My wife and I were married in the summer of 1970, when the Jesus People movement was at its peak. It seemed like young people all over North America, and to a lesser extent the rest of the world, had wearied of the materialism of the older generation and the protest movements of the 1960s, and were searching for a foundation for their lives. They wanted something that was true and solid and allowed them to have a hope for the future. They especially longed for true love that would bind them together.
For a time at least, many of them found all that in Jesus Christ. And the song, They’ll know we are Christians by our love, seemed to be the theme song of the Jesus People movement. For many of them, for a time, the promises of that song became reality. Chris and I were never really part of that movement, but we often attended a weekly coffee house ministry in our nearest large town. It seemed to us that many of the young people involved had truly begun a new life in Jesus. A few seemed to be trying to be part of what was going on without surrendering their lives to Jesus. Perhaps they didn’t fully comprehend the difference.
Churches didn’t seem to know what to do. Some found the enthusiasm disconcerting and did their best to ignore it. Some tried to co-opt the enthusiasm without really comprehend the spiritual reality behind it. The world, the flesh and the devil infiltrated and divided the movement. By the end of the 1970s there were few flickers of the movement remaining. In the years since then, church attendance has fallen over the precipice and churches have been closing one by one.
Could something like the Jesus People movement happen again? I wonder if our world isn’t just about ripe for it. It won’t be us old guys who will make it happen, it will be the youth who take the message of salvation out into our communities. But perhaps we have a part to play in helping the youth become firmly established on the rock, Jesus Christ, so that they will not easily be discouraged, or tempted to take detours that look attractive but lead away from Christ.
