By JOHN FORTMEYER, CNNW publisher

PORTLAND -- It won’t be famed evangelist Luis Palau speaking, but it will be a couple of his associates who will help provide a new evangelistic emphasis to a popular series of youth music outreaches nationally.

In response to an invitation from the organizers of the “Festival Con Dios” concerts, the Palau team has agreed to provide local evangelists Mike Silva and Jose Zayas to speak in 39 cities nationally this fall.

Silva and Zayas are among the group of Next Generation Evangelists sponsored by the Palau team.

“Our team is very excited to be joining Festival Con Dios with a common goal -- to reach young people with the Good News of Jesus Christ,” said Palau. “Bringing together the fun and the music of Festival Con Dios with the gifted evangelists of Next Generation Alliance is going to touch many young lives around the country.”

Kevin Palau, the evangelist’s son and an administrator for the Palau association, termed the new partnership with Festival Con Dios “a marriage made in heaven.”

“We’re simply trying to help these music events also be able to be strong in emphasizing evangelism -- going from being a wonderful outreach for believers to becoming full evangelism events,” he said.

He said the Festival Con Dios sponsors ap-proached the Palau team because they were impressed by the team’s ability to mobilize churches to support evangelistic outreaches.

“We took a number of months to decide whether we could pull it off logistically,” he said.

Kevin Palau emphasized that the paid-admission Festival Con Dios concerts will in no way attempt to replace the larger, free-admission festivals nationally that feature his father as primary speaker. One such event is being held in the Seattle area in August.

Festival Con Dios started last year as a touring project of the popular groups Newsboys and Audio Adrenaline. It also included many of the other top names in youth-oriented Christian music. In Oregon, Festival Con Dios has been held in Keizer and Medford.

This fall, it is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 6 in the Portland area-- either at Lloyd Center or at Hillsboro Stadium, said Kevin Palau. Final location is yet to be announced.

It also will be held in Seattle and Medford as part of the national tour that runs from mid-September through mid-November.

Modeled after Palau’s “Friendship Evangelism” program, the team behind the Next Generation Alliance/Festival ConDios will connect early and often with the local church communities, providing pre-event recruiting and training, on-site counseling, and post-event follow-up and communication.

To explain the opportunities available for reaching local youth not only at Festival Con Dios in Portland this October but also at Palau’s “Puget Sound Festival” in the Seattle area this summer, the Palau association is inviting youth pastors from hundreds of local churches to a free noon luncheon on Tuesday, June 25.

This luncheon will be held at the Palau headquarters, 1500 N.W. 167th Place in Beaverton. For reservations, phone Kevin Palau at 503-614-1500.