A History of Jesus People USA

By Jon Trott

Part 2
House and Home

For two years we had lived in Faith Tabernacle, growing and taxing the church folks' patience to the utmost. The need for a house weighed heavily on the Jesus People. This chapter of JPUSA's story, as a 1975 Cornerstone noted, had an ending long deferred:

Though we were enjoying the Lord's blessings in Chicago we still needed a house. We had 24-hour prayer chains and fasts, yet every time we went to buy a place something strange would happen.

Satan really would come against us, telling us we weren't good enough to have a house or we would never find a place...

Many people figured we would come and go like all the other evangelistic gropus who had come to Chicago. We were determined and we had heard God. We prayed and pleaded for wisdom. We weren't rich and we didn't know much about business and real estate. Somewhere, sometime, there was a house for us in Chicago among the thousands of buildings. We just had to find the right place, the one Jesus had picked out especially for us...

There it was, a real beauty on Paulina [Street]. They went to see the building on Wednesday. Could this be it? The offer was made on Friday... What a miracle, it happened so smoothly. We have a house, a house to serve God in, a house with open doors, a house filled with God's love and his Holy Spirit.¹

Still, 4431-33 Paulina was only a six-flat. How did so many fit into so little space? First, the Paulina house already had many small rooms, perfect for married couples. Adding a "loft bed" gave each couple more room and a cozy nook for reading and sleeping. Then there were two large living rooms on each floor, six in all, which were converted into singles' dorms, three "brothers' dorms" and three "sisters' dorms." Each dorm consisted of a forest of triple bunk-beds; this writer's dorm had over twenty men living in it.² Was it "roughing it" and often, to use JPUSA parlance, a "flesh purge"? Yes. Was it a lot of fun and great fellowship? Yes. Besides, us Paulina-dwellers always had the "old-timers" telling us about Faith Tab's basement, and even life on the old red Jesus bus. We kept hearing about how easy we had it!

The Ravenswood neighborhood was a working middle-class area, a large Christian Science church on the opposing corner and a number of single-dwelling homes across the street from our Paulina six-flat. Next to the house was a large yard, good for games in the summertime and snowball fights and sleds in winter. The building at 4431 was a perfect place for young marrieds to begin having and raising children, but was also the place where we experienced the sorrow of the death of Bruce and Micki Johnson's baby boy, Caleb, victim of an lightning attack of meningitis. With its sorrows and its joys, our settling in at Paulina was a sign that there was some long-term living to do.

At the time of the Paulina move, we also rented a small set of storefronts at 3702-3704 North Halsted Street, offices which for a time housed Cornerstone's staff as well as our craft shop, Mountain of Spices.³ Most important, the second small storefront transformed into a sanctuary on Sundays, where we held an eleven o'clock service for ourselves and anyone else who wanted to come. Bible studies were held there on Thursdays, 7:30 p.m., and stood open to the public.

That same spring of 1975, JPUSA started businesses to support the ministry. We initially invested in painting and home repair supplies and tapped into a great method of becoming a self-supporting ministry.⁴ In addition, because Denny and Lou Cadieux had earlier joined the ministry with their complete typesetting business, we were able to train brothers on the Linotypes and take typesetting jobs. Soon we had a moving company and a carpentry crew. Later would come roofing, a porch and deck company, and (much later) a roofing supply outlet servicing much of Chicago's North Side. An incidental result of these "tent-making" ministries was that, as years went by, young untrained men became business professionals, proud of their work and knowledgeable of every latest advance. In this way, even those that eventually felt called to leave our community left equipped with a trade.

