Appendix 3 - Do The Work Of An Evangelist
Series: Our Fathers Saw His Mighty Works
Civilization has always been on the advance, but perhaps
during no period has it ever progressed as rapidly as it did between 1900 and
1950. The advances made then in science
and technology were enough to astound any American whose adult life spanned
that half-century; for it was during those years that electricity, telephones,
automobiles, airplanes, radios, TVs, and movies came into use. Culture too has always been changing, but
perhaps it has never done so more explosively than just one decade later during
the 1960’s. The turbulence and
volatility of those ten years, during which the first of the Baby Boomers began
coming of age, were a far cry from what the “Fabulous Fifties” had been. A short list of headlines tells the story
well - the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King,
Jr., the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, anti-war protests, riots on
college campuses and at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the Women’s
Liberation Movement, the sexual revolution, the Summer of Love, San Francisco’s
Haight-Ashbury district, the hippie culture, psychedelic drugs, the Broadway
musical Hair, and the Woodstock Festival. In general, the 1960’s were marked by
rebellion and counterculture, making the United States at 1970 a far different
place from what it had been just twenty years previously.
Along with the disposal of cultural norms came much
derision and abandonment of traditional religion. So dramatic was the social shift of the
1960’s that it seemed nearly to erase all memory of the revival of Christianity
which had occurred just a generation earlier following World War II (recounted
in Chapters 1-16 of this book). Many of
the children of those whom God had touched at mid-century had little use for
the Christianity of their parents. It
seemed that if God was going to stir this younger generation, it would have to
be through an entirely new movement - one still Biblical and Christ-centered
but one directed in the emphases of its message and methods toward a youth culture
radically different from that of 1950.
And this is precisely what God did.
Once again He displayed His mighty works. He raised up a youth movement known in its
own day quite fittingly as “The Jesus Revolution.” Its focus was Jesus, its fervor was revolutionary,
and its marks were still to be seen beyond the end of the 20th century as the
young people whom it had affected rose into the leadership of the American
church.
That God sent a revival in the late 1960’s and early
1970’s is no secret. During my research
of the 1945-1955 movement, I have inadvertently run across numerous stories of
revivals between 1967 and 1973, revivals both corporate and individual and
usually among youth or young adults.
Even the national news media knew that something unusual was afoot. Time carried an extensive report in
its June 21, 1971, magazine characterizing the youth movement which it said had
been growing steadily since at least 1967.
A few gleanings from the article vividly recreate images of the radical
Christian enthusiasm so characteristic of that era: exuberant witnessing on
streets and other public places, overarching emphasis on an intense personal
relationship with Jesus, bumper stickers reading “Smile: God Loves You”,
expectation of divine guidance in every area of life, belief in the potential
for miracles, deliverances from drug addiction, catch phrases like “Praise
God!” and “Bless you,” intense conviction that Jesus’ Second Coming was
imminent, back-pocket paperback Bibles, Christian coffeehouses, communal
Christian houses, the somewhat eccentric Jesus People, the interdenominational
and more evangelical Straight People, the Catholic Pentecostals, total
adherents numbering probably in the hundreds of thousands, free “Jesus”
newspapers, and an overflow of contemporary Christian music including that in
the rock genre.1 A “major
part of the Jesus movement,” reported Time, “is the highly organized,
interdenominational youth movement of the established churches - a sort of
person-to-person counterpart of mass-rally evangelism.” How true that was! And it is that statement which leads us back
to the story of the Lutheran Evangelistic Movement because it seems to have
been especially for the purpose of just such a youth movement that the
Lord preserved the LEM from collapse in the latter 1950’s and revitalized its
ministry throughout the 1960’s. The post
World War II awakening was not the only revival in which the LEM was powerfully
used of God, for the LEM youth movement of 1967 onward was part of another
revival of national caliber.
