Young People At Crusade

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31922, 25 February 1969, Page 18

Young People At Crusade

Attendance at the Billy Graham Crusade at Lancaster Park last evening was the best so far, about 5000 filling the No. 1 stand and spilling over to the adjacent one.

Several hundred persons streamed out of the stands and down on to the field when the associate evangelist, the Rev. L. G. Adams, gave the invitation for a commitment to Christ.

There were family groups, husba-ds and wives, elderly folk and many young people. As they stood quietly in the still evening, Mr Adams warned them that being a Christian was not easy. “In fact, it is impossible without Christ in your hearts,” he said. “Please remember that you will not become perfect overnight Your commitment here tonight is only the beginning.” It was “youth night” at the park last evening, perhaps two-thirds of those present being young people. When the choir leader, Mr I. Chambers, asked for those who were present on Saturday night to wave their song sheets, more than half the stand was a sea of white. It was the most normal thing in the world to want to be liked, but very often it was for the wrong reasons, said Mr Adams, in his address. “Being accepted by others often pleases us. Our desire to please others begins really in order to please ourselves," he said. The tragedy of this was that as a person

grew up, one ceased to be one’s true self. We play to the gallery, and our own individuality gets papered over, so that eventually we don’t know who we really are.” As teen-agers and as adults, there was a tendency for a person to want to be the centre of his own little universe. This was wrong thinking, said Mr Adams. God was at the centre of all things. When Jesus came to earth

almost 2000 years ago, It was God walking in a human body, exhibiting the personality of God. “And just as God saw possibilities in the rough, tough, profane fisherman, Simon Peter, so too he sees possibilities in every person which no one else sees,” Mr Adams said. Sin really was selfcentredness. “God asks that you put Him at the centre

of your life and He will change you from the inside out —just as He did for Peter, and for His chosen apostles, and for thousands of men and women throughout history,” said Mr Adams.

Wayne Frost, of Shirley Boys’ High School, read the lesson. The New Zealand general secretary of Youth for Christ (Mr G. J. Johansson) led prayers, and the Blessing was given by the Rev. L. E. Pfankuch.

Mr I. Chambers, a member of the crusade team, announced that groups who came forward on Friday and Saturday had been handed literature which had nothing to do with the 1969 Billy Graham Crusade. He said that only literature of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was legitimate crusade material.

One of the highlights of last evening was the appearance of the Kinsfolk, a youth group, all members of one family, from Australia who had flown to New Zealand specially for the crusade. Introducing them, Mr Adams said that one of the exciting things about Christianity today was that music had “lost its long face,” and had been replaced by bright, happy, joyous music such as should have been all along. At a stall in the park grounds near the main gate, where Bibles, several books by Dr Billy Graham, and other literature had been on sale, the biggest demand so far had been for records. The chairman of the finance committee of the Christchurch crusade (Mr M. A. R. Cameron) explained before the offertory that all costs Involving members of the Billy Graham team were being borne by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in the United States. The accounts of the crusade would be audited as soon as possible after it ended, and made known any surplus would not be remitted from New Zealand.