60s

I met Jesus during a revival–the Jesus Movement of the 60s and 70s. We didn’t know we were part of a revival. I suppose the ones His grace reaches in a revival never do.

All I know is that the love of Christ ran me down and overwhelmed me so that I had to tell others about my Savior. And I wasn’t alone, there were thousands of us.

You would think that the institutional church would have embraced us. They didn’t, and here’s part of the reason why–we were talking about something that went beyond mere moralism.

Being Good for Jesus

Most of the church people who resisted us had grown up listening to shaming sermons about being good for Jesus. Their God was for moral people and against sinners. They were caught up in a system that told them they were one of the good people, the moral people. If they gave money to the church, attended regularly, and managed their sin better than ordinary people, they were “good.”

But we came proclaiming a radical message of grace. We had no illusions about our goodness apart from the One who washed us from our sins in His own blood. Our lives pulled them toward the power to break the chains the of moralistic religiosity that enslaved them. Most stepped back from that threshold, and returned to their placid pews.

That’s just the way revival is. It doesn’t wait for those who must have all their theological loose ends tied up, who think that the grace of God is for other, “bad” people.

So if a revival hit the streets today, would you see it and embrace it? Or would you miss it and talk about its participants in self-assured sentences that expose the emptiness of your soul?

One of my most earnest prayers is that the Lord would not let me settle for less than all that He wants to give me by His grace. It’s the best way I know to guard my heart against the grace-killer of religious moralism.

Question: How about you? Do you fear settling as much as I do?

One of the key characteristics of revival is that the participants are surprised to be a part of it.

Throughout church history the ones who have fueled revival haven’t been the strategists and theologians. It’s been the ones who just couldn’t get over the fact that God loved them, that He actually wanted them and called them by name, that He didn’t care that they couldn’t hold life together…stunned by His grace.

Questions: Can you remember the day you realized that in spite of yourself, you were loved by Someone perfectly reliable and strong? Can you capture that feeling and hold it in your heart?

If so, you just may be ready for revival.

In my book, Reborn to Be Wild, I document the six lies we believed that derailed our revival–the Jesus Movement of the 60s and 70s.

We were reaching the most angry and radical generation in American history with the grace of God. The Spirit’s momentum and spontaneous spiritual joy of our movement were compelling.

Then, we “got religion,” went “churchy,” and started listening to those who wanted to capture our energy and tame us.

They succeeded; we failed.

In in a few years, our revival was over.

Do you remember the Jesus Movement? If not, have you too believed religious lies that stopped the momentum of either a personal or a community revival?

What stopped you? I bet it was one or more of the same lies that sidetracked us. Satan is effective, but he’s not creative. He just rolls out the same old lies and Christians of every generation buy in.

Christianity is all about releasing the selfless love of Christ from our lives, individually and corporately.

It’s not about getting more out of life by demanding; it’s about getting the most out of life by giving.

Selfless service isn’t easy; in fact it’s impossible apart from the life of Christ in us. The Jesus Movement connected some visionary leaders’ hearts to ours–the angry radicals of the 60s. Their supernatural compassion for the left out and left over pockets of our world was their spiritual and worshipful expression of their new identity in Christ.

Before you and I can talk about serving Christ and extending His grace to this world, we need to think about its source—our redeemed heart.

It’s time for church leaders stop using shame and manipulation to make people do what Christ says.

If we ever want to see revival again, we need to build communities of faith that know the joy of doing what Christ says because their redeemed hearts want to.

Oh yeah; that will take grace.

Question: You ready to risk it?

A Very Short Blurb to Get You Thinking About a New SpiritualRevolution!

I trusted Christ on a Sunday evening on the curb in front of our Young Life leader’s home.

The next Tuesday I was part of the “leadership team” of a local high school Young Life club.

I didn’t know the Bible had books, had barely memorized John 3:16, and hadn’t been to church yet.

Three weeks later I was leading that Young Life Club. I’m sure I spouted about 20 heresies a week, said some things that my Young Life leader wished I’d never said, and made a lot of churchy people mad.

But I did it; the Lord grew me; and a lot of kids came to Christ.

If you want to see revival, you have to take risks. Like trusting the Holy Spirit to work powerfully in brand new believers.

Question: Do you have a Jesus Movement memory like this?

Jesus!

In my recent book, Reborn to Be Wild, I remind the church that the Jesus Movement of the 60s and 70s was the last great revival in North America.

Often someone will ask me, “What do you mean ‘revival‘? How would you define revival?”