Revitalization of the LEM 1960 Onward
After having been so greatly used of God during the
mid-century revival, the Lutheran Evangelistic Movement had entered a time of
severe crisis by 1955 (as described in Chapter 15). After a few years of noticeable decrease in
attendance at some of its conferences, demand for its Bible Conferences
suddenly plummeted to a quarter of what it had formerly been. Rev. Evald J. Conrad, thought of by many as
“Mr. LEM,” had resigned from the directorship in 1954. So much of the LEM’s Bible Conference and
evangelism work seemed to have been absorbed by the Preaching-Teaching-Reaching
(PTR) Missions which had become widely used within many Lutheran synods that
the LEM’s leadership discussed among itself whether the LEM had fulfilled its
mission and ought to be dissolved.2
Over the next half decade, five calls to the directorship were issued
but were returned unaccepted.3
But although “the vision concerning the LEM was somewhat unclear for a few
years,” “the Lord did not let the Movement die.
As the PTRs began to wane in momentum” towards the end of the 1950‘s,
“it became quite evident that the Lord wasn’t through with the LEM.” “The special need for evangelism surfaced
again as the continuing and unfulfilled need of the hour. This brought the need of a full-time director
back into focus, and [a] call was again extended” - this time to LEM National
Board member Rev. W.E. (“Ernie”) Klawitter.
Klawitter had been a parish pastor from 1930-1940, an institutional
chaplain until 1945, and a teacher and the director of correspondence studies
at the Lutheran Bible Institute (LBI) in Minneapolis from 1945 onward.4 As the developer and host of the daily Psalm
of Life radio broadcasts, he was well-known to many Christians across the
nation. His poise, confidence,
friendliness, and ability to relate to people5 made him a desirable
candidate for a leadership position.
There was much rejoicing when Klawitter accepted the LEM’s call in May
of 1960 with duties to begin later that October. To all involved, it seemed to be “the Lord’s
timing, with His special mandate for [the] LEM to move on.” Over the next thirteen years under Klawitter’s
leadership, God gave the LEM “a renewed vision and enlargement in the various
ministries into which [it] had been led in earlier years.”
The first of those realms of enlargement was the hiring
of additional evangelists in order to field the growing numbers of requests for
special meetings. The resignation of
Rev. A.E. Windahl in 19566 and the retirement of Rev. J.O.
Gisselquist from full-time ministry that same year7 had left Nels
Pedersen as the LEM’s lone evangelist and had reduced LEM evangelistic series
to an average of 25 annually.8
But that number was to triple and even quadruple during the 1960’s as
the LEM added three more full-time evangelists to its staff within less than
two years. The first of these was Mr.
Philip Hanson who in October of 1960 became the LEM’s second lay
evangelist. Hanson brought with him a
wide range of ministerial experience having previously served as a parochial
school teacher, a lay pastor and assistant pastor, a church and synod-sponsored
lay evangelist, and a teacher at the Minneapolis LBI.9 The year following Hanson’s arrival, numbers
of evangelistic series preached by LEM personnel jumped dramatically to
76. Late in 1961, Rev. Kenneth Ellingson
accepted the LEM’s call to become its third evangelist. Ellingson had a somewhat unique testimony in
that as a young adult he had been “a fairly faithful, but dead, church member .
. . until as Pocket Testament League Secretary I began reading the New
Testament. Through this and the personal
witness of several Christian friends, I realized that the Christian life I
thought I was living had no reality, and I began to seek the Lord.”10 Soon after this experience, he had attended
the Minneapolis LBI where “Christ became a living reality in my life.” Throughout his subsequent years as a lay
pastor, a seminary student, and then an ordained pastor, Ellingson had often
“thought and prayed about going into evangelistic work some day.”11 The LEM’s call confirmed God’s leading in
that direction.
“How many more evangelists does the LEM plan to call?”
wrote W.E. Klawitter in Evangelize after Ellingson‘s acceptance. “We are looking for an ever-increasing number
of requests for special meetings which will become a guide to us in the calling
of further men.” “It is our desire to be
of assistance to pastors in their evangelism efforts in their parishes.”12 Just a few months later with requests still
on the increase, the LEM called yet a fourth evangelist,13 Rev.
