IS IT HAPPENING AGAIN?
The current worldwide move of the Holy Spirit is touching the lives of many thousands. But is it similar to the 'Jesus Movement' revival that swept through parts of the USA in the 70s?
You don't have to look far. It's coming back. Long hair, flared jeans and tie-dyed T-shirts. Hippies and Sixties music. A re-run Woodstock Rock Festival. Things are 'groovy' again and it's no longer 'square' to say "Peace, man!" 'There certainly are marked similarities between the late 60s, early 70s and the mid-90s.
A generation of young people, born at the time of the Second World War, was restless for change. Turned off by the materialistic American dream and sickened by the horror of the Vietnam War, teenagers turned en-masse towards alternative lifestyles.
There were plenty to choose from. Eastern religions, with their accent on inner peace and passive meditation, gained a wide following, helped by publicity from the Beatles. Many experimented with witchcraft, Satanism and black magic, often with disastrous results (such as the gruesome Charles Manson murders). And the drug culture seemed to offer just what young people were looking for: the chance to 'drop out' of a defective society and inner revelation.
"Acid rock", announced Timothy Leary. a pioneer of LSD, "contains the hymns and chants of the turned-on love generation." His message of peace, love and drug-induced mind-expansion drew a whole generation, as to a new god.
The Woodstock Rock Festival of 1969 summed up the mood. 400,000 people converged on a village in New York State, drawn as if by some magnet. Drugs and sex were freely available, but the overriding sense was of a massive people's move- ment; of a generation united in hope.
However, the dream went sour. The ideals were right, but everything foundered on sin in the human heart. Rock stars overdosed on drugs or committed suicide. 'Free love' led to the horrors of abortion. Spiritual seekers found themselves demonically oppressed after occult rituals. Young people wrecked their bodies and blew their minds on drugs. Many died; others landed in psychiatric institutions.
Yet there was another stream flowing through this 'turned-on' generation - a Jesus Movement. The same radical longings that plunged many into drugs were causing a widespread interest in Jesus Christ. After all, He was a man of peace and love who 'bucked the system', welcomed the masses without prejudice and had spiritual power! So while so me might wince at Him being called 'Guru Jesus -the Soul Man', thousands of youngsters from coast to coast were seeking Him sincerely.
As one seeker from the time testifies: "I was brought up on the streets of Los Angeles, I had my hair down to my waist and I'd been on hard drugs for five and a half years. But one day in a field I prayed to Jesus. 'Lord', I said, 'if You're going to come into my life, then You're going to have to be as powerful and radical as the drugs that are flowing through my veins!' I didn't want to groove on stained glass windows, - I wanted to be a radical dynamo for God! I wanted people to think I was more 'stoned' after I was saved than before! I wanted people to come up to me and ask what I was on!"
Everywhere Christians of every persuasion sensed that God was preparing a huge shoal of fish to be landed. Protestants and Roman Catholics, Evangelicals and Charismatics, all stepped up their prayer and outreach.
In many cities, coffee bars sprang up, some seating 400 people, and they were full every night. Gospel tents and Christian music festivals drew thousands from Texas to Florida. Church attendance multiplied, but not at the traditional services. Those open to the Holy Spirit's innovation began special, unstructured meetings for the young, where they could sing, hug, weep and pray their way to Jesus.
And find Jesus they did, in their thousands. The Jesus Movement was on the map and attracted widespread media attention. Mass baptisms of hairy, hugging Jesus freaks in the Pacific Ocean made for good photography! Reporters across the land sat in meetings surrounded by young people lost in prayer, gently weeping, or hug- ging one another. They might have found the testimonies quaint ('It's wild, man!' 'Jesus is so heavy!' 'He's so beautiful, man!') but most were convinced of the genuine nature of this young people's awakening.
Everywhere the revival flames burned. In Tennessee, an evangelistic festival planned for one weekend, went on for 35 nights. A middle-of the-road Methodist chapel in Kentucky found its Sunday service turn into 12 nights of meetings, with hundreds of young people converging from miles around to give their hearts to Jesus. And at the nearby college at Asbury there was a powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
"I have never witnessed such a mighty outpouring of God upon His people," wrote one witness while it was happening. "The scene is unbelievable. I sit in the middle of a contemporary Pentecost. The altar has been flooding with needy souls time and time again. Release. Freedom. Tears. Repentance. Embracing. There is a sweet spirit in this place. 28 hours have passed. God is so present that no-one can escape Him. The altar is filled. Simply amazing... The marvellous experience of perfect love."
The fruits of true conversion were everywhere. A love for the poor and the elderly; a hunger for worship and studying the Bible; a reverence for God and a desire to be holy. Spontaneous lunchtime prayer meetings for workers. School kids marching for Jesus down the high street of their local town. An outburst of creativity for Jesus in art and music. 'God Squads' and 'Lost Soul Patrols' working among destitutes and the addicts of America's slums.
Above all, there was a delight in being the Body of Christ, joined heart to heart. A joy at togetherness, at being God's family and at 'going with the flow' of the Holy Spirit's life. To these young people, sharing was natural, so all over the nation Christian communes and community houses sprang up.
There was, however, one major obstacle to the Jesus Movement. This was the middle-class ethic of existing churches. To them the revival among the freaks and 'acid-heads' was a huge culture shock. The new converts wanted life, stability, growth in Jesus, but all too often found themselves rejected by churches they visited.
"We went in with our long hair, and our bell-bottoms banging," recalls one convert. "We hadn't learned how to behave in church. If we were happy, we just shouted 'Jesus! Hallelujah!' And they didn't want that. They told us to sit somewhere away from the rest of the people. They said Christians shouldn't smoke and that we should tidy ourselves up. We were open to the church, but the church wasn't open to us. They blew it!"
It is certainly true that some of the fruit of God's revival was lost through the self-righteous response of affluent middle-class Christianity. Many converts were turned off by an inflexible church that refused to accommodate itself to a new work of God.
The churches that did bend before God's wind, however, and open their hearts to these unlikely new believers, prospered. Congregations swelled to hundreds, sometimes thousands and networks of new churches were established across America that are still bearing fruit today.
The same challenge faces churches today. Will they be ready to flow with God's Spirit of revival, however painful, and welcome those He has saved, or will they remain irrelevant, judgmental and narrow? The vital choice is ours.
This article has been extracted from Revival Fires, available online from the Jesus People Shop.
Source: E. Plowman, The Jesus Movement, Hodder 1971
W. L. Knight (ed) Jesus People Come Alive, Cover-dale 1971
Katherine Terry, "We were at Woodstock", The Telegraph Magazine 30 July 1994
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