Street witnessing continued to be primary, as was our outreach to Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Many, many readers (including the author of this article) first encountered Cornerstone when handed a copy while hurrying to their next plane. And in true Jesus People fashion, a witness was never out of context, no matter what else was going on. In one of Cornerstone's impressive early efforts at investigative reporting, the authors researched prostitution by going to where the prostitutes worked, interviewing gay males, street-walking females, and women who worked at a thinly-disguised "spa" which fronted for prostitution. At the spa, while two JPUSA sisters interviewed the women working there, the brother who'd accompanied them began witnessing to the spa's manager:

He was a divorce and his naivete was out of character for his line of work. He was hungry for something solid and listened readily to the Gospel. He told us the whole spa scene really troubled his conscience and he wanted out. Before we left, he had prayed for salvation with the brother. ⁵

That zeal to spread the good news was expressed in this convicting passage from a C-stone article entitled "Wake Up!":

Across the land in these last days, the story of the Good Samaritan becomes painfully illustrated. All around us we see the "holy" priests and Levites passing by the broken, battered masses. Wave upon wave of deceived, lost sheep stare back at us from the no-man's-land of mediocrity, robbed by Satan himself. "The thief comes not except to rob, kill, and destroy."...

The majority of Christians live DAILY like a complacent physician stepping right over a bleeding beggar, doctor's bag in hand. And the simple reason much of the world is going to hell is NOT because the devil has so much power; it's NOT because the preacher is not doing his job; it's because WE, the Christians, do not have the burden, the heart, or the compassion of God, Himself. There is no way we can begin to minister without seeking and feeling the very heart of Jesus for His lost sheep!

Desire His zeal, His burden, yes, get down in the dirt where so many of us came from, and cry out for the burden of the Lord, and you WILL see with His eyes! He told us in 2 Tim. 4:2, "preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching."...

When your strength and concern has long given out, the very love and weight on the heart of God will constrain you to preach liberty to the captives! Seek the burden of the Lord, and forsake your own! It's time. ⁶

Nationally, the Jesus movement was less and less visible. The Children of God, the Way International, and others had made inroads into the Jesus People's ranks, yet regarding attempts at communal living, the number one result was not cultism but eventual disintegration. The widespread disappearance of nearly all the Jesus communes was a sign hard to interpret, many commentators suggesting that such communes--along with the movement overall--had merely been a "fad." We took on this misperception in response to comments made by church historian Martin Marty:

"The hardline Jesus Movement has long ago had it," states Dr. Martin E. Marty, professor of church history at the University of Chicago Divinity School...

We would reply, "The media headline Jesus Movement has had it!" It seems those researching the topics are spending too much time in offices; not enough in the field; consequently, they're out of touch with the grassroots revival that is taking place all over the country....

It is true that the Jesus movement today is not symbolized by the trippy kid of the early seventies who had merely added Jesus to his bag. Those who treated Jesus just as another trip left long ago to return to their former lives. The Jesus Movement has certainly not died but grown up as all healthy Christian movements should. Now the Jesus person is better typified by the serious Christian concerned with the finer points of discipleship.

If you think the Jesus movement is dead, don't play any funeral music around us.⁷

To further make the point, a busload of us marched in downtown Chicago near the Tribune and Sun-Times buildings with signs such as "The Jesus Movement AIN'T NO NEW THING: Jesus Started Moving A Long Time Ago!" ⁸ We interpreted disbanded communities as cases of God's plan being fulfilled: most Jesus communes had never been designed to become permanent expressions of faith. Instead, they had been halfway points between the disintegrating counterculture and the evangelical/charismatic cultural mainstream. God obviously used "graduates" of such groups to strengthen and renew more traditional portions of His Church, just as he used the older denominations to strengthen their Jesus movement members. We had seen some leave our own community to join more traditional groups and pursue a more "normal" American lifestyle, and they did so with our blessing. The rest of us trusted God for our vision of continuing on in a communal lifestyle together as Christ's disciples and as a family of families.

In a 1976 issue of Cornerstone, we published the first version of what would become an often updated tract called "Meet Our Family." We ended the article by quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship concerning the Christian's duty to be a citizen of two worlds:

"the disciples of Jesus must not fondly imagine that they can simply run away from the world and huddle together in a little band."