Sterling Johnson, who accepted the call and began his duties in July of 1962.14 Even as a young child, Johnson had felt the
call to preach so strongly that he had often done so at home for his parents on
Sunday afternoons. This childhood urging
had led to youth Gospel team service, seminary instruction, and ultimately a
career in the pastorate where Johnson had felt increasingly drawn towards the
work of evangelism, culminating with the LEM’s call.15 With a staff of four full-time evangelists,
the LEM was able to conduct a tremendous 112 series of evangelistic meetings in
1962 and 105 in 1963. Even after
Hanson’s resignation at the end of 1963, the number of evangelistic series for
1964 was 103. Numbers did decrease a bit
after that year but still averaged 82 annually through the end of the decade,
the majority of these being in the upper Midwest.16
Though their styles and personalities differed from each
other - Pedersen more serious and reserved, Ellingson more gentle and affable,
and Johnson more animated and upbeat17 - the LEM evangelists
preached a unified gospel message. Two
classic examples of their sermons given below in condensed format illustrate
that point and serve as evidence of the type of evangelism which the LEM
represented and brought into hundreds of churches. The first sermon is by Nels Pedersen on the
topic “Three Kinds of People.”18
“There are three kinds of people:
Christians, backsliders, and unsaved.
Where are you? You will leave
here changed either for better or for worse.
“Christian, where are you? When it comes to your relationship and
attitude toward the world, are you living a compromising life? If you have love for the world, the love of
the Father is not in you. It’s easy to
try to live on the fringes. Are you
ashamed of Jesus? To take up the cross
is something in which we voluntarily and consistently identify with Jesus. Are you living a surrendered life? The Lord can’t use what He doesn’t have
possession of. Are you witnessing for
Christ? You can’t drink at the fountain
of living water without having it spill over.
“A backslider is one who once had
fellowship with Jesus, but other things have now come along instead. Jesus is only a memory. Backsliding begins in the heart. It involves neglecting the Word of God and
prayer and being filled with one’s own desires and feelings.
“Lost one, where are you? Death is no respecter of persons, yet people
keep putting off thinking about it. You
are either 100 percent saved or 100 percent lost. There is no in-between ground of hoping or
trying to be saved. Are you hiding from
God? That is a losing battle.
“To be a child of God is to be a personal
possessor of Jesus. It is not merely
believing something about Him. Your
knowledge must become a relationship.”
This second sermon is by Rev.
Sterling Johnson and is entitled “Saving Faith.”19
“God calls us to saving faith. There are four wrong ideas about saving
faith. Saving faith is not historical
knowledge about Jesus’ life, death, and second coming. Saving faith is not mental assent to the
Bible. Saving faith is not lip faith
which says it believes but has no concern for souls and no love for the
Word. Saving faith is not dead faith
which wants to claim God’s forgiveness and promises without having
repented. “There are four ways in which the woman who washed and
anointed Jesus’ feet came to saving faith.
First, she was not afraid of the crowd in the house. Many church people go lost because they are
afraid of the crowd. You’ll have an
awful shock when you spend eternity with the crowd that kept you from Jesus.
“Second, the woman didn’t count the
cost. Satan deceives people into only
looking at the negative: what it will cost them to follow Jesus. But what will it cost them if they don’t? Everything!
What a person is before he dies determines his eternal fate. It would be horrible to wake up in eternity
and find out you were wrong.
“Third, the woman who anointed Jesus
came alone. Some people wait for their
spouses. Are you willing to come
alone?
“Fourth, the woman came with a
repentant heart as evidenced by her tears.
God will not despise a broken and contrite heart. There is no one in heaven whose heart God
hasn’t broken. The woman threw herself
on the mercy of Jesus.
“Those who are smug and complacent
in their churches often hear sermons but never come to Jesus. Some people hide behind a religious
veneer. But he who hides his sins will
not prosper. Are you in the crowd that
has no need of Jesus?”
Every year, the LEM evangelists saw God save souls and
strengthen Christians through the preaching and ministering of the Word.20 “God is still converting sinners in almost
every place that we go,” stated Ellingson after eight years with the LEM. “Some places there are many, [and] other
places there are few.” “In one home
where I stayed,” related Pedersen, “nearly the whole family came to know Christ
before the week was over.” Johnson
rejoiced at having been able “to lead three young couples to Christ after a
service in one congregation,” Reports
such as these were not uncommon. Other
times they were more modest: “Though there isn’t anything sensational to
report, Christians do testify of being deepened in their faith, and from time
to time we are privileged to see souls saved.”
