Credit: Tenebrae/Wikipedia/Creative Commons 3.0
Call it a series of coincidences. Revival broke out at Asbury University in Kentucky on Feb 8, 2023, which coincidentally was almost to the day that a similar major revival broke out at the school on Feb 3, 1970.
The earlier revival was connected to the Jesus People movement caused by a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Hippies in California, which spread across North America.
Many who experienced both revivals are seeing similarities between the two.
Coincidentally, later this month (Feb 24, 2023), a movie called Jesus Revolution, is scheduled for release. Directed by John Erwin and Brent McCorkle, it is based on Greg Laurie’s book of the same name.
It tells the story of the Jesus People movement as the Holy Spirit swept through Hippies during the late 60s and early 70s, resulting in tens of thousands being saved and filled with the Holy Spirit.
Laurie was 17-years-old when he was saved in California in 1971 and by the age of 19, he was leading a Bible study of 30 hippies, which grew into a Harvest Christian Fellowship, one of the largest churches in America.
In an interview with “Live with Kelly and Ryan,” Actor Kelsey Grammer came to tears while talking about his role in the movie where he plays Chuck Smith, pastor of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California, Faithwire reports.
Smith and his church were considered by many to be the hub of the Jesus People movement.
Grammer added that when he and his wife, Kayte Walsh, sat down and watched an uncut version of the movie, his wife started crying stating “Oh my God, it’s the best thing you’ve ever done.”
Wiping away the tears, Grammer said, “I love this movie. I really love it.”
In describing the role of Chuck Smith, Grammer told Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest, that Smith was “a man looking for his own faith and finds it as well. A man whose church is empty. He can’t get traction, and he’s started to think he’s going to be fired from his job as a pastor.”
“This hippie comes into his life,” Grammer continued. “And he finds new purpose and started a movement that’s still going. It’s extraordinary.”
Grammer has become almost a cultural icon in America playing the role of Dr. Frasier Crane in Cheers and its spinoff Frasier, the longest-running TV series in American history played by a single actor.
The famed actor has also seen much tragedy. His father was murdered in 1968 and his sister was kidnapped, raped and murdered in 1975 and his two step-brothers died in a scuba diving accident in 1980.
One of the defining attributes of the Jesus People movement was the dozens of communes that sprang up as a result, where hippies including drug addicts, dealers, and prostitutes lived, were discipled and set free.
I was saved during the Jesus People movement and ended up living in a commune of sorts for a couple of years. While other communes went by more exotic names as Shiloh House and House Miracles, the one I lived in was known as the ‘Home for Unwed Brothers’.
More on the 1970 Asbury revival: READ: The Asbury revival, then and now
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