Evangelist Greg Laurie pays tribute to Chuck Smith, calling him ‘God’s man for a moment in history’

Evangelist Greg Laurie pays tribute to Chuck Smith, calling him ‘God’s man for a moment in history’

He also reveals how he led his mother to Christ shortly before her death

By Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST News Service

ANAHEIM, CA (ANS – May 1, 2016) – Southern California evangelist and pastor, Greg Laurie, has paid tribute to his mentor, the late Pastor Chuck Smith, founder of the Jesus People Movement in Southern California.

In a wide-ranging interview for my “Front Page Radio” show conducted recently at Angel Stadium, Anaheim, California, Laurie said, “Chuck was the most unusual human being I’ve ever met. He was a combination of so many things simultaneously. But I would say I would sum him up as follows: ‘God’s man for a moment in history.’”

Greg went on to say, “I was just watching on television a show called ‘The Sixties’ on CNN, produced by Tom Hanks. They had one of the episodes called ‘Drugs, Sex and Rock and Roll,’ and it talked about all the idealism and mythology of that period, and it was kind of playing itself out and it started out seeming almost magical to those of us that were there, but then we began to see the dark underbelly of it and where it was all really leading, which was to a horrible lifestyle of addiction death and other things. It showed just so much chaos and people’s lives that were ruined.

“I thought they could have put a whole another 30 minutes in that program -- about the Jesus Movement. It just happened right in that moment in time late sixties and early seventies. Here, right at the epicenter of that was Chuck Smith, who was sort ‘the adult’ in the room. There were all these young kids coming to Christ, but he was older than us; old enough to be our dad; and he was a stabilizing figure.

“So, as this revival was breaking and had a lifespan that ended quickly in other areas, it continued on at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa through Pastor Chuck, who gave us parameters and stability that was lacking in other places.

“So God used Chuck used to always say to us that everything in life is preparation for something else. As a young pastor, Chuck had a lot of failures and setbacks, but God was preparing him for this moment in time when he would step in and play such a significant role in the lives of thousands of young people in the Jesus Movement.”

I was speaking with Greg Laurie after he had just spoken to a group of pastors and Christian leaders about his upcoming SoCal 2016 Harvest Crusade at Angel Stadium, Anaheim, from August 26-28, 2016), which besides his preaching will feature performances by tobyMac, Skillet, for King & Country, Hollyn, and Phil Wickham. He’s being doing them there for some 27 years now.

He then explained how it was Chuck Smith who had the vision to expand his preaching to a wider audience.

“The Harvest Crusades really began with a vision from Pastor Chuck Smith, who is in heaven,” he said. “I was doing the Monday night Bible study at his church, and a lot of people were coming out and also many were coming to Christ every week. It was something like 70-80 people each service. So Chuck had this idea to take it to a larger venue and he came to me and proposed this and said, ‘I’d like to go to larger place.’ I replied, ‘Well Chuck, where were you thinking of going?’ He said it was the Pacific Amphitheater [a large rock venue in Costa Mesa]. I said, ‘Chuck, that’s a really big place’ and he replied, ‘Well, Greg, we serve a really big God.’

“That was our first step and, as I recall, we broke attendance records there at that particular venue because we held it over four or five nights. Tt was really an amazing thing. Thousands of people came out, and so the next year we decided to do a few nights at the amphitheater and one night at what I believe was called Anaheim Stadium then. This venue has changed its name several times from Anaheim Stadium, Angel Stadium, Edison Field and now back to Angel Stadium.

“So we went here one night with a huge crowd, and the next year, we came to the stadium only for three nights and we haven’t looked back since and that sort of launched our crusade ministry around the United States and even the world. Since that day, we’ve been able to bring the Gospel in person to 5,000,000 people and we’ve seen 500,000 professions of faith. That’s a mind blowing number and but it all started right here.”

The SoCal crusades have now evolved also into Harvest America, so I asked Laurie how that occurred.

“John Collins, our crusade director, had a vision to take the technology that we have now and make a live event that people could participate in all around the country. It enabled us to reach so many people simultaneously. It was as though I went and did five or six crusades in a year in different communities, both large and small, but we’re able to do it all in one day. The theme was ‘One Day, One Church, One Message.’ So we set aside our minor theological differences, and that message was that of the gospel.

