As you may have heard a movie is coming out next February called "The Jesus Revolution". It stars Kelsey Grammer as Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel and Jonathan Roumie (who plays Jesus in The Chosen) as Lonnie Frisbie, the founders of The Jesus Movement that began in the late 60's and carried through to the late 70's.
What you may not know is that is that I was on the very tail-end of that revolution and immersed in Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, Contemporary Christian Music and Maranatha Village (the site of the original Calvary Chapel congregation which later became a Christian-based retail village).
I am one of the Jewish people who began to come to faith as Jesus as Messiah (Jews for Jesus was born around this time) which began to explode in 1967 (the year Israel retook the city of Jerusalem in the six-day war).
I was about 11 or 12 when teenagers, who looked like hippies, began showing up in my neighborhood and talking to total strangers (me included) about Jesus and the Gospel. These were all completely foreign words to me. I had been raised in a nonreligious Jewish home, but one thing had been drilled into my brain from early childhood and that was that Jews don't believe in Jesus and that to "convert" was the absolute worst thing a Jew could do; akin to being gassed in the Nazi ovens.
I had several of these encounters and learned that if I prayed "the sinners' prayers" with the Jesus Freaks (as they were known then) that they would leave me alone quicker and go away happy that they had won another sinner to the Lord.
By the time I was in 8th grade, my one and only friend, Dawn Searcy, who had moved away, began writing me and telling me about Jesus. She was living with a young Christian Couple in Santa Ana and invited me over to spend a day. I politely declined. A short time later she asked if I'd like to go to Knotts Berry Farm with her and I said yes only to show up and learn that I had been tricked. Instead of Knott's Berry Farm I had been snookered into going to one of the very first Calvary Chapel Concerts in their brand-new building. There I sat cross-legged on the shag carpet with hundreds of other young people, listening to this band called Dove testify how God had miraculously provided instruments to play at the "very last moment" while I rolled my eyes in disbelief. I later went forward at the altar call (because they were handing out free stuff) and came out to the hugs and cheers of total strangers and with a psychedelic-designed Bible. I asked Dawn if she was trying to convert me and when she said yes, I told her it was NEVER going to happen.
Fast forward 4 years, I miraculously came to faith in Jesus as my Messiah in 1977 and a few years later found Dawn to tell her the amazing news only to find out she had left the faith and become a Buddhist. I went from having zero interest in religion to the Jesus Freak I used to make fun of.
I began attending Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa concerts on Saturdays, the Friday night movies (Thief in the Night), Chuck Smith's bible studies on Sundays and Thursdays and Chuck Missler's amazing studies on Monday nights. I joined the college and career group. At 19 I began to work for a magazine called Contemporary Christian Music Magazine that featured articles on the music and the bands that played a major role in the Jesus Movement. I met my husband through a Calvary Chapel College and Career Retreat up in Twin Peaks and count my time in that church as some of the most blessed moments of my life. I long to return to those days. Chuck Smith, Chuck Missler, the two most wonderful teachers you could ever have on the Bible, have since passed into heaven and I can't describe how much I miss them.
Attending worship at Calvary Chapel was like being at summer camp. We sang in harmonies; we sang in rounds. We lifted our arms in the air, closed our eyes and praised the Lord together. It was WONDERFUL. I remember one song in particular where we all put our arms around each other in that church that held 3,000 people, and together we all swayed back and forth as we sang "We are one in His Spirit". It was that song from 43 years ago that came to mind today when I saw a photo on Facebook about the Jesus Revolution Movie.
We need another Jesus Revolution. Us original "Jesus people" are aging and dying out. We need a new breath of inspiration from the Holy Spirit; in short, this sin-sick world desperately needs revival. That is what I'm praying for. I hope this movie will be the catalyst for a whole new Jesus movement where millions of people come to faith in the God who loves them.
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. - Jeremiah 31:31-34