Greg Laurie Helping Others Lost

By James D. Davis, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Jul. 5–”You have to belong in order to be lost. I was born lost.”

Not a typical opening for a documentary about an evangelist like Greg Laurie. Not for a megachurch pioneer who has preached to crowds of up to 85,000. And untold millions more through radio, TV and the Web.

But an apt one for someone who was born out of wedlock. Who grew up under seven stepfathers. Who joined fellow Baby Boomers in pot and acid.

“I wanted to reach other lost boys and girls,” says the pastor of Harvest Fellowship in Riverside, Calif., during one of his frequent visits to South Florida. “They’ve had bad homes. They’ve made bad decisions. And they feel doomed to continue that way.

“But I can tell them that the cycle was broken in my life by the power of God, and they can change, too.”

Laurie, 55, was in town to speak at two Calvary Chapels — first in Kendall, then in Fort Lauderdale. He also showed his documentary and signed his newest book, both titled Lost Boy.

He pastors one of the first megachurches in the United States, with up to 15,000 attendance every weekend. His stadium rallies, including Fort Lauderdale in 1995, have drawn four million thus far. He’s written 30 books, and his program Knowing God With Greg Laurie is shown worldwide on cable and satellite TV.

But he started life as a self-confessed “bastard,” born after a one-night stand. He lived in a dozen homes, often spending nights alone while his Marilyn Monroe look-alike mother caroused.

As a Southern California teen, he was caught up in upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s: rock music, flower power, Watergate, the drug culture. Nothing filled what he called an inner “emptiness.”

In 1970, he saw a circle of “Jesus freaks” pray at his high school. Something prompted him to join them, and he found himself praying to become a Christian.

He felt no wave of emotion, just some internal changes. One was a lightness, “like a big burden fell off me. I didn’t even know I had one until it left.”

The other change: “I no longer felt mad at the world.”

Two years later, Laurie began a Bible study that became Harvest Fellowship. In 1990, he started his signature crusades, first in Anaheim.

Why didn’t he tell his story until now? Partly from a disdain for most bios, which he calls “puff pieces.” Also because some chapters weren’t finished.

One strand was his mother, who returned to her childhood faith before dying in 2000. Another was finding his biological father — a man of 85, suffering with Alzheimer’s.

“He didn’t recognize me,” Laurie says with disappointment. “Deep in my heart, I thought he’d still love me.”

But now that his past is public, reaction has amazed him. People approach and pour out their own stories. And more than 200 have posted on his blog site (blog.greglaurie.com/), confessing problems with gangs, heroin, sexual abuse, suicide attempts.

“So many of them have gone through worse than I have,” Laurie says. “When I’m honest about my story, they feel safe to tell their own.

“But I didn’t write it to make people feel sorry for me,” he quickly adds. “I wrote it because if God can use me, he can use anyone.”

James D. Davis can be reached at jdavis@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4730.

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