I know it has been a while since my last post. I was reading “God’s Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America” by Larry Eskridge. Real love began with Jesus in 1967. The Jesus Movement started among the homeless and hungry youth in San Francisco around Haight/Ashbury. A man named Ted Wise, who turned away from LSD and marital infidelity to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior in 1965, decided to reach out to the youth during the Summer of Love. He and a few other converted friends opened a youth mission near Haight called The Living Room. Hippies started coming there when the Summer of Love was winding down to get a hot meal and listen to the good news of Jesus dying for their sins. This is real love because as Jesus says in John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this that one lay down his life for his friends”. All of us have sinned by rebelling against God’s authority as Lord over our lives. The consequences of this is death or to be separated from God forever. But Jesus, God the son, took the sins of everyone upon himself when he died on the cross. He shed His blood in our place so that we could be forgiven, be reconciled to God, and live forever in His love. This love was what the hippies were mistakenly looking for through LSD and  gatherings like the Human Be In at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The love, life and community they were seeking was and is only found in Jesus. 1 John 4:19 says: “We love because He first loved us”. When we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior by faith, the Holy Spirit comes inside us to change us into people who love God and one another with His true love. In the midst of the turmoil of the Vietnam war, the assassinations of the country’s leaders, and the violent civil rights movement, the hippies were really looking for the answers and comfort only Jesus can provide.

So hippies who were disillusioned with the “Summer of Love” began to leave LSD, illicit sex, and other religions to accept Jesus and the Jesus Movement was born. They discovered that they could not change society by taking LSD, neither could they end the Vietnam War with well-intentioned protests. Instead, they understood that only Jesus could change them and therefore society by His Spirit living inside (See 2 Cor. 5:17). A teen from Indiana told a reporter how his life turned around after accepting Jesus (See page 158 of “God’s Forever Family or GFF). He said, “My life before I found Jesus was a real bummer, I was doing a lot of dope, booze and had low morals. My idea of a good weekend was a hit of acid, a good-looking chick, and all the booze I could hold. But since then I have died and been reborn…I’m free!”

The movement soon spread to places like Hollywood Blvd and San Diego where thousands of hippies were turning to follow Jesus. Then hundreds of thousands were accepting Jesus all over the country. The revival was spreading from the hippies in the counter-culture to middle and upper class youth in each state of America. Jesus is for everyone. Christian communes began to spring up all over the place. Established churches would financially support these communal homes while teens and young people got off drugs and learned to live in community. Then they would find jobs or start businesses to support these homes and coffee houses that were started to minister to youth. They believed in work unlike some of the hippies at Haight. Learning to love the way Jesus does in community (see 1 Cor. 13) prepared many for marriage . The movement changed the youth culture and society . One article in a magazine (see page 130 of GFF) commented that the Jesus movement had “an uncommon morning freshness a buoyant atmosphere of hope and love along with the usual rebel zeal. A love that seems more sincere than a slogan, deeper than the fast-fading sentiments of the flower-children”.

Like the Summer of Love, the Jesus movement birthed many musicians and rock bands but with a different message than the counter-culture. The Larry Norman song, “Why Don’t You Look Into Jesus”, was inspired by Larry seeing a drunk Janis Joplin’s behavior backstage before a show (see page 227 of GFF). Most of us know that Janis ended up dying at age 27 from a drug overdose. So sad! An early Jesus movement hard rock band called Agape had a message for the youth of that day with a song stating: “I come on behalf of the King of Kings, Come and listen to the message that I bring; The message is peace and love, yeah. Not like the world gives, But which could only come from above. The King is Christ, and His death is your life”( see page 216 of GFF).

The Jesus movement was considered over by around 1977, mainly due to communes breaking up due to marriage, and people moving on to jobs and higher education. But most of its people are still following Jesus and growing in His love today. The overwhelming numbers converted during that time might have now decreased in America, but people are still calling on Jesus to be saved today. He accepts all if we accept Him. I think it is time for another Jesus Movement