THE TROJAN HORSE" OF SUCCESS
Peter
Lowe's Success Seminars Pack Arenas Across America
With A
Mixture Of Pep Rallies And... The Gospel
By Dan
Wooding
In his
latest article, Dan Wooding renews his acquaintance with Peter Lowe
and discovers
the incredible changes in his life since they first met. For
Lowe, who was
born of missionary parents in Pakistan, is storming across
America with
his message of success -- but what kind of success?
----------------------
What a change
in the life of Peter Lowe. I had first met this young,
sandy-haired
missionary kid many years ago at a writer's conference at
Wheaton College,
where he was on his first date with Tamara, now his wife.
Tamara had dragged
Peter Lowe to the conference and for their first date, they came to me so I could
critique one of Tamara's writing projects.
But now, Peter
Lowe, who was born in Pakistan to missionary parents and grew
up in India and
later Canada, where he received a bachelor's degree in economics at Carleton
University in Ottawa, has changed beyond recognition.
He is the founding
president and CEO of a twenty-five-million-dollar organization that is
responsible for the largest seminars in the world. His
Peter Lowe's
Success Seminars attract sell-out crowds from coast to coast in
the U.S., with
more than a half-million people attending each year. The unique combination of celebrity
superstars, business trainers, music, special effects, patriotic spirit and
inspirational messages has made Peter Lowe's Success Seminars an American
phenomenon.
Showcasing the
talents of the world's finest speakers...from former Presidents and Four-Star
Generals to sports heroes and Hollywood legends...Peter Lowe has
created the largest, most unique business seminars in the world, staged in dozens
of cities every year.
Some of his
speakers have included Christopher Reeve, Barbara Bush, President
George Bush,
General Colin Powell, Bill Cosby, Lady Margaret Thatcher,
Charlton Heston,
Mikhail Gorbachev, General Norman Schwarzkopf, Larry King,
and President
Gerald Ford.
I met up with
Peter again at the Great Western Forum, home of the Los Angeles
Lakers, where he
was putting on one of his massive events. Speakers that day
included Zig
Ziglar, Barbara Bush, Larry King and Tommy Lasorda, legendary
former manger of
the Los Angeles Dodgers.
So I asked
Peter how he defined success. "First of all you have got to look
at the long term,"
he said. "I like to share with business people, 'If I
could show you how
to be a millionaire in 30 days would you like that?' They
say, 'I'd love
that.' 'Okay you'll be a millionaire in 30 days, but only for
one day, then
you'll be bankrupt for the rest of your life.' Then it doesn't
sound so good.
"When you look
at the timeline of eternity, what does 30, or 50 or 70 years
of so-called
success mean, if you don't have eternal life. True success
is preparing
for eternity. Whatever happens in this life is really incidental.
"And secondly,
when you discover that reality of eternal life, and the author
of life, Jesus
Christ, then you will certainly want to experience that life
on a day-to-day
basis here. And having the fruit of the spirit of love, and
joy and peace and
self-control. I think it is hard to come up with a better
definition of true
success than this."
One of the
secrets of Peter Lowe's Success Seminars is that he uses a Trojan
Horse tactic to
not only pep people up with success tips, but also to introduce them to Jesus Christ
through an optional seminar. I asked him if people actually find Christ
during his seminars.
"Yes," he
nodded, "One of the people lined up there today at the Great
Western Forum,
said, 'I was at your seminar at Anaheim last year and someone
had opened up my
eyes to spirituality and I began realize that the spiritual
was important when
I came to your seminar. But no one ever told me that I
needed to trust in
Christ; no one said that Christ was important. I came
there, I found
Christ! He asked if I would sign his Bible with my favorite
verse. To me
that's what it is all about.
"We all have a
calling, as Christians, to bear fruit and fruit that will
last. It's
the lasting fruit that counts. I'd much rather have three people
that make
decisions that last, than a thousand that don't. It's just
wonderful to see
what happens in people's lives when they come to Christ."
HAVING A GREAT TIME
I observed that
the 17,000 people at the Forum seemed to be having a great
time during the
one-day seminar. So I wondered how he sees his approach as
apposed to that of
Billy Graham?
