Playing it forward

Posted on April 25, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)

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Series: Characteristics of the Jesus Movement for Today

9. It shook Christianity to its roots (which is the meaning of “radical”).

At the beginning of the 1970s, a small group of musicians shook Christianity to its roots. They burst on the scene seemingly unknown to each other yet all with the same message. The message was about Jesus and how His gospel related to the deep, unresolved needs of their generation for love, meaning, community, peace and justice. These “Jesus Freaks” melded the freedom of the 60s and the Jesus of the Gospels into a new way of looking at Christianity. 

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Posted in Jesus, Jesus Movement, politics | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Urgent

Posted on April 22, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)

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Series: Characteristics of the Jesus Movement for today

8. It was urgent.

For whatever the reason, be it the soon-expected return of Christ, or simply the passion of getting the gospel out to as many people as possible, there was an overall sense of urgency during the Jesus Movement that filled the air and colored everything. Maybe it was a sense that we were experiencing a wave of the Spirit and we had to make the most of it while the opportunity was there. I think everyone knew this newfound popularity of Jesus and openness to the gospel wasn’t going to last. For a couple of years there, it almost seemed like everything was on hold. We were suspended in time and space. For a while, the world stopped spinning and the only thing that mattered was the state of your soul. Time to get right with God.

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Posted in gospel of welcome, grace turned outward, Jesus Movement | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

The Church has left the Building

Posted on April 21, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)

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Series: Characteristics of the Jesus Movement for today

7. It got the attention of the wider culture and was initially perceived curiously as something outside institutional church structures.

Millennials, to a large extent, are not attending church. Church has become too distant and too much of a slick production. Millennials do not like “slick;” they appreciate honesty and sincerity more. They are also isolated and lonely and the idea of attending a church where they could disappear and no one would notice is not what they are after. They do not want to be part of a nameless, faceless crowd in the dark with the spotlight on someone else; they want to be seen and counted. The church today is not meeting their needs. 

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Out of control

Posted on April 20, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading today’s Catch.)

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Series: Characteristics of the Jesus Movement for today

6. There was no one in control. 

The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. John 3:8

No one was in charge of the Jesus Movement. No committee. No pastor. No central organization. 

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Be ready

Posted on April 19, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)

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Series: Characteristics of the Jesus Movement for today

5. It was believed to be the end times and that the return of Christ was imminent.

Two men walking up a hill

One disappears and one’s left standing still

I wish we’d all been ready

Larry Norman

Larry Norman; Love Song; Barry McGuire; Creedence Clearwater Revival; Peter, Paul & Mary; Bob Dylan and many others were all singing about it. Hal Lindsey wrote a best-selling book about it. Preachers were preaching on it. The return of Christ was foremost on everyone’s mind in 1970. It’s part of what made the gospel feel even more critical at that time. The return of Christ put a time limit on the message. “There isn’t much time; better get right with God.”

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God on the move

Posted on April 18, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)

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Series: Characteristics of the Jesus Movement for today

4. It happened simultaneously everywhere 

Where did the Jesus Movement start? That’s easy: Everywhere.

This is a key component of the Jesus Movement. It’s what proves that it was driven not by any person, place, organization or event, but by the Holy Spirit. Many movements begin in one place and spread out from there. Not the case with the Jesus Movement. If you traveled anywhere during the late ‘60s to early ‘70s, you would find a vast spiritual hunger at work. People everywhere wanted to know about Jesus. You might think you were bringing some new message of Jesus and the gospel to some new area, only to find it was already there and going strong on its own. Whether on the street, or in people’s homes, or in communes or in established churches that welcomed long hair and jeans, it was happening simultaneously everywhere. It was in the air, or as Dylan sang, it was “blowin’ in the wind.”

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The gospel according to the roosters’ crow

Posted on April 15, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)

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My daughter lives in a house in the mountains of Oahu, Hawaii, minutes up the hill from the most popular surfing spots on the North Shore. The houses up here all sit on roomy lots where everyone seems to own chickens. So much so that at any hour of the night you can hear roosters crowing — what seems like a cacophony of them, near and far away. 

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Posted in gospel of welcome, grace turned outward, Jesus Movement | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Just Jesus

Posted on April 14, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)

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Series: Characteristics of the Jesus Movement for Today

  1. The Jesus Movement unified believers. (It was all about Jesus.)

We are one in the Spirit we are one in the Lord

We are one in the Spirit we are one in the Lord

And we pray that our unity may one day be restored

And they’ll know we are Christians by our love

                  Father Peter Scholtes

When it’s all about Jesus, division falls away. No one cares if you’re a Baptist, Methodist, Catholic or none of the above when we are all following Jesus. The Jesus Movement unified believers in a way we could certainly all use again. When it’s all about Jesus, it’s simply all about Jesus. It’s not Jesus and Baptism a certain way. It’s not Jesus and premillennialism. It’s not Jesus and a set of rules. It’s not Jesus and no Catholics. It’s just Jesus.

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Jesus versus religion

Posted on April 13, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)

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Series: Characteristics of the Jesus Movement for Today

1. The Jesus Movement unified believers. (It was all about Jesus.)

“Jesus is just alright with me.” The Doobie Brothers (1972)

There’s a reason why it’s called the Jesus Movement. It was all about Jesus.

In 1966 a gospel group named the Art Reynold Singers recorded their song, “Jesus Is Just Alright.” In 1969, the Byrds covered it and then in 1972, the most popular version was released by the Doobie Brothers. Why did a gospel song about Jesus receive such mainstream attention? Because in 1969 and for a few years following (in fact, the Jesus Movement was pretty much flanked by the various versions of this song), Jesus was just alright with a growing number of rock and roll fans all over the world. Suddenly, almost overnight, Jesus was acceptable to people who formerly would not have anything to do with God, religion, church or Christianity. Suddenly Jesus was a different story. 

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Posted in Jesus Movement, Worldview | 6 Comments

Going back and forth

Posted on April 11, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)

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It seems like of late there has been a spate of movie/video projects chronicling the Jesus Movement of the early 1970s. The Jesus Music (the movie) came out last year, and in the fall of 2021, the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College published online their Jesus People Movement Oral History Project including interviews with many of the players (among them, yours truly), and under production right now to be released Easter of 2023, is another feature length Lionsgate film Jesus Revolution starring Kelsey Grammar as Chuck Smith. Not to mention a number of lesser-known film projects out of Hollywood Presbyterian Church and Calvary Chapel and the 2004 CD “First Love” featuring many of the pioneers of the movement.

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Posted in Jesus Movement, new frontier | Tagged , | 4 Comments