Mk.1:1 – The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God…
I got saved in the Jesus movement in the summer of 1973. Young Jesus missionaries from California prayed with me for the first time, my Jesus journey was just getting started. Parris and I got radically saved. We got married and headed off to California to a Jesus community where our lives would be shaped by the Lord for His plans for our lives. The next four years were a time of transformation as we were immersed into the Jesus culture that was thriving in California. I want to share with you briefly some of the important things that we embraced in those four years that we spent on the West Coast. Maybe these lessons are all about what the Lord is beginning to do in this generation.
First there was a very specific focus on the man, Jesus of Nazareth, in the Jesus movement. He became real to us and became our role model as to what our Christian life should be. We saw His kindness, His holiness, His love for God, and His love for hurting people as the pattern to shape our lives. This led us into a total lifestyle change. We were baptized by immersion and were taught that our former lives were dead and buried. We had entered into a whole new world, a world of His kingdom. We saw ourselves as separated from the sinful culture of the world and transferred to the community of Jesus.
Our campus in California was permeated with worship. There was music blasting across our 20 acre campus daily. The worship was new and authentic, Jesus music was our breath that we breathed. Worship was a part of everything we did. As a result of the emphasis on worship the atmosphere was charged with the presence of the Holy Spirit. He was real to us, the baptism in the Holy Spirit was a normal part of our Christian experience. We knew He was the source of our life and as a result we lived in a state of expectation. Miracles were our bread, we lived off of these miracles as a way of life, anything was possible as we followed His plan.
I believe we are in the beginning of a new Jesus Revolution. I want to be a part of it, how about you. I will continue my thoughts on the Jesus Movement tomorrow.