We think it's time for a new Jesus Movement to grab the church by its collar and give it a good shake-up.

Throughout history, God's people--first the nation of Israel and now the church of Jesus Christ--have periodically descended into utter cluelessness--a time when "every man did what was right in his own eyes." Like the proverbial frog in boiling water, God's people drift away from a vital personal relationship with God into organization and inertia. By the 1950s there was a sense that churches had lost their cutting edge. God needed to do something different to get his people's attention. So he started the "Jesus Movement"!

Jesus People didn't know how you were supposed to do church. They just looked at the Bible and started from the ground up. They didn't know about meaningless traditions, the games church people play and the excuses they have for not doing what God told them to do. It was just a pure faith and fellowship modeled on the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament church. As one Jesus Person, quoted by Ed Plowman (The Jesus Movement, David C. Cook, 1971), put it, "It's simple: we have discovered that we can experience what you preachers have only been talking about for years."

The Jesus Movement brought about some good changes, but what started out as a ministry-motivated movement has now morphed into an entertainment-oriented organization. Playing Christian music used to be a ministry that involved driving around in old vans and sleeping on floors, but now it's a career and an "industry." Jesus festivals were started as outreaches, but now they are multimillion dollar entertainment events. Bible studies and coffeehouses have been organized into denominations and corporate entities. This is the pattern of "historical drift" where movements of God get organized into human organizational structures. The structure remains, but it lacks the organic spiritual vitality that got it started.

We think that the Church is in another clueless period today. We think the churches have lost the love and community that was at the center of the Jesus movement. We are impressed with the big shiny buildings, soft carpets, food courts, video projectors, and hip pastors, but we are disappointed with the shallow, busy people who are too busy with their own little worlds to notice us after we walk in the door. It's groovy that there's a guy with a name tag to shake our hand and give us a paper when we walk in the door and we dig the stuff you send us in the mail, but we wish someone would sit down next to us and just rap about life. Just like George Orwell's pigs in Animal Farm, the baby boomer generation has now inherited the leadership of our churches, and they are starting to look like the entrenched establishment their generation overthrew.

We believe the church is ready for another Jesus movement, another reformation. Church needs to be more about people and less about programs; more about God and less about growth; more testimonies and less technology. 

The next Jesus Movement will NOT be about hippies. It will not be manufactured by man. It will be an organic event spawned by the totally wild and out-of-control Spirit of God. It will come at a time and place that we least expect. In short, it will blow our minds!

Let's start praying that God will move. Let's empty ourselves and become completely dependent on God. Let's get back to Jesus and leave the other stuff behind!