Photos by multiple sources

Hippie musicians continued to come to Christ and experience His love, many at Calvary Chapel, in the early days of the Jesus Movement.  As they formed new bands, Pastor Chuck Smith supported their efforts by founding Maranatha! Music to spread the Jesus Music.

The Spirit Moves through Music

Pastor Chuck Smith recounted how the Holy Spirit worked through music during the Jesus Movement. “The kids would come and say, ‘The Lord gave me a song,’ ” recalled Pastor Chuck, “so we were letting the kids share their music, and it was exciting because it was fresh.” Though initially a bit leery, Pastor Chuck allowed LoveSong to informally audition for him. When he heard “Welcome Back,” Chuck reminisced, “The Holy Spirit began to move, and I just started weeping.” Their music also moved the new kids who came in.

LoveSong member Chuck Girard remembers the Joy band as the first he heard at Calvary. One of their popular songs from 1969 went: “A man came to me and said, ‘You wanna be free?’ and I said, ‘Show me.’ … So, I put my hand in His and walked along this road to glory. … And He is alive, and He gave me life, and I praise Him.” Video footage from that time shows young people crammed shoulder to shoulder, some weeping, as they sang along at Calvary Chapel.

Tommy noted, “Music was a language they understood; it was like prison doors opening.” Even skeptical people who came were touched by the music in a way they didn’t expect. One of Tommy Coomes’s friends, Chuck Butler, another hippie musician, encountered Christ’s love in a powerful way at the chapel. He was stunned at the congregation’s fervent love for God as they sang. “There were no song books; everyone just knew all the words,” Chuck Butler pointed out. When Pastor Chuck shared the Gospel, “I had heard about so many false Jesuses over the past six months, I was wary at first.” But that night, the 23-year-old musician prayed, God, if this is really You, will You do for me what You’ve done for these people?

“It was like a tsunami poured down through the roof. I was overwhelmed by God’s love, and the weight of shame and unforgiveness lifted from my shoulders in that moment,” testified Chuck Butler, who went on to write his own Jesus Music and later became a Calvary Chapel pastor.

In fact, so many young converts at Calvary began writing songs that Pastor Chuck founded Maranatha! Music, producing several compilation albums—including Chuck Butler’s band, Parable. Two members of that band—John and Lisa Wickham—later had sons Evan and Phil Wickham, whose worship music draws crowds today. Chuck Butler’s son, Chad, is the drummer of popular Christian rock group, Switchfoot. Another Calvary Chapel pastor, Oden Fong, was radically saved in the ’70s and played with Mustard Seed Faith. Throughout the global revival of the ’70s, college campuses and venues around the world welcomed the Jesus Music bands.

Explo ’72

Called a “Christian Woodstock” music festival, Explo ’72 was a six-day event held in Dallas, TX, which drew about 140,000 people from all over the country. Billy Graham led thousands to Christ. LoveSong performed, along with Andrae Crouch, Larry Norman, and even Johnny Cash. It was, for some, the first time they heard hippies sharing Jesus through original music. The upcoming LoveSong docuseries will include previously unreleased footage from Explo ’72.

Chuck Girard recalled watching the Holy Spirit move: “We would start singing, and people’s hearts would just change. You could see it like a ripple through the crowd.” Again and again, kids would come forward in droves to accept Christ.

Tommy commented, “It was so unbelievable that we would look at each other and say, ‘Did that really just happen?’ … Your mind couldn’t quite [comprehend] it.”

In the next installment, read about the unconditional love of Pastor Chuck and his wife, Kay, for the young, lost hippies. We’ll also share how Jesus Music helped to spread the Calvary Chapel movement.

LoveSong’s upcoming docuseries seeks to chronicle how God used the Jesus Music to reach an entire generation for Him during the great spiritual awakening of the 1960s-70s. For more information about the docuseries “A Band Called LoveSong,” visit LoveSongTheBand.com

Read Parts 1 and 2

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