I’ll leave the technical definition to the theologians and church historians. My definition is more practical, from the perspective of one who lived it.

What strikes me about our revival was how deeply the Gospel penetrated our culture. Ours was the most angry and radical generation of American history, but everywhere you went, people were talking about Jesus.

That’s my simple definition of revival: A culture abuzz about Jesus!

A Logistical Nightmare

When the Lord Jesus wrapped up His Galilean ministry, He took His disciples to a remote place to rest. “Yeah, right!” I’m sure the Twelve were thinking when thousands of people met them on the shore of their “getaway.” Jesus, moved with compassion, taught the crowd for hours.

About 3:00 PM, the disciples told their Master that He needed to send the crowds away. They were in the middle of nowhere, and the families were getting hungry. This was like a rock concert with no vendors or toilets. “Hurry, Jesus, before it’s too late and this crowd gets unruly.”

You Feed Them!

In His characteristic way, Jesus blows them away with His radical response. “You give them something to eat” (Mark 6:37). The Greek text highlights the power of His words by adding the plural personal pronoun: YOU, You give them something to eat!

(more…)

What Makes Us Different?

Years ago a group of British thinkers on comparative religion furiously debated whether one belief set Christianity apart from other world religions. C. S. Lewis wandered in late, took a seat and asked, “What’s the rumpus about?” They told him they were trying to determine Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. Without hesitation he replied, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.”

Would you say that? Without hesitation? If not, you’ll never experience the life Jesus wants to give you. Only those who embrace grace by trusting in His Son receive eternal life. Only those willing to join Christ in risking grace by extending it to sinners without vacillation or compromise will know the spontaneous spiritual joy that sparks spiritual revolution.

Do You Remember the Jesus Movement?

That’s what I remember when I remember the Jesus Movement!

Undeserved, unending, unearned, unconditional, uncontrollable, unblinking, unbound, undefiled, undeniable, unequivocal, unfaltering, unhinging, unlimited, unmistakable, unprecedented, unsettling—grace—God’s gift of life to all who believe in His Son, unheard of anywhere else but here—Christianity.

I just finished a wildly popular book the entire Christian world seems gaga over. I found a lot to challenge me in the pages of the book—if I were a Mormon, or a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or the follower of any teaching that tells people to get to work to get right with God. One enamored reviewer wrote, “It’s really deep, there’s a lot there!” I agree…

• A lot to cause believers to wonder if they really do belong to God.
• A lot to shame the reader into shaping up the outside of his or her life.
• A lot to motivate the reader to measure up to the author’s standards of righteousness.

What I didn’t find was grace.

What are we doing? Where did we go wrong? When did we forget that the Christian life begins and ends with the one distinction of our historic faith: grace!

Don’t write me asking the name of the book because I don’t want you to read it. I don’t want one more person to read it. And I’m praying that everyone exposed to this lie will someday read Paul’s writings. And when they do, they will realize they have been deceived by the latest holier-than-thou-excoriating-grace-protestant version of “righteousness by works, and that of yourselves.”

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

It Really Happened!

I’ll never forget my first real Easter. Everything was new to me and I just couldn’t get over it. Jesus died for me, was buried, and rose again. It really happened, and it was all because He loved me.

We had been celebrating it daily since our new birth. By “we,” I mean those of us who heard about Christ on the streets during the Jesus Movement of the 60s and 70s. It was all we talked about-Jesus, His love, His death, His resurrection, our new life, hope, meaning, and destiny.

And then we figured it out that Easter was now about something more than egg hunts and spring break. It was the church’s official celebration of the resurrection event.

“Wow, what a concept,” I remember thinking. “We should go to church too,” referring to my Jesus Movement friends.

Let’s Go to Church!

(more…)

Take the Mountain!

General Joshua had a problem. His drive to conquer the land west of the Jordan had stalled at Hebron, the stronghold of the Anakim–the ancient race of giants (Rephaim) who served as mercenaries in the Ancient Near East (Joshua 14). No army could defeat these descendants of the great warrior of Anak (Deuteronomy 9:2). So tall and formidable were these soldiers, that their name and reputation injected panic and flight into the ranks of their enemies.

Joshua’s troops were all in the prime of life, the new generation of Israelites born during the forty years of wandering in the wilderness. All of them, officers and men alike, stood cowering at the base of “Hill Hebron,” staring up at the walled fortifications manned by men half-again their size. Each man wished he possessed the courage to take the hill. But these were the giants their fathers had told them about.

Please let me lead the charge?

(more…)