Here we are in 2023 and the hippy Jesus is back on television. Watching the recent movie Jesus Revolution on Netflix brought me back to my childhood church experience.

My parents met and married in a pentecostal church on the West Coast after the Vietnam War. My early days of Sunday school were at one of the churches birthed out of movement of barefoot young people stirred by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The spontaneous worship meetings and the laying on of hands took precedence over carpet care and working air conditioning. Several of my friends were even born and raised in Christian communes. That community-based faith experience is part of my formative understanding of how life can be lived.

Of course in real life as on television, there is no escaping flaws of humanity such as power struggles, tension over finances and keeping proper boundaries in marriages. During middle school, our pastor ran off with an elder’s daughter and threw the whole local congregation into chaos. After that, things become more standard, more regulated and everyone went back to wearing shoes, sitting in pews and keeping their hands to themselves.

Like in the film, I feel there is a similar tension between the older and younger generations of believers today. Our current clashes are over the needs of the young and the expectations of the old. Issues of the environment, sexuality, race and financial disparity are tugging at modern day society. This conflict has caused some believers to circle the wagons, and shut the doors and their hearts to the real need in our world. That is not the solution. If we want something new and fresh, we can’t fear the growth and pain required to birth it.

You can’t reach the people you fear.