Tucson Evangelical event likely to draw thousands

The event is fashioned much like a Billy Graham crusade, with nightly sermons that explore creation versus evolution, living in today's world and what the Bible says about the future. Nationally known guest evangelists including best-selling author Joel C. Rosenberg will lead the discussions.

Each night also will feature big-name Christian entertainers, starting tonight with Grammy- and Dove Award-winning, multiplatinum country-turned-gospel-singer Randy Travis and alternative Christian rocker Phil Wickham.

The seminar is being spearheaded by seven Tucson Evangelical churches, led by the megachurch Calvary Chapel and its founder and pastor, Robert Furrow. It is aimed at reclaiming into the Christian faith "those who might be a little wayward," as well as attracting converts to Christ, Furrow said.

"I'm excited and hopeful to see people come to Jesus. That to me is the most wonderful thing I can see, for people to go from death to life," said Calvary Chapel parishioner Ashley Donde, 24, who has spent the past several months spreading the word about the event to anyone who would listen. "If one person comes to know Jesus this weekend, it's all worth it."

The seminar could be the biggest non-denominational religious gathering in recent Tucson history. Furrow bases his attendance estimate on Calvary's experiences hosting standing-room-only Easter services at the arena over the past several years. Those services also are set up as crusades, and they regularly attract overflow audiences.

Furrow said Calvary Chapel invested $150,000 in the seminar, which he spent the past nine months organizing. Other participating churches, whose roles are mainly to promote the event to their members and in their communities, are Real Life Christian Fellowship, Calvary Christian Fellowship, Calvary Chapel Oro Valley, Book of Life Community Church, First Southern Baptist Church and Fellowship Bible Church.

This is the third time Furrow's church has hosted a large-scale crusade in its 23-year history in Tucson. The last one was in the early 1990s at the Tucson Music Hall, and the first was about a year after he arrived in Tucson from New Mexico to start Calvary Chapel.

Furrow, 47, started his church in 1985 in a meeting room at a Residence Inn on East Speedway near Wilmot Road. There were six people gathered that first Thursday night — Furrow and his wife, Lisa, and four others. The next week, a few more attended. Each week, the gathering grew until it had quickly outgrown the hotel and moved to a larger meeting room at the Smuggler's Inn, a block away.

In July 1989, Furrow leased a 5,600-square-foot space in an industrial park near South Palo Verde and East Irvington roads. Two years later, the church bought the entire building, 48,000 square feet in all, for a chapel, church offices and classrooms. In 1999 it expanded east and established a second location in a 25,000-square-foot space at 8725 E. Speedway. By next March Calvary Chapel will enlarge the East Side campus by 33,000 square feet when it finishes renovating a former Osco drugstore next door.

Calvary Chapel of Tucson does not have members — it doesn't require congregants to attend formal classes to become members — but Furrow estimated the church attracts 7,000 worshippers each week between the two locations. That makes it the area's second-largest Protestant church behind Casas Church in Oro Valley. Casas has held steady at 8,000 members for eight years, according to Glenn Barteau, senior associate pastor.

Both churches are part of the larger Evangelical Protestant movement, which saw its overall numbers in Arizona inch to 23 percent of churchgoers in the state, according to the recently released Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Catholics comprise the state's largest religious group, at 25 percent, the study found.

Evangelical Christians are best defined as Protestants who emphasize personal conversion and evangelism. Central in their belief is the authority, primacy and, typically, inerrancy of the Bible.

This weekend's crusade, though, is not about Calvary or the city's evangelical community at large, Furrow said.

"More important to us is growth in the kingdom of God in general," said the father of three. Noting his church's steady growth, he said, "That's not why we're doing it. One of the reasons that we're doing it is to work together with the other churches around town."

To that end, he said, it has been a positive first step that could lead to more joint efforts.

If you go

Past, Present, Future Seminar

• When: 7 p.m. today through Saturday

• Where: Tucson Arena, 260 S. Church Ave., Downtown

• Cost: Free

Schedule

• Tonight: National radio host and Pastor Skip Heitzig, "The Past — Creation vs. Evolution." Musical guests: Randy Travis and Phil Wickham.

• Friday: Local radio host and Calvary Tucson Pastor Robert Furrow, "The Present — Living in the World Today." Musical guest: Lincoln Brewster.

• Saturday: Author and The Joshua Fund founder Joel C. Rosenberg, "The Future — What the Bible Says About Our Future." Musical guest: The Katinas.