. The 64-year-old native of Argentina studied at Multnomah School of the Bible, met his wife, raised his four sons, and organized his evangelistic association in the city, where he goes to rest between rallies.
Many Portland residents said they had not realized what a prominent figure Palau is in Christianity, Baye said. Palau has preached to 12 million people in 65 countries, including speaking to a crowd of 842,000 in Guatemala City.
The unexpectedly large size of the turnout, and the attention given to the festival by the Portland media, “makes it very clear that there is a tremendous spiritual hunger,” Palau said. His organization had expected as few as 10,000, and was overwhelmed by the response, he said. “I’m humbled that God has chosen to bless the people of this region, using our ministry to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ.”
Evangelist Palau clarifies what it is to be a Christian
The Presbyterian Layman, September/October 1996