Saturday, November 29, 2014

Random thoughts on the Jesus Movement

Having just finished the book God's Forever Family put me in a reminiscent mood. You might find various snatches of memories popping up here over the next few weeks...

One of the things that the book stresses is the importance of music to the spread of the Jesus Movement. I found Jesus (better, was found by Jesus!) in June of 1972. I was also a DJ at the local college radio station which allowed high school kids an hour or so a day during school sessions and allowed us to run the whole programming schedule on college breaks. The station was only on from 5:00 until midnight, so that was doable.

I remember being in the record vault over Spring break and running across the first Jesus Music. Mind you, this is 1973 and the standard Christian music was pretty drab and boring. The album was Larry Norman's Only Visiting This Planet, which many consider the best album the Jesus Movement ever produced—I agree. Anyway, I played almost every one of the tracks on that album that night. And over the next few months, at least one track per night was on my little one hour segment. I can't tell you what it meant to run across a politically active—yet Jesus focused—album.

Shifting gears a bit, here's a link to what I consider one of the best worship songs ever produced, Come Into His Presence, by Paul Clark, a Jesus Music pioneer.

And while we're at it, here's a link to what I consider the second best one, Lion of Judah by Ted Sandquist, from Love Inn in New York. I first heard it in 1976, when I hitchhiked down to Florida over Spring Break for a Jesus festival called Jesus '76 in Orlando.

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