One aspect of the evangelists’ reports that truly was sensational was
the physical healings which frequently occurred under Ellingson’s ministry,
particularly through prayer, in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.21 At the end of 1972 Ellingson wrote, “This
year I have witnessed more of the miraculous than I ever have before. God has revealed Himself in healing the sick,
the maimed and the oppressed, and in delivering from various kinds of bondage
to evil spirits and hateful habits of body and mind.” “Other miracles took place without our being
aware of them until receiving a letter sometime later . . . .” “Areas where we have not been before have
seemingly been more open to the miraculous than where the evangelist has almost
become just another tradition.” “The general
reaction of those who witnessed these things was that of thanksgiving and
praise to the Lord Jesus.” “Jesus is the
healer; men may be His channels. To Him
be all honor, glory, and praise.”
Another realm of renewed vision and enlargement for the
LEM during the 1960’s and 1970’s was that of Area Conferences. During the LEM Bible Conferences of the
1940’s and 1950’s, one church or local committee had hosted several days of
teaching and preaching sessions which Christians from surrounding churches and
vicinities had attended. The first of
these Bible Conferences had been the Midwinter Evangelistic Conference. Whereas the Midwinter Conference continued
relatively unchanged well beyond the LEM’s 40th year, the format for most other
Bible Conferences saw a marked change.
“As the PTRs [of the various Lutheran synods] were phased out [in the
later 1950‘s and early 1960‘s], a similar conference format was adopted by
[the] LEM, involving many more congregations than . . . formerly served” by
Bible Conferences.22 “Each
participating congregation [was] supplied with a guest speaker for evening
services, with morning sessions conducted in a centrally located church.”23 In the eight Area Conferences conducted by
the LEM during 1971, all in the upper Midwest, eighty churches participated for
an average of ten churches per conference.24
One of the names most frequently associated with the LEM
during the 1960’s and 1970’s was the name of a place where God revitalized one
of the LEM’s earliest ministries beyond many expectations. At the lowest point in the LEM’s sharp
decline, registration for the two-week 1957 Deeper Life Conference at Mission
Farms on Medicine Lake had decreased over 30 percent from just three years
prior.25 Steadily this number
had increased again until 1,375 registrants in 1961 had prompted the
conference’s expansion to three weeks in 1962 when a record 1,700
registered. Then came disheartening
news. After the 1963 season, the Union
City Mission would be closing its conference facilities in order to enlarge its
work with transient men.26
The LEM would have to relocate.
For several years numerous efforts were made towards building the LEM’s
own family camping facility near the Twin Cities, but each time these efforts
were thwarted by issues such as zoning regulations.27 In the meantime, what had begun being used as
a temporary site for the annual Deeper Life Conference was agreed by all to
have become one of the LEM’s most popular venues. The picturesque beauty and well-maintained
buildings of the Lake Koronis Assembly Grounds in Paynesville, Minnesota,
seemed to the LEM to more than compensate for its less-centralized location 90
miles northwest of the Twin Cities.28 Though only one week was available that first
year of 1964 and the facilities only allowed for 500 to 600 people per week -
the Lakeview and Hillside Dormitories housing 250 adults and families with
smaller children and 250 youth, and the tent and trailer area accommodating
another 50 to 100 people29 - “the feeling was unanimous that [Deeper
Life] return to Koronis in 1965.”30
Beginning in 1966, two weeks were available at Koronis for the LEM’s
use. Total registrations of 1,100 to
1,200 each year were augmented by “good number[s] of day visitors,”31
those traveling in for evening services,32 and crowds that swelled
weekend attendances and lodged offsite.33 The conference program itself, designed for
the whole family, remained relatively the same as in previous years (as
described in Chapter 6); and the Koronis facilities became dear to many as the
sites of numerous personal encounters with the Lord. Among its best-loved buildings were the
quaint, country-style Chapel where senior high youth met in the mornings and
the austere, 1,500-seat, white-clapboard Tabernacle where adults had morning
sessions and campers of all ages assembled for evening services.34 Many attendees long remembered the
Tabernacle’s tall cathedral ceiling supported by rough wooden columns, its
tiers of rustic wood pews sloping downward towards the platform and altar
railings, and its rows of large screened windows with shutters that swung
upward to open the whole auditorium to nature.
