CHICAGO, IL (October 18, 2007) – When Billy Graham would come to a town, everyone knew that he would focus on the need for people to accept Jesus as their savior and then finish with an altar call.
Speaking at Wednesday’s North Park University chapel service, Tony Campolo showed himself to be the Billy Graham of something akin to the social gospel. Everyone knows he’s going to call the audience to live radically for the poor. He even told some of the same stories and used the same lines he’s been using for 20 years.
Still, he was as powerful as ever, mixing the hilarious with the horrifying, calling a new generation and reminding the previous one to be thankful for God’s gift of salvation by responding to the needs of others.
“That’s what stewardship is about – it’s responding to Christ as you find Christ waiting to be served in those who are in need,” Campolo declared.
Campolo, who is a professor, shared the story in which a student’s father was angry that his son had been so inspired in class that the young man gave away his possessions and moved to the inner city to minister to the poor. The father yelled, “Don’t take me wrong, Campolo; I don’t mind being a Christian up to a point.”
In some ways the father’s reaction was typical, Campolo said. “We’re all willing to be Christians up to a point. And you know and I know that Jesus calls us to move beyond that point.”
Christians are too quick to water down the gospel’s call to the poor, Campolo added. “It’s about time we really started taking Jesus seriously, realizing he meant what he said.”
He added, “You say you’re making this thing sound so radical. I’m asking you students at North Park, ‘When did Christianity cease being radical?’ That’s when it ceased being Christianity. Jesus doesn’t ask for tokens for a little surrendering – a little here and a little there.”
Campolo called on students to consider serving in the Third World, but added that the Third World isn’t far away, referencing areas of extreme poverty that remain prevalent in the United States. “In fact, it’s within walking distance of where you’re sitting here.”
He told of children watching a dying man suffer in a horrible accident and be unfazed. “I don’t think there’s anything that breaks my heart more than seeing little kids that are hardened,” Campolo said. “And Jesus says, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ ”
Christianity is about doing more than good works, said Campolo, who exhorted the students to focus on their interior lives as well. God will always walk with us, but it is up to each person to let the Spirit transform us from within, he explained.
For that transformation to occur, students should spend time in silent prayer, not asking for God to do something, but waiting in silence for him to move. “So often our prayers are like my son when he was just seven years old, coming into the living room and saying, ‘I’m going to bed. I’m going to be praying. Anybody want anything?’ ”
“When was the last time you waited 10 minutes for Christ to invade you,” Campolo asked. “No, I’m serious. When was the last time – in silence, in quietness, in stillness – you waited for the Spirit to invade you, to saturate you, to fill you up, to explode in you?
“Isn’t that what you want?” Campolo pressed. “Don’t you want more than a set of propositional truths?”
As he concluded, Campolo didn’t ask the students to come to the altar. He did, however, challenge them to go into all the world.
To listen to an audio recording to Campolo’s message, courtesy of North Park University, please visit Campolo Message.
