 And so I want to introduce our conference by remembering our movement's foundations. Helen Keller once said, I can't see. No, Helen Keller, I'm sure she did. Helen Keller once said, the only thing worse than being blind is having sight, but no vision. So by remembering our foundations, we can have a clearer vision, I believe, for our future. And so I want to remind you of a few things by taking a trip down memory lane. In the late 60s and early 70s, people were amazed at a new phenomenon that was shaking youth. There were young people who were beginning to come to faith in Jesus Christ, and the press quickly labeled it the Jesus movement and began to speak of us as Jesus people. This was because everything we valued centered around Jesus Christ. We had Jesus music. We're a community of Jesus people. We're even called Jesus Freaks. And that was amazing because many thought that America had outgrown its need for God. On April 8, 1966, Time Magazine had run on its cover. The question is God dead. As far as anyone could see, the gospel message was no longer reaching people. Young people were abandoning the church, and there was a real crisis of faith in the United States. But then on June 21, 1971, Time ran a picture of Jesus on the cover and called it the Jesus Revolution. Now, how did this revolution begin? How did this youth revival happen? As we look at today with the violence, with the fear, the uncertainty, we can actually think that it is the worst time in our history, but that obviously is not true. Memory is selective, and some look back at the 60s and see it with rose-colored glasses. It's advertised and celebrated as a time of peace and love, the coming of age of America. But the fact is the 60s in America was nothing but turmoil. The decade was filled with turbulence, anger, revolution. Many of us grew up under the shadow of the bomb with the belief that we would be annihilated through a nuclear weapon. In the 60s, the US committed itself to policing a small Southeast Asian country named Vietnam. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Jack Ruby killed Jay Harvey Oswald on TV. And the 60s became a time of chaos. The civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. began marching for racial justice. It was Dr. King who said, I have a dream that one day little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. That was a Christian vision. It was preached by John the Baptist. It was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. But his reward for such a dream was his being gunned down in Memphis in 1968. And then later, John Kennedy's brother Bobby was assassinated. The 60s was a time when racial riots broke out in Watts, Boston, Washington DC and Newark and Detroit and the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Raised fists and cries of burn, baby burn began to ring out in America. UC Berkeley, Harvard, San Francisco State and other universities were invaded by students occupied in protest against the war in Vietnam. In May of 1974, university students were shot and killed by National Guardsmen at Kent State and 11 days later two students were killed and 12 people were injured after National Guardsmen opened fire on them in Jackson State College in Mississippi. It became an angry time when young people began to cry out, kill the pigs. We saw the rise of the Black Panthers and the Black Muslims and saw the Black Power Salute raised in protest in the 68 Olympics. We had the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Wall and in the midst of this turmoil hippies came into existence invading San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. Drugs, alcohol, love ends, free sex became the lifestyle of many of the younger generation. Timothy Leary encouraged youth everywhere to drop acid and our motto's became turn on, tune in, drop out and if it feels good, do it. Much of this way of thinking came through a revolution in music. The British invasion led by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the animals and the who invaded America sweeping the youth into counter-cultural lifestyles and anti-Christ philosophies. And at that time, musicians became more than entertainers. They became voices. They became even prophetic. Pete Seger wrote an anti-war anthem called Where Have All the Flowers Gone. Barry McGuire sang The Eve of Destruction and Bob Dylan came to be regarded as the prophetic voice of youth. Music was more than simply lyrics. It was the voice of millions of disenchanted youth. I remember when John Lennon said the Beatles are more popular than Jesus Christ. Though it caused outrage and album burnings at that time, I agreed with him. We had rock music, folk music, protest music, soul music, psychedelic music. We had rock musicals. Every kind of music you could imagine. It became a time when singer songwriters came to believe that they should openly espouse politics and many did. Sam Cook's A Change is Gonna Come, Donovan's Universal Soldier and Lennon's Give Peace a Chance were among the songs that challenged the youth of its day. And this message was broadcast every day through every part of the United States over the radio. Motown became a conduit for black music to enter into America's mainstream. The 50s had introduced various black artists to America, but Motown introduced more of the black experience through such groups as the Temptations and Four Tops, the Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Marthen Van Della's TV Wonder. In 1967, All You Need Is Love became the anthem of youth because it spoke to our hearts. In 1969, thousands gathered at Yazger's Farm in Woodstock, New York, and became the Woodstock Nation. Joni Mitchell wrote a song that Crosby Stills National Young became famous for. It clearly presented the longing and the hearts of many of the youth of that day. She wrote, well, I came upon a child of God. He was walking along the road and I asked him, tell me, where are you going? As he told me. He said, I'm going down to Yazger's Farm, I'm going to join in a rock and roll band. Got to get back to the land, set my soul free. We are stardust, we are gold, and we are a billion year old carbon, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden. On the heels of Woodstock came Altmont, a west coast knockoff. The Woodstock vibe didn't last. Four deaths occurred at Altmont, including the death of Meredith Hunter. Contrary to our selective and sentimental memory, the 60s were anything but happy. We were rightly described by singer Don McLean as a generation lost in space. The apostle Paul describes it better in Ephesians 4, 16 and 17. He writes, we were darkened in our understanding, separated from the life of God because of our ignorance in us due to the hardening of our hearts. We lost all sensitivity and we gave ourselves over to sensuality, indulging in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. Again, in the words of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, we were helplessly hopeless. In the midst of those dark days, God began to move. Many hippies began to see in Jesus the ultimate hippie, the preeminent revolutionary. His message of love and forgiveness began to reach my generation. Multitudes of hippies had come to faith in Jesus and it began to amaze America. Kids that had been written off as filled with rage and hate were getting saved and a youth movement hit the United States. The press quickly called us the Jesus people. In 1967, Ed Plowman, the assistant editor of Christianity Today, wrote a book called The Jesus Movement in America and in his book, Plowman attempted to describe what was sweeping through the United States. What he was describing was a youth movement built on faith in Christ and his love. And he followed Jesus' people from Haight-Ashbury to New York City chronically in the movement. In his introduction of the book, Plowman wrote, I just couldn't believe it was the real thing. Hippies reading the Bible and praying, yet there they were. In the storefront coffee house, some ministers had opened near the intersection of Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco. What I saw and heard dispelled my doubts about these wild-looking young people and the sincerity of their belief. Dogs didn't seem to matter anymore. They said Jesus Christ had given them a better high. They spoke freely of their new love for God. They loved the Bible. They loved each other. In the electric atmosphere of vibrant unselfishness, I had a strange feeling they loved me. And this was true then, and it's true today because God's love had broken through. Long hairs, short hairs, some coats and ties, people finally coming around. Looking past the hairs straight into the eyes, people finally coming around, and it's very plain to see. It's not the way it used to be. And out of this time in history, and out of this Jesus movement, in many ways leading it, came Calvary Chapel Ministries. And of course, there were other groups of believers that celebrated Jesus. But I got involved with Calvary Chapel as a 20-year-old young man. On December 27th, 1970, I was captured by the love of God and the way his love was shown in that chapel. And it was taught to me from then to this day now that what makes us what we are is the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.