Few could ever forget the evening and weekend services when the lusty
singing of a packed audience accompanied by piano and organ so filled the
Tabernacle as to seem almost heavenly.
But it was also in the less likely locations at Koronis during informal
times that God touched lives both old and young as, for example, in the case of
the sixth grade boy who received God’s call to become a preacher while he
listened one afternoon “quiet time” in his dorm room to Ken Ellingson explain
spiritual gifts.35 By 1969, a
two-week registration of 1,400 caused Deeper Life at Koronis to be expanded to
three weeks annually from 1970 onward.
Roots of the LEM Youth Program
The ministries described in the foregoing paragraphs,
together with several others such as the Evangelism Book Center and the monthly
magazine Evangelize, were the major components of the LEM of the 1960’s
and 1970’s around which its youth movement burgeoned. Observing in 1964 that focusing much
attention on youth was becoming a widespread trend, W.E. Klawitter encouraged
the LEM “to plan for an enlarged ministry to youth.”36 By the end of the decade he could declare,
“Our youth ministry that began as a mustard seed many years ago is now a
mustard tree . . . .”37
According to Jesus, that analogy concerned the kingdom of God; and truly
the LEM’s youth program was nothing other than God’s own work which, in regards
to both organization and people, had its roots within the earlier movement of
God post World War II. It was near the
peak of that previous revival that the first Midwinter Youth Conference had
been held on the closing weekend of the regular Midwinter Evangelistic
Conference in January 1951. “Christian
students from virtually all the Lutheran colleges in the Midwest”38
had gathered for Bible hours, discussion times, and preaching under the theme,
“The Master is Here and Calleth Thee.”39 By the mid 1960’s, this event was attracting
2,000 young people annually.40
The summer of 1951 marked another important first for the LEM in its
sponsorship of a singing group, the Messengers Quartet which consisted of male
Augsburg College students who traveled throughout Minnesota, North Dakota, and
the Pacific Northwest.41
But the most significant youth-related development for
the LEM in 1951 was its connection to a man who, although never occupying a
position more prominent within the LEM than that of a National Board member,
was to be mightily used of God for many years as both catalyst and coach of a
youth movement which touched tens of thousands of lives. Donald J. Fladland was born on March 7, 1928,
in Grand Forks, ND, the youngest of eight children.42 In accord with the nominal affiliation of his
family with the local Lutheran Free Church, Don attended confirmation classes
but viewed their completion as his graduation from church and effectively ran
away from God. Sports was his god, and
his athletic prowess contributed to high school championship teams in
basketball, football, and golf. After
high school graduation in 1946, Don’s athletic ambitions were interrupted by
being drafted into the Army which, after basic training, sent him to Japan to
work with prisoners of war. There during
the early years of the American mid-century revival, Don was to become one of
its converts, albeit on the other side of the world. On a certain Sunday morning in Yokusha,
Japan, an Army buddy invited him to chapel to hear a Christian medical doctor
who, as Don later described, “shared simply and powerfully how Christ had died
for me and that by faith I could receive salvation and full forgiveness.” “After that message,” said Don, “my heart was
stirred up all afternoon [though] at the time I did not know it was the Holy
Spirit.” Returning for the evening
service, Don went forward at the altar call and knelt to receive Christ as his
personal Savior. “That turned my life
upside down!” he exclaimed.
“I
knew I was forgiven and . . . I had assurance of salvation.” “I was keenly aware that I was . . . a child
of God.” “The grass was greener and the
sky was blue in a way I had never seen before.
I began reading the Bible constantly and writing letters home talking of
my conversion.” “My heart was filled
with Christ’s love and forgiveness and I wanted to share this good news with my
family.” “I wrote letters to businessmen
in Grand Forks thanking them for wanting to sponsor me on the Pro-Golf Tour, but
I knew I had to decline their offer as I had a calling from the Lord to spend
my life encouraging young people to live for Christ.”
In preparation for that life of ministry, Don began
studying at Augsburg College in Minneapolis in January 1948 after his return
from overseas. There he met and married
the young lady who became his faithful companion and ministry partner,
Violette, or Vi as she was better known.
