After the Jesus movement I spent decades trying to fit into traditional church, but I wasn’t willing to ignore the Holy Spirit. I discovered that Christianity is easier to present as a religious program than it is to live.

The Jesus Movement focused on the presence and personality of a Jesus. It didn’t focus on the presence and personality of a pastor. I learned that a meeting of Christ-followers can be an outpost of God’s kingdom — a gathering free from human control and manipulation. Church meetings controlled by one person tend to make it difficult for people to learn to hear Christ for themselves.

In the Jesus Movement I also learned that hearing a preacher isn’t the same thing as hearing God — not even close! If you learn to directly hear from God in church, then you can hear Him everywhere. However, if you just hear a preacher’s voice in church, you’ll usually forget what he said.

Church services don’t start until a pastor starts them. Perhaps they should wait until Jesus starts them.

It’s more powerful to interact around a campfire than to sit in a lecture hall and hear a talk about fire — same with God’s fire. The Jesus Movement was God’s fire. I’ve never been willing to turn away from that fire.

Church services tend to be a very controlled environment where everyone is compelled to behave the same way and/or sit in silence. However, because the Jesus Movement allowed the risen Jesus to freely express His creativity when we gathered in His name, every meeting was innovative and different.

Early Christians seem to have met as an interactive body of believers under the direct Headship/Lordship of the living Jesus. (So did the early days of the Jesus Movement.)