Ten years after Pastor Chuck Smith’s homegoing to Heaven, Calvary Chapel Magazine takes a look back at how the Lord began the Calvary Chapel movement. This series is reprinted from Issue 96 (Summer 2023) of the print magazine. Stay tuned for additional installments.

With the recent Jesus Revolution movie drawing tens of millions of viewers, many are interested in how the Jesus Movement began. Eyewitnesses of that era recount here how the Lord saved thousands of young people through the power of the Holy Spirit, the preaching of the Word, and the love of Christ in action at Calvary Chapel.

Tears of Compassion

One beautiful summer evening in 1967, Kay Smith inhaled the salty breeze as her husband, Chuck, drove her and their four children down the Pacific Coast Highway. They were going to celebrate their daughter Janette’s high school graduation with a nice meal.

Near Huntington Beach, CA, traffic slowed to a crawl as hordes of long-haired young people were spilling off the sidewalk. What’s going on? Kay wondered. To her dismay, she saw a beautiful blonde girl swaying and staggering with one foot in the gutter and one on the sidewalk. “Oh! Look at that poor girl!” Kay exclaimed, pointing. “What’s wrong with her? Why doesn’t somebody help her?” With alarm, Kay noticed others seemingly in a trance.

“They’re probably high, Mom,” one of the Smith teens chirped from the backseat. Kay didn’t know what that meant, exactly. But she was going to find out. Oh Jesus, she whispered in her heart, they need help.

Over the next days, Kay couldn’t shake the image of the blonde girl and the vacant-eyed hippies. She approached her husband, Chuck, who taught the Bible at a small church in Costa Mesa, CA, called Calvary Chapel. So they drove back to Main Street to watch the long-haired youth milling around. “Honey, we’ve got to reach these kids,” she pleaded, her mother’s heart heavy for them. “We are going to lose this generation. They just need Jesus.”

“They need a bath,” Chuck retorted. Many had run away from their middle-class families to experiment with drugs and sex. But his heart softened when he turned to look at his wife and saw tears running down her cheeks.

She whispered, “God, help us to reach these kids. Help us, God.” A few nights later they drove to Laguna Beach, CA. Again, Kay watched, and wept, and prayed aloud: “Somehow, Lord, help us reach them,” Pastor Chuck recounted years later.

Kay shared her burden with her ladies’ prayer group: These precious young people were someone’s sons and daughters on the path to destruction. The women prayed fervently that God would open a door to share the Gospel. Kay knew that God would answer their prayers, but she didn’t know how.

Jesus in Bell Bottoms

One day, the Smith’s daughter, Janette, brought home a boy from college named John Nichols. The clean-cut college boy grinned and showed Kay his driver’s license picture showing him with dark glasses and long hair. Now a Christian who shared the Gospel, John relayed how those who were “stoned” would accept Christ and suddenly be sober and in their right minds.

“John, I need to meet one—an honest-to-goodness hippie. I want to know what makes them tick,” Kay declared. Soon after, John brought over Lonnie and Connie Frisbee, a barefoot young couple complete with flowers in their hair and bells on their cuffs.

Chuck recalled later, “Lonnie extended his hand, and there was such a warmth of love manifested in his greeting that I was caught off guard. There was an instant bond. There was a power of God’s Spirit upon his life that was very easy to recognize.” The Smiths invited them in. John described how he had picked up Lonnie hitchhiking, and the two young men had looked at each other and asked, “Do you know Jesus?” The whole group laughed together in the Smiths’ living room. “I wasn’t really going anywhere,” Lonnie explained. “I just hitchhike sometimes to share Jesus.”

As Chuck listened to Lonnie, his heart changed. He could see that this kid who looked like a skinny Jesus in bell bottoms had the heart of an evangelist. Chuck invited them to stay. Over the next few days, more hippies materialized in the Smith home. “Lonnie used to bring kids over to be baptized in our [above-ground] pool in the backyard,” Chuck explained. “That was the beginning of a very special relationship. … Lonnie was like a son to us, a spiritual Timothy.”

Seekers Flock to Christ

Lonnie became instrumental in bringing other young hippies to Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, CA, where they were welcomed, got saved, and wanted to serve God. Some hit the streets to share with other kids and were dubbed Jesus People or Jesus Freaks. The artists among them, including future pastor Greg Laurie, created posters and tracts with pictures to appeal to their generation. Others were talented musicians who composed folk-style worship songs based on Scripture.

“It was such an exciting time,” recalled Janette Smith Manderson. “Our church was the place to be every night. People would even put their arms around each other as they worshiped together. They listened avidly to the verse-by-verse Bible teaching because they had been on a spiritual quest. Every night, people were getting saved. It was wonderful to see them come in one way and leave changed, filled with the joy of the Lord.” Colorfully painted VW vans and dozens of cars lined the formerly quiet Costa Mesa streets.

Soon, Pastor Chuck was baptizing hundreds of young people in Pirate’s Cove of Corona del Mar in Newport Beach. As the Jesus Movement spread, seekers came from as far as Texas to get baptized. Delivered from drugs, the occult, false religion, and hopelessness—their joy in the Lord was contagious.

“I had just gotten born again, and I was driving around the Newport Beach area. I asked the Lord if I should get baptized,” recalled Dale Richman, now 82. “I pulled into a turnout and looked across that bay, and there were hundreds of people on the beach getting baptized. It was like a bolt of lightning went through my body, and the Lord prompted me to get baptized right then.” As he made his way through the crowd to the water’s edge, people heartily sang worship songs and embraced the newly baptized. “Some people came out of the water laughing, with such joy on their faces. With the joy, there was also this solemnity, because you sensed the move of the Holy Spirit and the presence of the Lord. We were just in awe of what He was doing.”

This series is reprinted in portion from Issue 96 (Summer 2023) of the print magazine. Stay tuned for additional installments this month or get your copy of all installments at calvarychapelmagazine.org/individual