Greg Laurie Shares Testimony: ‘My Life Changed Radically’
By Movieguide® Staff
The senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship, Greg Laurie, recently sat down with actor Kirk Cameron to discuss his testimony, and the “jesus revolution” of the 1960s and 70s.
Laurie recalled how he sought for relief from his difficult childhood and being raised by an alcoholic mother, in drugs.
However, after a “bad trip” Laurie said that he went from smoking Marijuana everyday and doing LSD to quitting drugs.
“I looked in the mirror and I saw my face melting and I saw my skull exposed and I was so scared,” he told Cameron. “I thought, ‘I don’t want to do drugs anymore, I hate this, I hate this life I’ve chosen.’”
Shortly after his traumatic experience with drugs, he switched high schools. Laurie said that his group of friends at Corona Del Mar High School warned him that the students at his new school, Harbor High School were “Jesus freaks.”
“I said to them, ‘The last thing you’ll ever see is Greg Laurie becoming a Jesus Freak… famous last words,” he said.
Little did Laurie know, God had a plan to rescue him from his hopeless life amid what the New York Times had labeled, a “Jesus Revolution.”
“I’m walking across the campus and I see this girl that’s kind of attractive and a friend of mine was talking to her and I thought I’d walk over and talk to them,” he recalled. “I wanted to meet her and as I was waiting for a break in the conversation she had a textbook for class and a notebook then I saw she had one of those black books with gold pages and ribbons. I went, ‘Oh no.’ I literally thought, ‘What a waste of a perfectly cute girl.’”
“I realized now it wasn’t that she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen but I saw Jesus in her and it was like a light to me,” he added. “I was very cynical because of the life I’d lived but yet I wanted something more and I looked at them I, thought these people are crazy, but the problem was I knew a couple of them and I used to party with them and I’d seen the change that had happened in their life so I couldn’t dismiss them.”
Laurie said that one day, he decided to listen to one of their on-campus meetings. At first, Laurie listened from a distance. But soon he was hanging on the words that pastor Lonnie Frisbee spoke.
“This new thought occurred to me: ‘What if they’re right and what if it’s all true and what if you can have a relationship with God?’ I’m sort of contemplating this and this guy named Lonnie Frisbee, this hippie evangelist stands up and he begins to speak and he really got my attention,” Laurie said. “It was one statement that jumped out at me, when he said Jesus said, ‘You’re for me or against me.’”
Laurie soon found himself on stage, accepting Christ into his heart.
“I don’t even remember getting up and walking there, just boom, I was there and I prayed this prayer and I asked Christ to come into my life and that was in 1970 and that was the day that my life changed radically.”
The Erwin brothers upcoming biopic, THE JESUS REVOLUTION, is based on Laurie’s miraculous conversion and the 1970 spiritual movement in California.
“Time Magazine dubbed it the ‘Jesus Revolution’ back in the day. We called it the Jesus movement and I think actually Time Magazine understood something even we didn’t understand, this was a revolution,” Laurie said. “Back in the late 60s there was a lot of talk of revolution, The Beatles even had a song ‘Revolution,’ and the idea was you know overthrow the
government, young people have all them answers. Let’s change everything.”
“When things are really dark, God sends a spiritual awakening. There was a Time Magazine cover in the late 60s, it was a Black cover with red letters with an ominous statement, ‘Is God Dead?’ A few years later that cover comes out, ‘Jesus Revolution,’” Laurie continued. “What a difference a few years make and what a difference a spiritual awakening means and that’s what happened, God sent this awakening, this revival.
“In the church, restoration, revival, revolution for us is getting back to God’s original template of the early church that turned their world upside down.”
Movieguide® previously reported on the upcoming movie, THE JESUS REVOLUTION:
The Erwin brothers of Kingdom Story Company announced that they would follow up their blockbuster hit, AMERICAN UNDERDOG, with another movie based on a true story, JESUS REVOLUTION.
The movie follows the true story of the “spiritual awakening” of the 1970s and the nationwide impact of evangelists and pastors such as Greg Laurie on Americans.
“The true story of a national spiritual awakening in the early 1970’s and its origins within a community of teenage hippies in Southern California,” the IMDb synopsis reads.
Laurie recently visited the set of JESUS REVOLUTION and talked with Jon Erwin about the upcoming biopic.
“I love this movie,” Jon told Laurie. “I’ve wanted to make this movie for years. It’s original. It’s personal, there’s such a cause behind it, like, ‘God, let’s see this happen again.’ But it’s also going to be really funny. It’s going to be really funny and it’s going to be really heartfelt… It’s one of those movies that’s going to make you laugh as much as it makes you cry. I think it’s going to be this incredible emotional experience in a way people don’t expect.
“This will be my fifth or sixth adaptation of a true story in a row since the movie WOODLAWN,” the Movieguide® Award-winning director continued. “The difference between this is a lot of those other stories were well known, like I CAN ONLY IMAGINE or AMERICAN UNDERDOG. This is a story, it was almost like finding a diamond that no one knew was there or that people have forgotten about. When I found this magazine, Time Magazine cover ‘The Jesus Revolution 1971,’ four years after the Time Magazine cover was ‘Is God Dead?’ It was just this story of this hippy revival and this revolution of love and Jesus sweeping the country with people that the church didn’t even let in the door. We just discovered this really fun, heartfelt, rebellious, beautiful story.”
Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.
Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.
Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.
Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.
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