years. I got a chance to go and see him in person in Tucson back in 2011. I don't often say these kinds of things about mere men, but the man had a spiritual presence you could almost feel. It was an amazing service. He will be missed.
Chuck Smith, the evangelical pastor whose outreach to
hippies in the 1960s helped transform worship styles in American
Christianity and fueled the rise of the Calvary Chapel movement, died
Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, after a battle with lung cancer. He was 86.
Diagnosed in 2011, Smith continued to preach and oversee administration
at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa (California), where he'd been pastor since
1965. In 2012, he established a 21-member leadership council to oversee
the Calvary Church Association, a fellowship of some 1,600 like-minded
congregations in the United States and abroad.
Smith was known for expository preaching as he worked his way through
the entire Bible, unpacking texts from Genesis through Revelation and
offering commentary along the way.
Yet it was his openness to new cultural styles, including laid-back
music and funky fashions of California's early surfer scene, that helped
him reach young idealists and inspire a trend toward seeker-sensitive
congregations.
"He led a movement that translated traditional conservative Bible-based
Christianity to a large segment of the baby boom generation's
counterculture," says Brad Christerson, a Biola University sociologist
who studies charismatic churches in California. "His impact can be seen
in every church service that has electric guitar-driven worship, hip
casually-dressed pastors, and 40-minute sermons consisting of
verse-by-verse Bible expositions peppered with pop-culture references
and counterculture slang."
Born to a Bible-quoting mother and a salesman father who became a
zealous convert in midlife, Smith grew up in Southern California, where
he witnessed to the Gospel from a young age.
After Bible college training and a stint as a traveling evangelist, he
sought a niche in Pentecostalism by pastoring several Church of the
Foursquare Gospel congregations. But he confesses in Chuck Smith: A Memoir of Grace: "I just never succeeded" in that denominational environment.
He found his groove in the 1960s, when many evangelicals were frowning
on the wild outfits, long hair and psychedelic music that were all the
rage among young adults. One seminal moment came during his early days
at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, where old guard trustees posted a sign in
their renovated sanctuary: "no bare feet allowed." Smith tore it down
with a promise to reach young souls for Christ, even it meant throwing
out new pews and carpeting and bringing in steel folding chairs.
"Lifestyle issues and morality issues were things that he would expect
Christ would clean up in these folks lives," said Larry Eskridge,
associate director of the Institute for the Study of American
Evangelicals at Wheaton College. "But the informality of these folks and
the music they were fond of – he was willing to let that slide quite a
bit."
Smith never became a hippie, Eskridge said. But he nonetheless won a
following as a non-judgmental father figure by welcoming a blend of pop
music, poetry and aspiration to live like Jesus. Together with hippie
Lonnie Frisbee, Smith helped propel the Jesus People Movement, with its
embrace of Christ's teachings and disavowal of institutional church
trappings.
Smith also pioneered translations of Gospel teachings into 20th-century
pop art forms. In 1971, he launched Maranatha! Music, a pioneering
record label designed to promote the "Jesus music" that his young
followers were producing on the California coast.
Ministries born in the 1960s and 70s grew into a distribution empire.
By 2013, Smith's radio and television programs were airing in more than
350 cities around the world. The Word for Today, a publishing program
begun in 1978, now packages Smith's messages through books for adults
and children, DVDs, CDs and other channels.
"From age 50 on up would be his larger fan base," said Word for Today
General Manager Mark Rich. But Smith's easy-to-understand messages keep
attracting followers from other demographics, Rich says, because "Pastor
Chuck has always been able to relate to the younger crowd and to
children."
Never a denominational man, Smith forged a different type of fellowship
among congregations as word of his success spread. Calvary Chapels,
concentrated largely in coastal population centers, reflect Smith's
preferences for authoritative male pastors, expository preaching and
openness to contemporary music. What Eskridge describes as "restrained
exuberance" in worship has spread from Costa Mesa to Calvary Chapels on
the East Coast and beyond.
Some in other Protestant groups now look to Smith as a role model, whose methods have become the stuff of seminary workshops.
"Chuck Smith is one of my heroes," said Kurt Frederickson, a church
vitality expert who invokes Smith's work when he trains pastors in
Fuller Theological Seminary's doctor of ministry program. "He's able to
read the culture and to see a group of people who've been marginalized
by the institutional church and say, 'these people too should be cared
for'…. So he opens up his arms."
In Smith's absence, the Leadership Council of the Calvary Chapel Association will continue to govern the fellowship's affairs.
Early today, Evangelist Greg Laurie posted on his
blog,
"I am so sorry to tell all of you that our friend, pastor Chuck Smith,
has died." At age 19, Laurie began ministry under Chuck Smith's
leadership. Laurie is the founding pastor of Harvest Christian
Fellowship in Riverside, California.
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