In the early 1970s I was working with high school kids at a church in Palo Alto, California when the Jesus Movement started. In a matter of weeks, our attendance went from 30 to 300. And they didn’t come to youth group to socialize or play volleyball. They came with their Bibles and wanted to study the word. They were hungry for truth.
Sunday morning early noon
I wandered in a chilly room and sat
Unnoticed
There were lonely people there
Who listened to a man who didn’t care
Or show it
He just talked about nothing
I could not understand
I stood up and I cried
Listen to me
Don’t you see
You’re not speaking
Openly
I need someone who will help
Set me free
by John Fischer from the song “Cold Cathedral”
My 1969 album, The Cold Cathedral, considered by many rock historians to be the first contemporary Christian album on record, featured a song about a young man walking into a church and pleading for someone to care about him. It captured what many of us as young people were experiencing as the irrelevancy of the church to what we were seeking about the world around us and our place in it. It connected with a generation that was looking for spiritual answers to a chaotic world, but finding that the institutional church was not prepared for their questions or long hair and jeans.
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People get ready, there’s a train a-comin’
Pickin’ up passengers coast to coast.
– Curtis Mayfield
Jesus has a plan to change the world. On the surface it looks rather ludicrous, but in reality it’s working. Here’s the plan: Come to earth as a human, recruit twelve regular guys and walk with them for three years, then leave, and turn everything over to them. It’s brilliant in its simplicity; insane in its expectations that these people would be able to pull this off. They certainly wouldn’t have, had He not left His Holy Spirit with them to indwell and empower them for the job. And thus He called them a church built on a rock that would challenge the very gates of hell.
A fresh new thing is happening in our earth — the earth in which God’s Son paid the price for our lives. And it shall bear fruit, even greater than has taken place in the past. For Christ’s forerunning ways shall make manifest no longer a stereotype, but a prototype of His Kingdom, because the door that He has ordained shall be walked through with liberty and authority, and a new song — a song of deliverance and hope shall be heard — a song that will bring testimony of His glory, and a song that will cause those that have no hope to hear and run towards Jesus and not away from Him.
God has ordained us to be the testimony of His overwhelming love and wisdom. This wisdom will be manifest in and through all that will break the yoke. The sound in the earth of His glory and righteousness shall be heard in future generations to the last one. All who hear it will love with new freshness as He draws them by His spirit. This is the hour of fresh beginnings. Let anticipation bring faith, and faith shall express God’s heart. And the days ahead shall bring even greater fruit than before. “I am that I am,” and I am yours, says the Lord.
Before Christian music was contemporary and Christian radio played it …
Before tours and contracts,
Before careers and airplay,
Before Perrier in the dressing room,
Before Christian promoters, producers, and roadies,
Before Christian busses and semis and record execs,
Before Christian was an adjective,
Before worship was music,
Before Moral was a Majority and Christian was a Coalition,
Before Christianity became political,
Before we knew what we were doing… there was Jesus music.
Fun, laughter, celebration, death. What word does not belong here? Ten innocent people died having a good time celebrating the Lunar New Year in a dance studio of all things less than an hour away from where I sit this morning, and I try to ignore it but it won’t go away.
Tuesday night, Chandler and I attended an L.A. Clippers NBA basketball game against the Philadelphia 76ers. It was the first professional basketball game for both of us. We had pretty good seats — mid-court, first row of the upper deck. Chandler was thrilled. It was better than TV. You could follow the movement of the ball better and the action was nonstop. There were plenty of things to cheer about — a steal and a breakaway, a stop-and-shoot three-pointer or someone snaking through from back court to the front ending with a dramatic slam dunk. But being a baseball fan, I missed the home run — the big event that made everyone get up on their feet and scream for a long time. I’ll have to admit, the game of basketball does have a certain rhythm to it once everyone is clicking together although that didn’t happen too often last night for the Clippers. Probably why they lost, despite leading for a while in the third quarter.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23
There was a historic 4,000 seat auditorium for a church in downtown Los Angeles where the famous radio preacher J. Vernon McGee preached for 21 years from 1949-1970. It was known as the Church of the Open Door. It had a famous neon sign: “Jesus Saves” that could be seen from everywhere downtown, and the sign became such an icon that even though the auditorium was torn down due to earthquake damage, it has been preserved on top of a hotel for the homeless.
This will be the defining moment of our age. When the history books make a record of our times, this moment will be remembered for two things: the Internet and the Millennials. It’s an understated problem for us, and unless we seal the generation away from our involvement, close our conscience, and choose not to follow through with their need for us to create living, real relationships with them, they will walk into their new frontier completely unarmed.
I just spent a hour with my “riding on the coattails of the Millennials” son. (He is our mid-life crisis.) For over an hour, he taught me about twitter. And I can honestly say that after an hour, I learned … well, I learned … actually, I’m not sure what I learned. Okay, I did learn that if you click on the little blue circle with the plus sign in the middle, you can post a tweet. That’s if you can find the little blue circle with the plus sign in the middle. It’s not on every page you go to in twitter.
John Fischer The Catch 