Yesterday afternoon my wife and I went to the Luis Palau - Twin Cities Festival at the state capital grounds. Luis Palau is a Christian evangelist who has been traveling the United States with his Christian evangelism festival. The concept is based on the idea of something like the Warped Tour, bringing together popular bands and extreme sports in one venue. The only difference here is that there are also Evagelistic messages urging people to aceept Christ in their life, and all the performers are Christian.
We went to the festival yesterday in time to see several popular Christian bands including Casting Crowns, Toby Mac and the award winning Third Day.
The festival was a huge success - by park service estimates there were over 120,000 people at the event throughout the day. Judging by the size of the crowds when we were there, I believe it was true. I also heard that several thousand people accepted Christ for the first time.
Media reaction to the event was varied. The Star Tribune offered quite a bit of coverage of the event, and at most points the editorial coverage was pretty fair. Looking at the opinion page, however, showed that a lot of people had problems with the festival. What was their gripe? That the festival was a "Christian event" and by having it on state land, it essentially amounted to government endorsement of religion. Others said that people at the festival were "intolerant" and "filled with hate". That comment couldn't have been further from the truth.
Listening to the local KQRS morning show the day after the event, the personalities on the show were basically saying, "How dare those Christians tell people that they're going to hell if they don't believe in Christianity". They basically took the position that a person's faith should be personal, and never shared or preached to anyone else. "Don't you dare push your religion on me!". They also lied and said that the park service estimates for attendance were wildly exaggerated, even though they hadn't attended the event.
Just seeing all this hatred and bigotry aimed towards Christians makes me realize that whenever something good like this happens, Satan hates it. He'll try to oppose it in any way he can.. But God is more powerful and will overcome! The thousands of new Christians in the Twin Cities can testify to that..
We went to the festival yesterday in time to see several popular Christian bands including Casting Crowns, Toby Mac and the award winning Third Day.
The festival was a huge success - by park service estimates there were over 120,000 people at the event throughout the day. Judging by the size of the crowds when we were there, I believe it was true. I also heard that several thousand people accepted Christ for the first time.
Media reaction to the event was varied. The Star Tribune offered quite a bit of coverage of the event, and at most points the editorial coverage was pretty fair. Looking at the opinion page, however, showed that a lot of people had problems with the festival. What was their gripe? That the festival was a "Christian event" and by having it on state land, it essentially amounted to government endorsement of religion. Others said that people at the festival were "intolerant" and "filled with hate". That comment couldn't have been further from the truth.
Listening to the local KQRS morning show the day after the event, the personalities on the show were basically saying, "How dare those Christians tell people that they're going to hell if they don't believe in Christianity". They basically took the position that a person's faith should be personal, and never shared or preached to anyone else. "Don't you dare push your religion on me!". They also lied and said that the park service estimates for attendance were wildly exaggerated, even though they hadn't attended the event.
Just seeing all this hatred and bigotry aimed towards Christians makes me realize that whenever something good like this happens, Satan hates it. He'll try to oppose it in any way he can.. But God is more powerful and will overcome! The thousands of new Christians in the Twin Cities can testify to that..
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