It was also while at Augsburg that Don was challenged by a local
Lutheran pastor to round up area youth and invite them to church. “So,” said Don, “I visited homes in the area
and told the boys I met that if they came to . . . morning services every
Sunday we would form a basketball team.
And that was the beginning . . . .”
Yes, it certainly was the beginning - not merely of Don’s career with
youth but, much more broadly, of a new move of God.
Following graduation from the college at Augsburg, Don
began studying at the seminary there in the fall of 1951 while simultaneously
filling the pulpit of a Lutheran church in Spicer, Minnesota. It was at this same time that he became
acquainted with the Lutheran Evangelistic Movement and its director Rev. Evald
J. Conrad and began eagerly taking many of his Spicer youth to the LEM’s
Midwinter Youth Conferences and Deeper Life Conferences. By 1955, Don had become so involved in the
LEM’s work that he was elected to its National Board,43 a position
through which he was to deeply influence its program over the next three
decades. And Rev. Conrad, who had
recently returned to his post at Trinity Lutheran Church of Minnehaha Falls,
was so pleased by Don’s work with young people that he successfully recommended
to Trinity that they call Don to be their youth director.
At Trinity from 1955 to 1965, Don Fladland led the youth
groups, co-taught confirmation classes with Rev. Conrad, and organized youth
events that became well-known around the Midwest. More significantly to the broader picture, he
began pioneering youth-to-youth ministry, a relatively new method which was
destined to become, though perhaps somewhat unbeknownst to him at the time, one
of the spearheads of the whole youth revival movement in the years ahead. In Don’s own words,
“From
the time I accepted Christ as my personal Savior, the Lord implanted in my
heart a burning desire to lead young people to Christ. And so I began my work [by] speaking with and
confronting them about a personal relationship with Christ.” As my work progressed, “I discovered that . .
. letting young people meet and share thoughts and ideas . . . allowed them to
grow in their faith and in turn they wanted to share this new found faith with
others. When this began to happen, I
decided to form youth group teams and arranged for these young people to go to
other churches and travel sharing their faith.”
The first of these teams, led
by Don and composed of thirteen Trinity youth either in high school or
attending the California Lutheran Bible School, bore the name The Gospel
Crusaders and traveled to Lutheran churches throughout the upper Midwest during
the summer of 1962.44 Its
members shared their faith during evening evangelistic programs through
personal testimonies, devotions, and songs (including their theme song “We Are
More Than Conquerors” taken from Romans 8:37) and during extensive interaction
with local young people both in organized activities and in host homes. In late 1963, Don organized a similar but
smaller team to visit World Mission Prayer League fields in South America. In the Midwest, the Gospel Crusaders quickly
became an annual summer outreach of Trinity Lutheran with “many young people
[coming] to the altar to accept Christ . . . and hearts [being] transformed by
the Holy Spirit” in the wake of their ministry.
So impressive was the growth of the Crusaders that even Don was amazed. “Young people heard about it from all over and
wanted to be involved with [the] teams.”
Don Fladland’s assembling of youth-to-youth ministry
teams allowed him to employ a unique talent which God had given him especially
for that purpose. “I believe the Lord
gifted me in seeing the potential and talent in a young person before they even
had a chance to realize it themselves,” he reflected years later. “So I encouraged them [and] believed in them
and the Holy Spirit took over and did the rest.” One of the young men in whom Don early
perceived great potential for youth leadership due to his energy, charisma, and
dependability was Gary Alfson. Gary had
entered Trinity’s youth group and confirmation classes in mid 1957 after his
parents had purchased a corner grocery store just two blocks from Trinity and
had become members of the church.45
Earlier that summer, fourteen-year-old Gary had asked Christ into his
life at a Bible camp. The evangelical
emphasis at Trinity did much to nurture his faith over the next four years of
high school, the last of which he served as senior high youth group
president.