The truth of the above quotation is a constant burden of balance to us. The balance of not becoming a sheltered cloister of Christians blessing each other, or going the other way and getting into such a social gospel that there is no spiritual feeding or security within ourselves. ⁹

Next to such a "heavy" article ran lighter fare, an illustrated description of a JPUSA loft bed:

You know how it is when you live communally and you only have one, yes just one, room to sleep in, have dinner with your friends in, or just hang out in. Well--our answer to this problem was the loft bed. So for all you practical minded space savers, here are complete instructions on how to build your own loft bed... ¹⁰

Meanwhile, our church services were feeling the squeeze. There was simply too little room for the growing number of JPUSAs plus other Chicagoans who wanted to attend our "Radical Christian Worship." Then, in the fall of 1976, Cornerstone reported that the storefronts had been sold out from beneath us.

It was hard to realize the year had already gone by -- I remember Janet [Cameron] painting the mural for our craft shop, Mountain of Spices, the guys building the shelves, and then laying carpet in time for our first worship service behind the shop, the heavy linotypes being precariously moved by winch and ramps into our Cornerstone office. That was when Frank [Bixler] fell in the manhole and nobody could tell where his yells were coming from...

The storefronts were sold to a new owner. . . . Our newly signed lease was terminated in court.

With twenty days notice to move, we spent a lot of time on our knees seeking the Father. . . .¹¹

For a short time, church services were held in the basement of the Paulina house, exposed pipes occasionally dripping on both JPUSAs and visitors who came to our Sunday meetings. Before the new year, we found a real church, located at 1017 W. Barry Street:

It was a beautiful old Methodist church whose small Spanish congregation was consolidating with another church further north. Our first service was a wonderful prelude to Thanksgiving -- CBS Channel 2 News was there to film it for their program "Two on Two." We were already filled to capacity. A young man and woman responded to the gospel message and asked Jesus into their hearts.¹²

Such a service was never predictable. Worship was mildly charismatic, many hands and arms upraised as we sang together to our Lord. Most music (though not all) was composed by members of JPUSA, and lyrics often came straight from scripture or personal experience. Our drama group, the Holy Ghost Players, made their appearance somewhere between the various worship songs and hymns, doing favorite skits such as "The Martian" (an alien questions an earthling about Christ) and "Mahoney" (a born-again ex-gangster gives his testimony). Resurrection Band played nearly every Sunday for Radical Christian Worship, though they'd often had a late concert somewhere Saturday night. This writer, whose first experience hearing Resurrection was at Barry Street, later recounted it this way for CCM magazine:

The first time I heard the Resurrection Band remains a strong, clear memory. I sat in a run-down, inner-city church the Jesus People had rented, feeling amused at the sight of this scruffy-looking and unknown group. But soon, all illusions were shattered. The sounds of "Broken Promises" tore through my comfortable superiority, literally making the hair stand up on the nape of my neck. The music and lyrics, as a sort of spiritual acid, burned through all defenses. After three more songs, all at maximum volume and terribly clear intensity, a man in a rock'n'roll desert had tasted his first pure water.¹³

The church, located around a mile from our Paulina House, had a parsonage thrown in which we soon filled with single brothers and a few married couples. Cornerstone relocated to a room on the second floor of the church, while its basement had plenty of space for more single guys and the typesetting shop. Someone in the surrounding Hispanic neighborhood attempted an occasional hex on us by leaving chicken entrails, blood, and feathers on the church's concrete steps.¹⁴ Unknown to us, on Chicago's predominately black South Side, a small community of African-American Christians had developed with a history startlingly similar to our own. They had come together in a sort of desperate effort to hang onto the faith most of them had newly acquired. But their lone elder fell into immorality and ultimately was forced out of the group. Soon afterward, sometime in 1976, they found out about Jesus People and contacted us. Immediately, noted Cornerstone, a rapport was discovered between JPUSA and their South Side friends:

