The Jesus Movement and an East Coast Square

If you watched the excellent Jesus Revolution movie you might get the impression that the Jesus Movement was exclusive to hippies in California. The truth is that it spread across the country. The end of the movie shows a large stadium event. That was Explo ’72 in Dallas. There was also a significant revival going on in Kansas City, with Jesus People USA in Chicago, and Love Inn in upstate New York. The movement grew and spread reaching all corners of the country (and beyond).

And it wasn’t just for the hippies.

In those days I definitely fit the label of square. I went out of my way to find “normal” pants because I would not wear bell-bottoms. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing paisley. To complete the picture I had short hair and thick Clark Kent glasses. And to top it off I was your basic nerd, an A student in just about everything but gym.

I belonged to a small Baptist church in a small rural town in Maryland. Even there we could hear the stirrings of something new. We’d go to various gatherings and start to hear newer music. Some of it was controversial (anyone remember singing Amazing Grace sung to the tune of House of the Rising Sun). Guitars in church was a groundbreaking idea, met with less resistance in our church than in many others. Even the mainstream culture started to embrace these new wineskins. Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar were sweeping Broadway and soon to enter movie theaters. Billy Graham movies began to include artists like Randy Stonehill and Cliff Richard.

A few guys in our youth group played guitar and I had a good voice, so we started playing some of these songs in church: Front Seat Back Seat, Since I Opened Up the Door, I Wish We’d All Been Ready, Day by Day.

Soon we started hearing about a big event coming to Pennsylvania. A few of us decided to take our church bus, with its colorful patchwork quilt paint job, and experience Jesus ’73, the first of the big festivals.

Some people called it a “Christian Woodstock” and it certainly came under scrutiny. A recent music festival in Watkins Glen, New York had left the grounds it was held on unusable due to all the trash. Was Mennonite potato farmer Paul Mast going to pay a similar cost for allowing his fields to be used for this event? Would this be a big party or something more significant?

The first thing that struck me was a spirit of cooperation. Denominations didn’t matter, age didn’t matter, geography didn’t matter. Many people there felt called to practical ministries. There was no trash problem because hundreds of people “felt led” to pick up trash. I made countless trips to the water truck, filling a five gallon collapsible jug for anyone out in the hot summer sun to drink from. At one point a strong gust of wind hit one of the large tents causing several of the stakes to pull loose. I was one of a small group of people who spontaneously ran to the tent and held onto the ropes until a crew was able to drive the stakes back into the ground. There was no announcement calling for help, we just knew what we needed to do.

We heard great music. We heard great teaching. We experienced great fellowship. We left with a knowledge that we were part of something much bigger than our little church, much bigger than our denomination, much bigger than anything we could comprehend. We were part of a movement.

A few weeks later I left my little rural town behind and joined the Air Force. I got to experience this movement all over the world. But, that’s another story.