Following high school graduation in 1961, Gary attended
the California Lutheran Bible School (CLBS) in Los Angeles where LEM National
Board member and former Trinity co-pastor Maynard Force was president. There Gary spent over 2,500 hours studying
the Bible in two school years and also received a distinct calling from the
Lord. In his own words:
“A
major theme of CLBS instruction was the importance of seeking and understanding
God's will for a life's work. As the
months passed, I would occasionally walk through the failing neighborhood
surrounding Angelica Lutheran Church, whose educational facilities the school
rented, and pray for direction concerning my future. One night while contemplating the future, I
ducked into Angelica to escape the rain and found myself kneeling at the dimly
lit altar in the darkened church. I
pulled a small New Testament from the pocket of my soggy trench coat and began
to read when my eyes fell upon words in II Timothy chapter 4, one phrase of
which jumped from the page at me: ‘Preach the word; be instant in season, out
of season . . . watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, DO THE WORK OF
AN EVANGELIST, make full proof of thy ministry.’ I re-read the passage again and again and
wondered if this might be the beginning of a call from God to a life of
evangelism. I discussed the experience
with Pastor Force who counseled me . . . that, if it was a calling from God, it
wouldn't be extinguished through time and that God would illuminate a pathway.”
The advice was sound and God
certainly did illumine the path. But
that path led to a decade of such atypical evangelistic activity that it would
not be until forty years afterward that Gary would realize that he had indeed
done the work of an evangelist, the Lord having been good to His Word and Gary
to His calling.
The first leg of that calling for Gary was his
participation on the 1962 Gospel Crusaders and the 1963 South America team for
both of which he was recruited by his old youth director Don Fladland. During the summer of 1964, he served as
speaker on a similar eight-member gospel team organized by David L.C. Anderson
which traveled to Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and France. In Sweden alone, the team held “101 programs
in 44 days in 29 locales from the southern tip of Sweden to an area north of
the Arctic Circle and including churches, Bible camps, youth halls, city parks,
dance pavilions, beaches and schools, [in short] wherever there were young
people” willing to listen to the gospel.
The following summer of 1965, Gary traveled for Anderson across the U.S.
as speaker for six weeks with a gospel choir from Sweden and then for the
remainder of the summer with a six-member musical gospel group. Out of these two summers of experiences,
David Anderson formed Lutheran Youth Encounter.
Gary Alfson meanwhile, now about to begin his junior year at the
University of Minnesota, was called by recommendation of Don Fladland to serve
as one of two part-time youth directors at Trinity Lutheran, Don himself having
accepted a call to teach at the Lutheran Bible Institute (LBI) in Seattle.
Under the leadership of Gary and his co-director,
Trinity’s youth group flourished, expanding far beyond just regular activities.46 A Wednesday afternoon Campus Club was begun
to which senior high youth invited outside friends for Bible study, music, and
potluck meals. Each evening during the
summers, volleyball games were played on the church lawn by 30 to 40 youth and
often concluded with gospel singing, devotions, and prayers. A large youth-to-youth ministry team called
The Reflectors was formed and traveled around Minnesota putting on programs for
smaller churches on certain weekends. Thus,
in addition to mentoring his youth in their own Christian lives, Gary instilled
in them through various outreach activities the confidence that they could
indeed serve effectively though relatively young. Little did he know for what God was using the
experience of developing Trinity’s youth-to-youth outreach program to prepare
him.
With his senior year at the University of Minnesota
progressing, Gary considered next attending seminary but was yet undecided
about the future when he received an unexpected invitation which changed the
course of his life. One evening during
the LEM’s January 1967 Midwinter Evangelistic Conference and accompanying
National Board meetings, Gary shared dinner with his old friend Don
Fladland. Don disclosed that his ongoing
recommendation to the National Board that the LEM establish a dedicated youth
program was gaining ground. Then, to
Gary’s surprise, Don asked if he might put forth his name as a candidate for
LEM youth director. Gary replied that
since his future plans were yet undecided, he would be honored for Don to do so
and would pray that God’s will be done.
The LEM National Board had, in fact, just earlier that
day voted to expand their youth program by officially taking over from Trinity
Lutheran the work of the Gospel Crusaders47 whom they had already
sponsored during the summers of 1965 and 1966.48 The following day Don Fladland reported to
the board that Gary Alfson, “whom he felt was very well qualified and
competent,”49 was open to a call to direct this work. And although several other candidates were
considered during the next few months of board interviews and presentations, it
was ultimately Gary whom the LEM selected to be their first National Youth
Director. At just 24 years old himself,
he possessed seemingly inexhaustible amounts of energy and enthusiasm so
advantageous for leading youth-to-youth ministry. And his arrival as youth director coincided
with the beginnings of a mighty moving of God’s Spirit which was to rapidly
multiply the LEM’s youth program beyond the highest of expectations.
