It fits what little I've known about the Jesus movement, much from Keith Green's story, who got saved during that same time and became well known as the author and singer of many Christian songs. Green followed the command to love brothers and sisters in Christ by buying houses in which many homeless hippies who came to the Lord could be sheltered.
This man's story has a similar spirit. His name is "Brother Tom:"
I was saved out of the hippie movement,and all of the entrapment's of it, into the Jesus People movement. There was a day when Salvation happened all around us, every single day. It was a rare day, when someone was not saved. We baptized once a month in the nearby river..[ Russian River ]..and often had 20-30 confessors of faith.
We carried, and read our bibles everywhere, and wore them out. When people got saved, there was nothing in between them and God. The Holy Spirit entered them visibly, and they became radiant with a holy glow, and they smiled with joy and love toward one another. They had really been born again from above the second time.
The depravity in us before our salvation was no less, for sure, than those today, nor the wounds of sin among us no less severe than today. We were a sick mess, and after being born again, we were healed and delivered of our sicknesses.
Issues like this were trivial, and very common...with most all of us coming out of free love ideas that was founded on immorality as a life-style. There were lots and lots of single mothers in our church.
Almost every one, over the years, got married off, and went on as happy Christian moms. I guess what I'm saying, is that we never worried about figuring it out; We just did it in a very normal and common fashion; loved our brothers and sisters...and in a worshipping church...we all got healed up. God provided, it seemed, for everyone.
Back then, there were "Sisters houses", where perhaps 3 or 4 sisters lived , and some with children. Everybody got a job...and paid rent, and chipped in with the kids. I adapted a family of five boys, and one girl, living with their single mother.
I was single, and had a good job, working with my hands. I cared for those boys, took them fishing at the Ocean, took them out about every weekend, and provided extra's for them, in everyday needs. This went on for several years. I never thought twice about it, or that I was doing some special deed..I wanted to.
Today, these men now, still have respect for me..and made it through into manhood without too much craziness. It was always a joy for me to be there.
This was born out of Community. The Church [ local community [ always precedes the Meeting. Otherwise, you have a dysfunctional Body; usually wrapped up into the divisions of a Priest/pulpit ---Pew/congregation type mindset, and never, ever develop a family, a functioning many membered body, that edifies itself in love.
Life flows through this body that meets house to house, and breaks bread together, devoid of the ecclesiastical control , or respect that the religious live by. I have written in my Bible, that RELIGION KILLS!...and the solution to matters like these will never come to us in the current Clergy/Laity model, as neither will Revival...no matter how much you preach about it.
A healed Church, which is what we are talking about here, is one where Faith works by love, and my experiences in this church that brought life all came from a natural flow of loving one another with Christ Jesus in our midst as Lord....not a program or a defining system of ministry.
One day God will pour Himself upon us again, those who really want Him, and we will become a body again, of equal brothers and sisters, unto the very least of the brethren, and again issues like the single mom ministry will just fall in place, naturally, because they are loved, and worth it.....and no man or woman will ever be judged after their old nature or sins...but as New Creatures! Hallelujah!
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