New Life, sister ministry of JPUSA, is a full-time Christian community comprised of fifteen married couples. They have been together nearly a year. Located on the South side in Hyde Park, their ministry has a special burden for street witnessing.... Stop in and rap with these beautiful brothers and sisters.¹⁵

In 1977, a Cornerstone reader offered us his equity in 230 acres of undeveloped land near Doniphan, Missouri for a "retreat center and farm." What old hippie, saved or not, had never dreamed of having his own cabin snuggled in the woods? We accepted the offer and soon reported in C-stone that we'd begun constructing a massive log lodge:

We are all praying the lodge can be finished before hard winter sets in. Over 350 of the 500 needed logs have been cut and trimmed. The brothers hand mixed the cement for the foundation until a local Christian loaned us a mixer. Water is supplied by a local country grocery store. ¹⁶

Numerically, JPUSA had reached approximately 160 full-time disciples by January of 1977, ¹⁷ and by later that year it was evident that another building was needed. We bought a two-story residence across the street from 4431 dubbed "the Yellow House" home for a handful of married couples as well as an upstairs dorm full of single guys.

In mid-1977, there was a brief reunion of the old JP Milwaukee crew. Jim Palosaari had just started a new community, Highway Missionaries of Grant's Pass, Oregon, with the band, Servant. The old Milwaukee group, the Sheep, showed up to reminisce and play some great JP standards. Then Resurrection Band chipped in with some tunes of their own. We enthused that the spark which ignited the Jesus movement was still alive:

Oh, how good it was to read in so many eyes the light you wanted to still be there! ...Elders bared their hearts, disciples talked quietly of their commitments (past and present) and through it all, the call, the Call to discipleship vibrated in the air. No matter we were in different ministries, under different leaders, doing different services; we had all been called, we had all been chosen. It was still there, unfaded by time, undiminished with the advents of marriage, families, and jobs.¹⁸

As we grew, so our visibility and reputation slowly grew. Many people began asking us, because of both the magazine and Resurrection Band, why we weren't starting JPUSA's all over the country. "Divide and Multiply! That's what you should be doing! You're being selfish if you don't!" Cornerstone responded:

We have been asked many times if we think we will expand into other cities. Maybe one day if the Lord called us to but what other place could have the need or the hurt of Chicago? There are eight million people in metropolitan Chicago and after three years, we have only scratched the surface.¹⁹

No, we were not interested in "franchising" Jesus People, convinced that JPUSA's identity was not in its form but in its contents: the lives of the particular individuals God has called to share their lives together. But others got excited by what they observed at JPUSA. Contemporary Christian musician Keith Green visited JPUSA and Cornerstone in the fall of 1977 and soon started his own community, the Last Days Evangelistic Association, and publication, The Last Days Newsletter. The first two issues of LDN were designed and laid out by the C-stone art staff, and the first was printed by us as well. That was the only time we shared our mailing list with another publication.

Bulgarian pastor Harlan Popov (not to be confused with the bizarre evangelist Peter Popov) visited JPUSA October 2 of 1977.²⁰ Harlan's sufferings under communism were the focus of his book, Tortured for His Faith, and along with sharing over dinner with JPUSA's pastors and Cornerstone staff, he also preached in our church that Sunday. (The sermon provided C-stone with an article.) Through Popov's Evangelism to Communist Lands ministry, as well as Keston College, the Slavic Gospel Association, and other outreaches, we tried to stay informed and prayerful and keep our magazine's readership sensitized to their fellow believers' sufferings.

Another visitor around this time was Christian musician Phil Keaggy, who, along with his wife, Bernadette, stayed with us while doing some gigs in Chicago. The Keaggys were involved at the time with Scott Ross's Love Inn community in New York state. Phil, after touring our Paulina house, told us our new home's ornate woodwork and seemingly endless rooms reminded him of C. S. Lewis' book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (Love Inn, involved with Bob Mumford's Christian Growth Ministries, did later disband; Phil is known as a premier Christian musician and Scott Ross now works for Pat Robertson's CBN Television network.)