The LEM Youth Revival Movement
As Gary began planning for the enlargement of the LEM’s
youth program, his core question was, “How can we, empowered by Christ, best
communicate the reality of living with Him to young people, the majority of
whom have been raised in the church, in such a way as to encourage young
Christians to experience a closer walk and to challenge young non-Christians to
accept Him into their lives?”50
Expanding on his own Gospel Crusader experience to answer this question,
Gary envisioned a youth ministry team spending three days in each community;
interacting with youth during mornings and afternoons through such means as
Bible studies, discussion groups, picnics, softball and volleyball games and
other recreational activities; presenting two evening programs of quality music
and drama with testimonies and preaching; and interacting with youth and
parents further as overnight guests in host homes. The personal encounters would create opportunities
for team members to build relationships and witness one-on-one while the
programs would mass-communicate the Gospel attractively and encourage definite
response.51 Both facets of
ministry would feed off each other. The
music would be a mixture of hymns, Gospel songs, and contemporary Christian
music,52 the latter style being at that time classically melodic
with syncopated rhythms, precise multi-part harmonies, unusual chord
modulations, little instrumentation, and conversational lyrics on contemporary
themes like God’s love and a purpose for living.53 With little alteration, these initial
concepts of Gary’s became the model for all LEM Gospel teams for years to come.
Having a team model in mind, Gary’s next task was to find
college-age Christians willing to dedicate an entire summer to being team
members without receiving any of the monetary compensation so necessary for
their ongoing studies. His interviews
with eager students that spring at LBI in Seattle and CLBS in Los Angeles soon
resulted in 27 such young people being selected for three nine-member Gospel
Crusader teams, the size of each being determined by the number who could fit
into a van pulling a U-haul trailer for luggage and equipment. Itineraries were created largely through the
responses of pastors to advertisements in Evangelize and the needs of
Bible camps for counselors, and they consisted of a western team in Montana,
South Dakota, and western Minnesota; a northern team in North Dakota and
northern Minnesota; and an eastern team in Wisconsin, Illinois, and northern
Michigan. After a six-day training camp
with instruction in personal witnessing and Bible study preparation by LEM
personnel, vocal music by high school music director Sam MacKinney, and
dramatic skits and plays by Sam’s wife Gallia who was an actress and concert
pianist originally from France, the teams began their summers.
It is difficult to assess the overall results of that
summer of 1967, for teams were not mainly interested in numbers nor did they often
know the aftereffects of their relatively short visits. But it is clear that they were part of
something out of the ordinary: the beginnings of a youth-oriented move of God
of a nature not seen in recent decades.
Not only was there “the thrill of sharing Jesus Christ with teenagers
and seeing them ask Him to come into their hearts and rule in their lives”54
but also were there unusual situations such as the young man who frankly stated
that he was not a Christian and did not want to become one but several days
later “came to a [Crusader] service in a neighboring town and there gave his
testimony, telling how after [the team] left he had invited Christ into his
life.”55 Or there was the
girl who opened her heart to Christ through the witness of a team member while
walking together to the gas station after the team member had given her a ride
home and had run out of gas in her driveway.
“Many such incidents happened throughout the summer” and team members
shared some of these at the summer’s-end homecoming rally at Trinity Lutheran.
In the fall, Gary Alfson began a program tour of Lutheran
churches in the northeastern United States where his Moments of Meditation
messages, in tandem with the sacred concerts of Norwegian pianist and soloist
Harald Tolfsen, served as the vehicle for him to meet hundreds of Lutheran
pastors and secure invitations from them for Gospel Crusader teams in Detroit,
Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and many other
smaller cities for the following summer.
That tour and a similarly successful tour with Harald through the
western and southern U.S. in early 1968, together with heightened student
excitement at LBI Seattle, CLBS, and Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota,
resulted in seven full Crusader teams for the summer of 1968.
Training facilities for the large group were offered by
Bethany Lutheran Chur
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