Then the Lord said to me, “Write my answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct message to others.” Habakkuk 2:2

The Jesus Movement was all about the message. The message was simply about Jesus and how His gospel related to the deep, unresolved needs of a generation for love, meaning, community, peace and justice. The “Jesus Freaks” who carried this message melded the freedom of the sixties and the Jesus of the gospels into a new way of looking at Christianity.  They were people with very distinct views of Christ and Christianity.  They epitomized a movement that vitalized the Church and blew fresh air throughout the culture.

As in Habakkuk’s day, the Jesus movement was about the message, and the message was written plainly on tablets of human hearts and carried everywhere the world over by “runners,” many of them musicians who wrote and sang the songs that were the catalyst for the movement.

The message went everywhere because people largely wanted to hear it. They were hungry for truth and the window was wide open. There wasn’t a discrimination against the gospel the way there has been at other times in recent history. People may have had issues with Christianity but they were interested in Jesus because in the music, Jesus was presented in a fresh way. A whole generation suddenly saw Jesus as countercultural. He was radical. He was revolutionary. Even controversial. Many of the churches initially turned away the Jesus Freaks and their music, but the people on the streets and in the marketplace were open to hearing it.

Today this message about Christ has been obscured by a cultural Christianity that is more about social issues and culture wars than it is about Jesus. We need someone who can break through this barrier of cultural Christianity and get us back to the message of Jesus and the gospel of welcome. Contemporary Christian music can’t do it because it is no longer the novelty it was in the 1970s. It is now standard faire in most churches as worship music.

But there is something else that can break through and get us back to the pure, simple message of Jesus. It’s people like you and me who know Jesus and who take the time to build relationships with those who don’t. It’s a sign of a new movement today — a relationship movement reaching one person at a time.

This is the way the gospel will be spread today. We’re the new “runners” and the gospel is written on the tablets of our hearts.

Introducing our new podcast, Between the Answers 

Beginning September 18 through mid-October, the daily “Between the Answers” Podcast will look back to the pioneers of a historical phenomenon: the Jesus Movement, examine why it transformed into a broader social and political force over time, and ask questions about the Movement’s original message and its transformative power today. Our premise lies in the questions we need to ask between the answers.

Join John & Marti for the latest podcast by clicking on the logo: