John Higgins: Led by the Spirit, True to the Word
LEFT: A skeptic from Greenwich Village, NY, John Higgins accepted Christ in 1965. During the late 1960s and 1970s, John helped start and lead many Christian houses for college-age hippies—from the House of Miracles in Southern California to the Shiloh Youth Revival Centers in Oregon.
RIGHT: John Higgins in later life.
John Higgins’ life reads like a movie script, but he would never take the credit. A skeptical young atheist from Greenwich Village, NY, John traveled to California to pursue drugs and enlightenment through the counter-culture hippie movement. Instead, God brought him to saving faith in Jesus Christ, using him to impact hundreds of young people for Christ in California and Oregon and to help plant more than a dozen churches in Arizona. Pastor John, of Calvary Chapel Tri City, AZ, went home to his Savior on June 3, 2026.
Friends and family remember his fearlessness in sharing the Gospel and the powerful way the Holy Spirit worked through him continuing long after the Jesus Movement, when hundreds of thousands of young people around the globe left behind drugs and the counter-culture lifestyle to follow Christ.
The Jesus Movement
LEFT: “We’re fundamentalists,” Shiloh elder John Higgins said in the March 19, 1977, edition of the Eugene Register-Guard. “But we’re not Bible thumpers—we want people to think for themselves. … If they accept Jesus, they’ll get a foundation to stand against all storms.” John accepted Christ in 1965, came to Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, CA, in 1967, and helped oversee House of Miracles in 1968.
RIGHT: Pastor John Higgins was born again through reading the Gospel of John, then grew in the Word at CC Costa Mesa. He served the Lord for 60 years—from mentoring countless young hippies into the faith to helping plant more than a dozen churches in Arizona. He pastored Calvary Chapel Tri City in Tempe, AZ, for nearly 40 years.
“The Jesus Movement was not a work of any person; God did it,” recounted Pastor John in a radio interview after the release of the 2023 film Jesus Revolution. “If it wasn’t for Jesus dying and being raised again, none of us would be here. It’s all about Jesus.”
In 1965, John was in a hotel room with a buddy who was tripping on acid. In the drawer was a Gideon Bible. His friend begged John to read him the Bible, but John refused. “I had never read the Bible before, except to mock it,” John remembered. So the man threatened to kill John unless he did. The young skeptic assented and read through the four Gospels. “When I came to John 1:1-14, I was like, ‘Wow!’ I read it over and over, at least five times. I thought the Bible was all about punishment; I’d never heard promises like that before.”
In the beginning was the Word ... All things were made through Him ... In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. ... But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name. John 1:1a, 3a, 4, 12
John recounted that he knelt down in the hotel and prayed, “O God, I’m a sinner. I thought You were just a religion, but now I see that You are a person. I believe in You now. You made everything. Will You make me like You? I just want to be like You.” He was born again that day.
Pastor John Higgins enjoyed traveling to other countries to share the Gospel. Here, he is with his family in Israel in 2020. From left: Married couple Chhea and Adam Higgins, Jeremy, John, and Shauna Higgins.
Searching for a church that taught the Bible, in 1967 John visited Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, at that time in a small chapel on Sunflower Avenue. Chuck gave John a book on the Holy Spirit. Soon after, John asked Chuck if he and the elders would lay hands on him and pray for the Holy Spirit, as described in 1 Timothy 4:14. “He said, ‘Sure, come back the third Sunday in May.’” John was confused, but he fasted and prayed, returning that day. That Sunday, after his lesson, Chuck offered to lay hands on people. “They were speaking in tongues, and I said, ‘Don’t say those words; just ask that I be filled with the Holy Ghost.’ Chuck smiled and said, ‘OK,’ and did that. The next day, I received the gift of tongues.”
During his time under Pastor Chuck, John began to evangelize on the streets and beaches. He and hippie preacher Lonnie Frisbee served in several early house ministries. One day, God led him to the beach on a Sunday morning, where John shared with a boxer and his girlfriend, who both got saved. Once again, he realized the power of the Gospel. In the 1970s he went on to help establish several Christian houses for college-aged hippies in Oregon similar to the Calvary Chapel houses in Southern California. He and Shauna married in 1977, and then God called him to plant a church in Arizona in 1978.
“My dad was just as comfortable sharing the Gospel on the street or in a Waffle House as he was in the pulpit,” said his son Jeremy Higgins, also a pastor. John had a passion for the Gospel, teaching on Sunday and often loading up his young family in their Ford van and visiting cities throughout Arizona to share the Gospel during the week.
Warning Hell’s Angels
One day Jeremy was sure his father would be killed for his boldness. Pastor John got a call that a funeral officiant had canceled, and the funeral home desperately needed him to come within half an hour. Grabbing a sport coat, John and Jeremy, mid-twenties, went straight over to the south Scottsdale gathering. When they got inside, John asked a grieving woman if the deceased had been a Christian. She scoffed and told him to “look around” at the crowd. “They were all Hell’s Angels,” Jeremy recalled, “with tattoos and leather vests.” John opened in prayer and addressed the crowd. “He said, ‘From what I understand, your friend didn’t believe in Jesus. The Bible says that he’s now in Hell, but you don’t have to follow him there.” As his dad continued to share scriptural warnings about Hell, Jeremy’s eyes widened in fear as he looked for the nearest exit. “I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it out of there alive,” he chuckled.
“But then this revival broke out as he was sharing the Gospel. About 40 people gave their lives to the Lord, coming up front, weeping. That was the kind of bold proclamation of truth that Dad was used to.” Reflecting as a pastor, “To this day, I would rather do a funeral than a wedding. People are staring death in the face; it’s an opportunity to challenge them with the Gospel. Lives can change. ... That was the kind of example he set for me early on.”
Jeremy’s wife Brooke recounted that her father-in-law “was assertive, but not aggressive. He wasn’t timid at all. He was very direct about the truth, because he knew that if he didn’t share the Gospel, he would be accountable for that. He taught me not to be a people-pleaser but to fear the Lord above any man,” she said. “As a result, I’ve seen so many lives touched and changed because of the Word of God.”
For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. Galatians 1:10
Rescued by a Gideon Bible in Mexico
Pastor John with his daughters Jame (left) and Tami Murray on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. John had been to Israel countless times and enjoyed bringing other pastors and believers to walk the paths of the Bible.
On another terrifying occasion, Jeremy recalled, his dad and a team from the church were traveling to the village of La Nariz, Mexico, bringing vegetable seeds and a tractor. “The drug trade had wrecked the town, and we were trying to help them get back to their farming roots.” Suddenly they were intercepted by men with assault rifles. Brandishing their weapons, the men aggressively ordered everyone out of their vehicles and on their knees. “One of our guys spoke Spanish, and he told us they were discussing killing us and where to bury our bodies.” Jeremy said a silent farewell to his wife and newborn son.
“Dad had our only Spanish Bible, a pocket Gideon New Testament, in his vest pocket,” Jeremy recalled. As the leader of the gang threatened John in Spanish and English, John calmly stood. “My dad pulls the Bible out of his pocket and says, ‘If you do kill us, read this. Because the God you’ll meet in this book will forgive you for killing me.’” Jeremy watched in horror, thinking, Dad, don’t tell him that!
The ruffian took the Bible and said, “This is for me?” John nodded. Everyone was staring at John and the gangster, who suddenly began shouting at his own men. The gangsters and the mission team were astonished as the men began to return the items they had stolen. “The only thing they kept was the little Bible my dad gave them,” Jeremy testified. “It was amazing how God worked through that man. I’m sure going to miss him.”
Selfless Multiplier
Seth Higgins served under his dad John in CC Tri City in Tempe, AZ, for years and now pastors Calvary Living Hope in Chandler, AZ. Shown here at CC Tri City, Pastor John (left) was both dad and mentor in ministry to Seth (right). In his six decades of ministry, Pastor John discipled many men in their faith and in ministry.
Pastor John’s legacy includes more than a dozen churches in Arizona and beyond. As CC Tri City grew, soon they were sending out men to plant churches. He would disciple men in several groups of 10 to 15 at a time. Jeremy recounted, “He had a map of the Phoenix area in a room at CC Tri City. He would identify areas that weren’t being evangelized. He would encourage the men to listen to the Lord’s leading, and then facilitate a new church plant. He would send them out with 30-40 people to plant a new church,” said his son. “That’s how Brooke and I ended up in Iowa.” Pastor Jeremy first served for 15 years under his dad; in 2009, he and his wife Brooke planted Calvary Community Church in Cedar Rapids, IA, where he still leads.
“He sent us as he heard from the Lord,” Jeremy explained. “It was something he had seen in Pastor Chuck at Costa Mesa. It became a blueprint for how he did ministry.” Some of the men who went out from CC Tri City to plant have now passed on, and their sons or another are still leading the churches started all those years ago. John never kept a count. “I asked him how many there were, and he never told me,” Jeremy said, “I know there are more than a dozen.” He added, “Over 60 years of ministry, he always stayed true to the proclamation of the whole counsel of the Word of God.”
Power of the Spirit
A friend from the early days at Calvary, Ed Plummer, 86, remembered John’s anointed leadership and teaching. Years later at a radio conference, a group of about 30 men had gathered to discuss sharing the Gospel through radio. “We had spent two days learning about radio and how to do it. Then John comes in and says, ‘Get everybody together; we’re going to pray,’” Ed recounted. “He prayed for everyone to receive the power of the Holy Spirit. And I’m telling you, it was remarkable what God did. The power of God was so present in the room. Two men fell to their knees. We were all changed.”
Reflecting on the Jesus Movement and the emphasis on the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, Ed added, “That’s what has to happen. You have to break through all of the planning and logistics and get on your knees and pray. It has to be a work of the Spirit.”
When asked about the explosion of young converts and the Calvary Chapel movement, Pastor Chuck often quoted Zecharaiah 4:6b: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the Lord of hosts.
Good & Faithful
Pastor John and Shauna Higgins have enjoyed the blessing of a large family, with five children, 15 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. Two sons and one son-in-law are pastors.
“My heart is both breaking and rejoicing,” Jeremy wrote on the day his father passed. “Breaking because I won’t get my weekly Sunday call to talk about the sermons we both preached that day (along with so many other things). Rejoicing because he is set free from his earthly body and now knows the glory and righteousness of our Father firsthand. I can only imagine what it was like when he stared into the eyes of Jesus and heard those words, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’ I will miss him more than I can express, but I know that I will see him again.” He cited Jesus’ promise: Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life (John 5:24, KJV).
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:55-57, KJV).
The Higgins family is planning a memorial service for Pastor John on June 20 at CC Tempe, which will also be livestreamed at calvarychapeltempe.com.
Known as a sharp dresser, Pastor John eventually traded in his hippie attire for sport coats and suits. From left: Brooke, Shauna, John, and Jeremy enjoyed dressing up for John’s daughter Tami’s wedding. Jeremy and Brooke serve at Calvary Community Church in Cedar Rapids, IA.
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