Architect  of the ‘Jesus People’ movement reached millions

“Much is mumbled, trails off, and is not decipherable, but at one point it was almost as if he were fully awake and standing at his pulpit. May the Lord prepare us for everything. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
It was so pure, so simple, and so like dad. In the last few days, he’s been subjected to lots of tests, daily chest X-rays, procedures, and interrupted sleep from hospital staff and periodic coughing. The prayer he said in his sleep seemed so appropriate it gave me chills.”
– Chuck Smith Jr., Sept. 25, 2013

By Dan Vigil
Staff Writer
411whittier.com

WHITTIER – A pastor who didn’t care if his congregation smoked pot, dropped acid or got their daily dose of God through flower power has himself realized salvation.
Pastor Chuck Smith died Oct. 3 at age 86.
Smith founded the Calvary Chapel movement and his lifelong devotion to Jesus Christ has helped save thousands of souls. Maybe tens of thousands worldwide.
“God got hold of my heart and said: ‘If you heal people physically, the best is just for a time. There’s a sickness that’s killing everybody, and that’s sin. If you can bring healing from that, it’s eternal. Do you want to devote your life to things that are temporal or things that are eternal?'”

Seeking to effect more change in the lives of Christians, Smith developed a simple style of expository, verse-by-verse, Bible teaching that still resonates today with millions.
In the late 1960’s and early 70’s Smith’s teaching began to draw in thousands of young people caught up in the popular “hippie” movement. While the rest of the world was complaining about “those dirty, lazy hippies,” Smith’s wife, Kay, began to develop a strong burden for young men and women.
“I’d see them roaming the streets or wherever I saw them, and I would start crying,” Kay Smith said. “I started praying and saying ‘God, what’s wrong? What’s wrong with their lives?’ And I felt the Lord said to me, “They’re empty, they need me.”
It wasn’t too long before the couple had 10 so-called “hippies” living in their home and countless others coming by to listen to Chuck Smith’s teachings. It was out of these early meetings that the Calvary Chapel movement evolved.
Today one can find Calvary churches in nearly every community. Locally there are places of worship in Whittier, La Habra, La Mirada, Downey and Norwalk.
Born in 1926 to devout Christian parents, Smith made a decision to enter the ministry instead of medical school at 17 while he was at a summer camp.

By focusing on a consistent method of “Bible first” theology and keeping Calvary Chapel open to everyone, a system of one-to-one evangelism evolved that spread like wildfire among young people in Southern California.
When asked how this phenomenon occurred, Smith explained Calvary’s rapid growth was through no effort of his own.

As Smith later said, “We didn’t sit down and have strategy sessions and say, ‘Well now, how can we reach them? And how can we grow? And what can we do here? And all these planning sessions. It was just something that just naturally happened. As you follow the leading of the spirit, you just stumble into it’” Smith said.

The “Jesus People” movement, as it came to be known, seemed to hit young people everywhere. George Adams, a longtime Whittier resident, recalls, “A friend of mine just pulled me out of a party one day and took me to a Bible study. I did the same for one of my friends and he became a Calvary Chapel pastor out in Chino Hills.”

Pastor Jack Abeelen, senior pastor of Morningstar Christian Chapel in Whittier, has built an incredibly successful congregation by emulating Smith’s unwavering commitment to the Lord and the Bible.

“I grew up as a young Christian under Pastor Chuck Smith. I remember vividly sitting each Sunday night in the chapel at Costa Mesa and studying through the Bible with him. Over time I fell in love with God’s Word and Pastor Chuck taught me how I could rely on what God had said,” Abeelen wrote in an e-mail. “Eventually I, too, went into full-time ministry and have now been the senior pastor at Morningstar Christian Chapel in Whittier for nearly 30 years. I have seen what I learned from him many years ago, that the teaching of Gods’ Word will bear much fruit. We have grown from four families in a living room to thousands who gather each week to worship the Lord. Pastor Chuck shaped my view of ministry and I had the distinct privilege these past many years to serve with him and teach with him at many pastors’ conferences and gatherings.

“He was in private what you saw in public, a man of faith and integrity and conviction. He both believed and practiced what he taught. He was a role model to me and I am sure I wouldn’t be in ministry today without his leadership. I will miss him greatly and not just his friendship but his leadership. He was a man of the Word, if God said it, that settled it for him. He will always be for me the standard of what a pastor should be like in terms of practice and commitment,” Abeelen wrote.

Calvalry Chapel churches have brought millions of people to Christ over the years. Today there are more than 1,000 churches in the U.S. and hundreds overseas.
A memorial service will be held for Smith at Honda Center of Anaheim on Oct. 27.

411whittier.com editor Tim Traeger contributed to this story.

dvigil@dvigil.com

ttraeger@411whittier.com

By the Rev. Thomas M. Boles PhD., DMin., D.D.

One night during the Civil War, a stranger arrived at Henry Ward Beecher’s home. Mrs. Beecher answered the knock at the door and found a tall and gangly stranger, muffled to the eyes, asking to see the great preacher privately. He refused to give his name.

Because her husband’s life had been threatened recently, Mrs. Beecher declined to receive him into their home and sent him away into the night. She returned upstairs and told her husband about the stranger at the door and what she had done.

Beecher, who never seemed to know fear, descended at once and hurried after the man.

He invited him back to his house and brought him inside, where he conversed with him privately for some time. Later, when Beecher rejoined his wife, he told her what he had done. He also revealed that the muffled stranger had been none other than Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States.

He, too, was in a crisis and feeling threatened by evil. He came requesting prayer.

While we are never asked to openly defy natural law or to show disregard for life, the Lord does ask us to take risks, in showing His love and sharing the gospel with those in need.

Love without courage is ineffective, but love with courage can change the world.

Consider the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.

“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

“Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.

Matthew 4:12-23

By the Rev. Thomas M. Boles PhD., DMin., D.D.

On a trip to Israel, a tourist was amazed to hear a young Jewish man recite his

family lineage back 14 generations. She reflected upon her own family

tree, and realized that she could only trace her own lineage back five generations.

She concluded, “God is the only one who knows my beginning from my ending.”

Ultimately, that is true for each person. No one fully knows what another has

experienced early in life, or what genetic influences may be brought to bear in a

person because of the behavior of his or her parents and other ancestors.

A part of each person will always remain a mystery,

known to God alone.

Or struggled beneath his load.

There may be tacks in his shoes that hurt,

Though hidden away from your view,

The burdens he bears, if placed on your back

Might cause you to stumble, too.

Don’t be too hard on the man who errs,

Or pelt him with wood or stone,

Unless you are sure, yea, double sure,

That you have no fault of your own.

Success is to be measured not so much by the

position that one has reached in life as by the

obstacles which he has overcome while trying.

Don’t find fault with the man who limps

Or stumbles along life’s road,

Unless you have worn the shoes he wears,

to succeed.

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because

when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of

life that God has promised to those who love Him.

James 1:12