“We’ve been doing this now for four years, and this last one in AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, was far and away the largest of the lot, with over 350.000 attending the event. There were 80,000 plus at the AT&T Stadium and the rest were in venues around the United States, but we were able to track the numbers. So these were actual people in seats in places these are not guestimates and I’m not talking about television or radio which is very hard to monitor exact numbers on these are actual people that attended. If you add in radio and television, it’s thousands and thousands really.”

I pointed out to Greg Laurie was that all of this was despite him coming from a dysfunctional family, and he replied, “Well maybe there’s more synergy to it than one would think. The Bible says to whom much is forgiven that one loves the much more. I know what it’s like to be the abandoned child. I know what it’s like to be the child of divorced parents. I know what it’s like to be raised in an alcoholic environment, and also know what it’s like to be trapped in drugs because I did all I experienced these things or I did these things.

“Up until the age of 17, I experienced a lot of these things. So when I get up to speak it’s someone that can say that ‘I’ve been there, done that and bought the t-shirt as they say,’ so I understand what many of the people are going through. But more than that, I know the message that changed my life can change other lives as well. So I still remember my roots and you know there’s an old saying, ‘If you see a turtle on a fencepost, you know he didn’t get there by himself.’

“So, when you look at me here, clearly this is not anything a person could orchestrate. It’s never something I aspired to, in fact my sole aspiration as a kid was that I wanted to be a professional cartoonist. So that’s what I was aiming towards. My backup plan was to own a pet shop because I loved animals. But God had different plans. So we’ve just been seeking to take what God has opened up for us and you know do the best we can with every one of these events.”

Greg then shared how he was able to lead his mother to the Lord shortly before she died.

“My mother she was married and divorced seven times that we know of, and was a raging alcoholic,” he said. “She really was like the modern-day woman at the well, looking to men for fulfillment. As time passed, her lifestyle choices took a toll on her, so that when she was 70, she looked like she was 90, and she was getting dialysis three times a week. Her great beauty that was once so attractive to so many men, was now largely gone and she was just a shell of herself.

“But she was a very proud woman, but she would come to these events with my aunt [Willie Jordan] and comment on the size of the crowds. She was sort of proud of me, because she felt I was kind of in quotes ‘a celebrity.’ But I would say to her that it ‘doesn’t matter. It’s about Jesus Christ and coming to know him.’

“What frustrated me was God had allowed me to lead people to Christ all around the country, and the world, but I could not lead my own mother to the Lord. I prayed for her many, many, many times, and hadn’t given up hope, but I had said everything there was to say to her and I knew she was ill, but I didn’t know she was near death’s door. And one day, I was on my way to go to church, and I just sensed a leading from the Holy Spirit to go and engage my mom.

Although I’d done this many times, I felt led to go and do it again. I said to Cathe [his wife], I’m going to go have a conversation with my mom about her soul. Please pray for me. And so I got over to my mother’s house and she was alone. I sat down and I said, ‘Today mom, I want to talk to you about your soul.’ She said. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ which was her default statement. Whenever the conversation got into serious things, she would say I don’t want to talk about it.’ But this time I said, ‘Well, today, we’re going to talk about it.’ I wasn’t going to accept no for an answer. So I pressed her. And that conversation resulted in her making a commitment to Christ, or maybe a recommitment as maybe a prodigal. I don’t know which. All I know was she was not walking with God and we saw her in church the next Sunday which was mind-blowing for all of us. How was I to know that one month later she would die.”

For more information on the ministry of Greg Laurie, please go to: https://www.harvest.org/, where you can also find out the 2016 SoCal Harvest Crusade.

* This is just a part of a extensive interview with Greg Laurie. To listen to the complete program (including his hilarious impersonations of both Chuck Smith and Billy Graham), please go to http://oldassistnews.net/frontpageradiofiles/FPRGregLaurie20160501Mono.mp3 

Note: I would like to thank Robin Frost for transcribing this interview.

Photo captions: 1) Greg Laurie speaks at Harvest America in Arlington, Texas. 2) Chuck Smith and Greg Laurie. 3) Greg Laurie with Cathe, his wife. 3) Greg as a child, with his mother. 4) Dan Wooding interviewing Greg Laurie at Angel Stadium.

About the writer: Dan Wooding, 75, is an award-winning winning author, broadcaster and journalist who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, and is now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for nearly 53 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. Dan is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS), and is the author of some 45 books. He also has a radio show and two TV shows, all based in Southern California.

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