"I really
think, when it comes down to it, when it comes to sharing the
Gospel; I am very
direct, particularly for this setting," he said. "Today I
talked about
repentance, hell, judgment, and sin and, of course, God's
forgiveness and
eternal life, so I really go through the whole nine yards of
the Gospel, which
people say you can't do in a setting like this. Which, of
course, is proven
wrong. You know, the Gospel is Good News, and people want
to hear good news.
But certainly
my great hero is Billy Graham. He is exactly 40 years older
than me and, if I
can be faithful for the next 40 years, that will mean a lot
to me.
Obviously, he has an evangelistic ministry, as we do, but his has so
much gone beyond
just bringing people to Christ, it's gone to the point of
unifying churches,
of putting Christianity on the map, putting us on the offense, instead of the
defense. There's no backside to the armor of God and
he has just shown
Christians that you just have to go forward with the gospel. And, of course,
his ability to work with world leaders and with integrity and all of these kind
of things are facets of a ministry that I don't think has been duplicated
in all of Christendom.
I then asked if
he saw any irony of coming from Pakistan, with a Canadian
background, and
suddenly being a celebrity in America?
"Well, I
wouldn't call myself a celebrity in America at all," he stated.
"But certainly,
when I grew up in India, having been born in Pakistan, I was
bitter about it,
and now I look back and I say that it was the best thing that ever could have happened
for me. For I think God used it to open up my eyes for the kind of ministry I
could have. The kinds of opportunities here.
"The way of
thinking in India is very different, Eastern through is very
different to
Western thought and I think it has helped me to see outside of
the box. I
think the kind of evangelism I do is really outside of the box.
You wouldn't
believe the number of Christians who say it can't be done, until
they actually see
it done. I probably would have fallen into that trap
hadn't I
discovered some different ways of thinking that have challenged the
pre-suppositions
we use in the west. And I think just some of those things
have been
fundamental to the ministry God's call me to."
So I asked if,
culturally, his seminars couldn't be done in India?
Well, I tell we
have had a lot of requests to do this in India and I do a lot
of speaking in
India," he said. "We haven't done a Success Seminar there,
but really one day
I'd love to do one. I'm going to Taiwan to do one later
this year and
we've had requests to do five of them in China this year. I've
had requests from
Hong Kong, India and Singapore.
"Historically,
evangelism has not been good at reaching the up and outers, or
you could call
them the up and inners. Who says you have to be up and out?
You can feel that
you are totally successful, but we still have a gospel for
you. And in
that sense, in a mass sense, this ministry has been fairly
unique in terms of
reaching those elements of society. If you go to Argentina or Africa, it is
typically the poor people that are the Christians. We're trying to reach the rich
people for we believe the rich people should be Christians, too. We
don't have to tell them, 'Wait until your life falls apart and then you'll meet
Christ.' We say, 'Even if you think your life is together, you need Him now.'
"Back in 1981,
I knew what was called the ministry of mass evangelism. To
come back to Billy
Graham, I felt he was my model. He was the only one who
knew how to fill
up stadiums and has done it faithfully decade after decade.
Hasn't given up or
fallen. I've seen a lot of people who have tried to copy
Billy Graham and
no one has been able to do it. I tell those people, 'When
Billy Graham
started he was very creative. He did things differently, so if
you are going to
copy him, you do it by doing things differently from him.'
"So I asked
myself how I would re-invent the Billy Graham crusade for the
21st
century? And this was my answer to the question. I'm not
saying it's the
right one, but I wanted a ministry that was mainstream. Most
evangelists
struggle in
preaching to the choir. I come from a Christian background where
we were fighting
the tide of evil and I've never liked that. I want to be
with the
tide. So I thought, 'How do you make evangelism the tide?'
You get
on board with the
Gorbachevs and the Thatchers and the Reagans. You get them
on board for the
evangelistic event. I kind of envisaged filling up stadiums
like we have been
doing and have them talk about various elements of success
and then I come on
and say, 'If you're interested in success, you've got to be interested in the
Gospel.' I still haven't filled up those stadiums, so
my dream still
hasn't come through, but you can see a glimpse of it."
Dan Wooding is an award winning
British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife
Norma. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to
Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS).
Wooding is the co-host of the weekly radio show, "Window on the World"
and was, for ten years a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in
Washington, DC. Wooding is the author of some 42 books, the latest of
which is his autobiography, "From Tabloid to Truth", which is published
by Theatron Books. To order a copy, go to www.fromtabloidtotruth.com.
danjuma1@aol.com.
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