The Jesus Revolution: What It Teaches Us

The Jesus Revolution is a film about the Jesus People movement in the late 60s and early 70s, a movement I personally lived through. It is centered around three people: Chuck Smith, is a middle-aged pastor in a typical middle class church and stable denomination. His sermons are scripted, uninspiring, and boring. But into his life comes Lonnie Frisbee, a hippie, flower-child, and as counter-cultural as you can get. Frisbee sits in Smith’s church. A couple of things happen. Smith begins to be burdened for the flower children and Frisbee annoys the staid traditional church members.

Smith decides to move his ministry outdoors into a tent. Within days it is filled to overflowing with more than a thousand worshippers. Thousands are coming to Christ but where to baptize them? The Pacific Ocean seems large enough so they go to the beach and baptize converts in the ocean.

Into their orbit comes a young teenager, named Greg Laurie. Brought into Smith and Frisbee’s ministry by his girlfriend, Cathe, Laurie is converted and becomes a major player in the Jesus Revolution. In fact, five years ago he wrote a book with that title on which the film is based. Laurie goes on to become a key figure in the Calvary Chapel movement, founds a mega-church, and develops a world-wide ministry.

You can google reviews for the film. Most of them are skeptical, as you would expect from the non-Christian community, but all marvel at the film’s commercial success.

My purpose here is to encourage you to see the film. I know it will inspire you. But, as always, I want to talk about its historical and cultural implications. What do we learn from the Jesus Revolution?

First, Christians have learned to make great movies. A few years ago the same producers gave us “I Can Only Imagine” about the creation of the best-selling contemporary Christian song of all time, and currently you can watch The Chosen, streaming online through Angel Studios. It is about Jesus’ calling and ministry to His twelve disciples. It is wonderful. It has the best portrayal of Jesus Christ I have ever seen. Jesus Revolution takes its place among those fine productions.

Second, our God is the God of surprises. The drug-addled flower children of the 60s would seem poor soil in which to produce a revival but that’s exactly what happens. I think the Holy Spirit goes from place to place producing revivals and miracles and saving the unsavable simply to show us He can do it.

Third, we are reminded that God saves anyone. You do not have to be what society judges as a good person for God to make you righteous through Christ. Tens of thousands of these hippies discover what it is like to get high on Jesus. Their lives were transformed and they continue to transform the world.

Fourth, God can use anyone in His service and often does. The online series, The Chosen, shows the disciples as the ordinary people they were. The big shots of their day called them stupid, uneducated men, but the disciples have become the most important group of people in the history of the human race. That’s simply God’s way. If you don’t think you have much to offer, perfect. You are the right candidate for furthering the Kingdom of God.

Fifth, revival explodes in the strangest places at the strangest times. In 1953 the Korean peninsula was populated by a tiny number of Christians on an obscure corner of the planet. Then revival struck. In the next generation millions came to Christ and now the Koreans are among the most aggressive missionaries in the world. They are everywhere, they are powerful, they are effective, and it never should have happened. But it did. Remember, Judea was an obscure corner of the Roman Empire when it became the first center of the Jesus Revolution that has gone on to transform life on earth.

Sixth, revival always divides the church. There are traditional church members who love it and embrace it and there are cultural Christians who hate it, fight it, and walk away from it. If you had a true revival in your church a large portion of your membership would view it with contempt.

Seventh, revival continues to be the dominant factor in the shaping of America and Western culture generally. From time to time I do videos on the different revivals and every time they turn out to be the most important events of their time. Not just religiously, but in every way. From the Cluniac revival in the 900s that gave us Western culture, to the First Great Awakening in colonial America that gave us the United States, to the Second Great Awakening in the early 1800s that gave us the Civil War, the end of slavery, and the birth of modern America, revivals are always the big story.

Eighth, revival gives us hope. America is staggering around right now in the midst of a sinful malaise, ruled by a culture of death and darkness, but our God can change that overnight with the fresh winds of His Spirit blowing through our nation and transforming our people. Again. Just like He has before. So be of good cheer. Our God has yet to reveal His mighty plans for the future but reveal them He will and they will be surprising,and spectacular.

Be sure and see the Jesus Revolution and the other productions I mentioned. I have linked them below. May the God of revival bless you this day in a mighty way.

More: From a secular but sympathetic source: Hollywood’s Great Awakening; https://www.thefp.com/p/hollywoods-great-awakening?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Greg Laurie’s book on which the movie is based: https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Revolution-Transformed-Unlikely-Generation-ebook/dp/B07D6XTMS2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=333ZO3QR5C2IG&keywords=the+jesus+revolution+greg+laurie&qid=1680106297&sprefix=the+jesus+revolution+greg%2Caps%2C216&sr=8-1

Interview with Jonathan Roumie, the actor who played Lonnie Frisbee(and who plays Jesus in The Chosen: https://www.familytheater.org/blog/jesus-revolution-jonathan-roumie-lonnie-frisbee?hs_preview=fcfbaEgy-103256388361&gclid=Cj0KCQjww4-hBhCtARIsAC9gR3a_8p_TtHagcXPURnIjbekar8iWohmO956r3BfLlLtV6vxkRsV4fEsaAtBcEALw_wcB

Watch “The Chosen” on the Angel Studios website or app: https://www.angel.com/watch/the-chosen/episode/8dfb714d-bca5-4812-8125-24fb9514cd10/season-1/episode-1/i-have-called-you-by-name