NeoZine

A Lifetime of Revolution

It all happened in San Francisco, during the rise of the Jesus Movement in the late 60s and early 70s.

What is a Christian Revolution?

As Elaine tells the story, it sounds like a blast!

But Revolution never works as we might imagine, she said at the 50th Anniversary of Peninsula Bible Church (PBC) in San Francisco:

God invests his message in a man, which becomes his ministry. Then the ministry becomes a movement, implemented by machinery. Then a monument is built to an institution. And finally it becomes a mausoleum. (Listen Online to Elaine’s Teaching Here)

The late Ray Stedman was caught up in a firestorm of a spiritual revolution which brought explosive growth to PBC (then called Peninsula Bible Fellowship). Their ministry was located near Haight-Ashbury, the epicenter of the Hippie revolution. It was a cultural revolution marked by LSD and a hoard of radical musical groups of epic fame: The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and countless others. Kids were drowning in LSD, the new “Counter-Culture Drug” heralded as salvation of America from “a Monster on the loose!” (Famous words from a song by Steppenwolfe, another Haight band.)

Elaine never took LSD, of course, but somehow Elaine and the Christians at PBF could “put away our hats and gloves” and get on the same level as the red-eyed, tripping, barefoot hippies who come to hear the Word of God every week. Countless numbers were saved and became dedicated leaders in the Jesus Movement, which eventually coalesced into the huge network of churches today called The Vineyard. (Numerous other Christian movements were hatched at this time, like Xenos Christian Fellowship! Read Christening a Zine for more on that scandalous era.).

One amazing revelation in her story is the scripture passage Ray Stedman used in his very first teaching at PBC to kick it all off:

It was he [Christ] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare [or equip] God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ [perfection found in Christ].

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Ephesians 4:11-16)

And guess what? The same passage qualifies as the most-quoted passage around here at Xenos! (What are the odds?)

Guess what else?

This passage just happens to be next at our next Central Teaching at Kent State’s Bowman Hall!

What’s the point?

Elaine nails it:

The foundational message and the primary focus of PBC has been from its inception that the church, which is Christ’s body, has but one Head, the living Lord Jesus Christ. All the members of the body take their direction from that one Head. That perspective was clearly stated in the theme adopted by the five businessmen who started PBC:

“To know Christ and to make him known.”

It’s simple, but it has profound implications.

You go, girl! Does anyone else agree? At 89 years old, Elaine is still filled with a spiritual fire that just won’t calm down!

Listen to Elaine’s amazing story of how God brings “New Covenant Living” into a dark realm and draws crowds away from the likes of Jimi Hendrix! (It seems almost blasphemous, but it’s true!)

Her greatest burden? “Passing on the torch,” she says, and this is a godly perspective we often miss in the hurly-burly of life’s busywork:

There is a great hunger in my heart to pass the torch to a new generation. If you’re looking for a ministry, may I suggest that you can do nothing better than to pour your life into the young. If you are young, give yourself to someone younger. If you are older, retire into loving servanthood!

Then, quoting Hendrix (not Jimi, but Howard, the famous Christian leader at Dallas Theological Seminary):

You spend your life climbing the ladder of success only to find when you reach the top that it’s leaning against the wrong wall.” Then Stowell adds: “Most of us have been so busy building a life, we’ve forgotten that life is really about building a legacy.”

Indeed, God designed us for spawning new life and new generations. This is the heart of Christian ministry, Elaine says. This is what governed her late husband’s mindset, and it’s a good measure of a life:

On that little plot of ground where Ray Stedman’s body rests, waiting for the redemption, there is a little plaque that says simply, “He was a faithful steward.” That is his legacy to the body of Christ. I trust it will be your legacy and mine to another generation.