Richard Kannwischer, Lead Pastor at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, invites the community to hear Max Lucado on Wednesday, Oct. 7.
“I think it’s great that it’s free because it’s an event that might be inaccessible to a lot of people if they had to buy a ticket,” Kannwischer said. “Max is one of the best selling authors of all time. The event is free to encourage anyone to come. You still need a ticket to attend, but they are free.”
Max Lucado is a bestselling author, pastor and speaker. More than 120 million Lucado products have been printed in 54 languages, including 92 million books. Reader’s Digest has called him “America’s Pastor,” and he has been featured on countless national media outlets including “The TODAY” Show, “Good Morning America, “Huckabee” and “Fox & Friends.” He has been named one of the most influential leaders in social media by the New York Times.
“When I was in college, I went to school in San Antonio where Max was a local pastor,” Kannwischer said. “The Christian living book market didn’t really exist; Max basically created it. His first two books, “No Wonder They Call Him Savior” and “Six Hours One Friday,” were the first books that I read as I was coming back to faith, besides the Bible, and they spoke so personally to me. I had a chance in college to meet Max, to go to his church a couple of times. His was the first devotional work that I ever was a part of. His writing was daily bringing me into the presence of God by reading it.”
“It’s an honor for me, all these decades later, to bring Max and get to introduce him to our community, and for people
to get to know him,” Kannwischer continued. “One of the things I love about Max is that he is still a pastor first and then an author. Here you have such a mega New York Times bestselling author, but he still is a pastor first. I admire that so much about him.”
Jon Batarse, Minister of Communications at St. Andrew’s, explained that Lucado will be speaking about his new book “Glory Days: Living Your Promised Land Life Now,” and do a Q&A.
Lucado’s new book is his 32nd book. According to Lucado, the majority of Christians aren’t living up to their God-given potential. He cites a 2007 survey of more than 100,000 members of 1,000 churches in the US which concludes that nearly nine out of ten churchgoers admit to feeling “stalled” in their spiritual growth and that they aren’t as close to God as they’d like. His new book gives hope to those who are stalled and offers insight into living life at “full throttle.”
“Max embodies so many of our values at St. Andrew’s: the relational ministry, the notion of all generations in community, and living biblically,” Kannwischer explained. “Maybe somebody will come because they connected with a piece of his fiction or they used to read a children’s story to their kids and maybe they didn’t even know that Max was specifically a Christian author. People are going to get to experience a little bit of St. Andrew’s in and through Max sharing because he embodies that warmth and that relational ministry vitality that people are looking for.”
Max will be speaking on Wednesday, Oct. 7 at 6:30 p.m. at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, 600 St. Andrews Road in Newport Beach. The event is free but you need a ticket to attend. They’re available at StAndrewsTickets.com.
Cindy can be reached at cindy@onthegrow.com.