Our relationship with our friends at New Life community on Chicago's South Side continued to blossom. Yet New Life was struggling. The three men who were sharing the leadership responsibilities found themselves at constant loggerheads. The two communities exchanged couples in an effort to build our relationship further. Kim and Roger Heiss stayed with New Life while Marguerite and Ron Brown came to visit us.

Meanwhile, New Life started a newspaper similar to Cornerstone and called it Lampstand; JPUSA provided typesetting, but the writing and artwork were all New Life's. The newspaper, which only ran for a few issues, took on topics facing the black community. In late 1977, Lampstand tackled certain versions of "black theology," suggesting that its proponents such as theologian James Cone had undermined biblical authority. The writers quoted Cone's statement that Scripture was to be used as a weapon rather than as God's revelation to man, "...We should not conclude that the Bible is an infallible witness.... It matters little to the oppressed who authored Scripture; what is important is whether it can serve as a weapon against the oppressors."²¹ Lampstand's writers responded:

[M]r. Cone has his kingdoms confused, his struggle misdirected. Jesus Christ didn't come to this earth to join anybody's side. It is true that while here His ministry by common people, but His overall mission was to the world, to "whosoever will." The only response any person, be they black, pink, oppressed, or depressed, can give to the Gospel of Christ is one of repentance (Mark 1:15). We are to join God's side, not vice-versa. Jesus is Lord of all, even black people, and cannot be manipulated. There is only one cause, the establishment of His government, and all others are secondary, even the cause of "black liberation."...

We must understand, especially Mr. Cone, that when we speak of Jesus we're not talking about some little nobody. We are dealing with the Lord of the universe, of Whom it is attested that "all things come into being by Him; and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being" (John 1:3, NAS). We must be careful to tread lightly in His presence, and be wary of attempting to put him into our little box in order to exploit His mercies.²²

New Life's leadership continued to struggle and consulted JPUSA for advice. The idea was floated in both JPUSA and New Life that perhaps the smaller community could join forces with their North Side "relatives." Yet JPUSA, despite only one or two black members and our fervent desire to have a more interracial community, kept thinking about what other minstries had tried to do with us. "We didn't want to co-opt another community who had their own vision. It was so tempting, but we just prayed," recalls Glenn Kaiser. "We advised them, supported them, and avoided encouraging them when the issue of throwing in together came up."

New Life approached JPUSA and explained their fervent desire to merge the two communities. "We just didn't see any sense in staying apart any longer," says Ron Brown, one of the then-elders of New Life and presently a pastor of JPUSA. "They had Cornerstone, so we printed Lampstand; they had a council of pastors, we had a council of pastors. Really, our visions were the same! So we said, 'Let's do it together!'" Cornerstone in early 1978 ran a photo of fourteen New Life members and announced the merger of New Life and JPUSA:

For two years now JPUSA has shared the same burdens for the inner city, street witnessing, and ministering to the poor as New Life Fellowship.... We have both felt that living in community enables us to better fulfill the vision Jesus has given us.

The Lord has led us to combine our ministries so we will be able to carry out more effectively His call of discipleship.

It is definitely the hand of a loving Father that has brought us together.²³

JPUSA's Dawn (Herrin) Mortimer remembers it as an incredibly blessed moment. "We met together at the Barry Street Church, all our leadership and all their members and leaders. We talked it through together, and it was like something you might dream about--a whole community of African-American believers, willing to join their lives to ours. We had always written about racism, but the Jesus movement was pretty much an all-white phenomenon. How do you break through the walls our culture has made between black and white? For the South Side fellowship to join us was a major step of growth and blessing in JPUSA's history; I still get goosebumps when I think about it."

In retrospect, it may be that New Life was the only truly black Jesus movement group in the entire history of the Jesus People in America. The providential act of God which led JPUSA and New Life into a common stream together remains one of our historical mountain-top experiences. Our union set the stage for further growth and maturing of the original vision: following Jesus Christ together wherever He might lead us next.•

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