Kathryn Kuhlman - part 1

APRIL 1975

I went to Kathryn Kuhlman Crusades 3 years in a row. For the first two years I was in a 300 voice choir being blesssed as I watched dozens of people healed. But for the third year I was in the audience wondering if what I was watching was real or some sort of circus show. In other words, I had learned to question and examine everything and I wasn't so sure anymore about Kathryn Kuhlman or about many of her routines. Even though I was in such a mood, the day I went to my last KK Crusade would become one the wildest of all my experiences. But before I get into that event, I need to explain who Kathryn Kuhlman is.

Kathryn started out as a Pentecostal preacher who had a good sized church until she met a radio preacher whom she fell in love with and married. The only problem was, when she met him, he was already married and had children. It ruined both of their ministries. But after 10 years of marriage together they decided that Kathryn's ministry was more important than their marriage, so they broke up.

Kathryn had a hard time getting back into ministry because news of her illegitimate marriage followed her from city to city for several years. Eventually she was able to find peace and gained a good following. That was when the healings began. They weren't planned or expected - they just happened.

As her ministry grew, she began traveling around the country holding healing services and gaining quite a following.

Her services were carefully crafted. People who didn't look like they were true followers were removed from the front chairs and services were held in buildings that couldn't quite hold the mass of people who wanted to get in. Like the Billy Graham Crusades, KK started her meetings with music and hymns, a 300 voice choir singing (she especially loved "It Is Well with My Soul,") and a flamboyant piano player named "Dino" who in time threatened to write a book exposing KK as a fraud. The book was to be called, "The Late Great Kate," but was buried in return for a hefty but unknown amount of money paid to Dino by KK.

After quite a bit of music and hymns, KK preached from the scripture. As I remember, she one of the better preachers I heard... very solid in the Bible - but I don't remember much about her preaching. Oh yea, and she had a very dramatic style of speaking and moving around on the stage. It was like every movement was over stated and filled with drama.

During her preaching people would start getting healed - it just happened. And once it began she would have ushers find those being healed to come forward to testify about their healing. After their testimonies, Kathryn laid her hands on them and said something like, "The power of God is on you." Then the people fell backwards, "slain in the Spirit."

That was the show. Occasionally, some Pentecostal in the audience would get all excited and start praying in tongues or something else to steal the attention away from KK, but Kathryn responded very wisely to this; she would not allow it. To this day that was one of the two positive things I got from KK. The second was the fact that unlike most healers she admitted she didn't know why some were healed and some weren't - some people who had no faith were healed while others with loads of faith were not. I liked that idea. There are mysteries involved in healing.

After her death Benny Hinn had a vision of Kathryn Kuhlman telling him that he should be a healer. Yeah, sure.

When I saw her in 1975 I had no clue about Kathryn's jaded past. I just knew that I was struggling with the question of what was real and what wasn't. But oh what I was about to experience!

I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.