Guest Opinion

Palau delivers message of hope, inspiration

By Paul Warr-king

, Jun 28, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

As a city of Gresham councilor I have to confess I have attended more than one community meeting and wondered exactly why I was there.

Not so, a few Tuesdays back, when I attended the first (and I sincerely hope not the last) non-denominational Faith Leaders Breakfast hosted at Springwater Nazarene.

Minister and author, Luis Palau, a Portland resident and graduate of Multnomah Biblical Seminary, has traveled the world to become a preeminent evangelical preacher famous for extraordinary missionary festivals.

Even if he has spoken to big crowds his short talk really engaged and inspired me to think about Christianity and churches a bit differently.

He sincerely and genuinely spoke about his journey to become an American citizen and what that means to him. He talked about the freedom to do the work he is called to do, his pride in his adopted country and how he sees the contributions ordinary people make every day.

He spoke of meeting Mayor Potter and working on the “Summer of Service” campaign.

People all over our region, one small project at a time, will work to embody Christian values.

In short, he simply reminded us about the responsibility we have to our communities to make them good places to live for everyone.

While the larger purpose of the event was to talk to faith leaders about local issues so they can lead congregations to take action, the deeper message was about drug and alcohol prevention.

We have more than a few challenges in our East County communities; a lack of programs for youths, homelessness, school drop out rates, theft, domestic violence, problems on the MAX.

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