Do you believe God has the ability to stop you in the middle of a sentence with a thought so powerful and a question so profound that you have to write a book?

I do because it happened to me.

I was agreeing with another theologically trained church leader about the excesses and dangers of the “emergent” church when God’s Spirit broke in with this rebuking thought, You sound just like the church leaders who shamed and discouraged you back then!

Back then, when I was part of an extreme movement of younger Christians.

Back then, when our hearts were full of unusual ideas about Jesus and His church.

Back then, when we were the ones church people talked about in sentences full of mistrust and shame.

Back then, when a generation bent on rebellion and destruction found peace and a reason for living in the teachings of a carpenter.

Back then, when we were the revolutionaries God’s Spirit called to a radical commitment to Jesus Christ.

Instantly my heart felt disgusted by so much of what we had become. A question screamed from my soul about the Jesus Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

God was asking me to answer the question, first for me, then for all of us, especially those of us who were there:

How did spiritual revolutionaries become tame evangelicals?

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Since Reborn to Be Wild came out, people are trying to understand what it means to be a Jesus Freak. Maybe this will help:

As a Jesus Freak…

I don’t like: legalism

I don’t like: the false gospel that tell you to work your way to heaven

I don’t like: Do’s and don’ts as a way to spirituality

I don’t like: church fights

I don’t like: spiritual experts, hall monitors, and “together” Christians

I don’t like: the strategies of people who arrogantly think that if people just did what they say they could change the world for Christ

I don’t like: the words safety, sameness, fear, and shame

I don’t like: the captivating lies of the institutional church

I don’t like: the backwash of safe, lily-white suburban evangelicalism

I don’t like: meetings, especially the long and boring ones where nothing happens

I don’t like: complicating the simple words of Jesus

I don’t like: passive, pew sitting Christianity

I don’t like: Legalism

…did I say I don’t like legalism?

One of those guys who reads the books others have written and then tells everyone why they’re wrong “reviewed” my latest book, Reborn to Be Wild.

Hey, I’ve been a pastor long enough to develop some pretty thick skin, so I’m okay with someone not disagreeing with me or even attacking me.

What I take issue with is this man’s warped view of recent church history.

He maintains that the simple New Testament truths I say explained our revival, the Jesus Movement of the 60s, have all been tried. “It’s just the same old tired recipe–faith in Christ, make disciples, preach the Word, equip the saints, ask in My name.”

I admit that this recipe of simple truths from the New Testament have been around since the First Century.

What I won’t admit is that they’ve been tried much.

In fact, the last time they were embraced by thousands was about forty years ago.

During the Jesus Movement.

It’s simply not true that New Testament Christianity is full of tried and failed truths. Our problem isn’t that we’ve worn out Jesus’ simple commands through overuse. It’s that we’ve worn out the church with our strategies and theories.

Could it be that in this age of frantically-seeking-leaders trying to start a movement of desperately-disappointed-followers that we all should take a deep breath and…

Try it Jesus’ way?

Question: Why do you feel most churches are not involved in disciplemaking?

We Had the Best Name from Whitestone Media on Vimeo.

In the first three chapters of my book, Reborn to Be Wild, I tell my story as a 60s radical who met Jesus during this great movement of the Holy Spirit. Every time I read these chapters, the stunning reality of the deep darkness I came out of stirs my heart.

When His enemies came after Him in the garden on the night He was betrayed, Jesus said, “But this is your hour, and the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53).

That describes life without Christ. Every hour blackened by that same desperate darkness–the darkness dominating Christ’s enemies. That was me…that was you.

I’m overwhelmed by the grace of God and Jesus’ love that rescued me from the power of darkness and translated me into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love (Colossians 1:13).

Are you?

If you want to fall on your knees in thanksgiving, spend a few hours writing down what the darkness of your life was like before His love ran you down!

Question: Do you remember the darkness?

This is an excerpt from my book about the Jesus Movement, Reborn to Be Wild:

I had been attending Fruitvale Community Church for just a few months when it happened—my first over-the-top worship experience. Since I knew nothing about Jesus before I believed in Him, Ted’s sermons unfolded the wonder of new life in Christ every Sunday. But this particular Sunday was special.

Ted taught on the rapture—that future event when every living Christian would meet Christ in the air. I remember thinking, You’ve got to be kidding me! This just gets better and better. Jesus is the only way to heaven. He loves me. He died for me. He gave me new life. And now you’re telling me that He’s coming from heaven to get me?

And then Ted’s wife, Jo, sat at the piano and started to sing.

The market place is empty,

No more traffic in the streets.

All the builder tools are silent,

No more time to harvest wheat.

Busy housewives cease their labors,

In the courtroom no debate.

Work on earth is all suspended

As the King comes through the gate.

I could see it in my mind’s eye. Suddenly nothing mattered because Jesus just showed up. I remember thinking Jo sounded like an angel when she sang the chorus:

Oh the King is coming,

The King is coming.

I just heard the trumpet sounding

And now His face I see.

Oh, the King is coming,

The King is coming

PRAISE GOD,

He’s coming for me!

This was all too wonderful to take in cognitively—I could only stand and sing and cry. Not only is Jesus the only way. Not only is Jesus the King. Not only is He coming back to make things right. He’s coming back for me. Jesus was coming back for me, and I needed to get to work for Him.

I don’t think it’s an accident that our revival occurred during a time when the church and the world seemed preoccupied with biblical prophecy. Everyone, Christian and non-Christian seemed to be asking questions about the return of the Lord. Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth was the largest selling nonfiction book of the 1970s, and we virtually memorized it. Citywide prophecy conferences sprouted up in every major metropolitan center. Little Israel was back in the Promised Land, and the only explanation for her amazing victories in the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973-74 that made sense was the prophecies of Daniel, Isaiah, and Ezekiel.

You may believe that prophecy is irrelevant today and feel that the church should be about the more immediate needs of humanity, but it seems reasonable to ask if there is any connection between prophetic teaching and revival.

It’s impossible to separate the explosive growth of the church in Acts from its prophetic hope. The early Christians who turned the world upside down for Christ hoped in Jesus’ coming. And so has every revival generation since. I know ours did.

Question: Do you have a Jesus Movement memory of when you first believed your King is coming?

Are you tired of doing religious stuff that doesn’t matter to Jesus? Give this a look:

“Too Old, Too Sick, and Too Tired” from Whitestone Media on Vimeo.

Reborn to Be Wild, David C. Cook, my book about the Jesus Movement

In my book, Reborn to Be Wild, I document the 6 lies we believed that sidetracked our revival.

If you were a part of our revival, did any of these sidetrack you?

A Revolution Stalls (Six Lies We Believed)

More Is Better

“Churchianity” Is Enough

Power Is Good

Bigger Is Better

Enemies All Around

It’s All Mine

From My Radical Heart

A few years ago, when this blog was born, motivation came from my memories of revival. True revival, like I experienced in the 60s when I met Christ in the Jesus Movement. Writing a new book answering the question, “Whatever happened to the Jesus Movement?” I couldn’t deny my disappointment with the state of the church today. Not my personal church, Church of the Open Door, but the church in general.

The answer to that question, “Whatever happened to the Jesus Movement” re-radicalized my heart. A growing dissatisfaction with the caricature of Christianity we’ve settled for moved me to see if there were others like me.

First I finished the book, Reborn to Be Wild, and then I started this little blog.

Jello Through a Straw

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