Jesus is here - part 6

The summer of 1972 was a big summer for me. The charismatic renewal was combining with the Jesus movement and you could go to a different home group meeting every night of the week and twice on Sunday. Every one was discovering the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and wanting to do more that the organized churches in our area were doing. These meetings were usually led by a guitar player and we sang choruses and shouted praises to the Lord. People would have "words from the Lord" for people and other's would feel "led" to pray for the sick. Then there was the 'Leg lengthening' to help with posture and other things! You could actually see the short leg grow out like a small miracle! ! Of couse there was speaking in tongues with interpretation and learning to flowing in the spirit with the group. I used to love these meetings, because there was such joy and fellowship between believers. You could really sense God's love. I remember that I was very nervous about going to my first one, though. Were these crazy Christians going to embarrass me?! Mom finally talked me into going, saying a lot people I use to know from high school were there. I decided to go, and when I walked into the living room of this old house, I did see, to my surprise, 5 or 6 people I knew from high school days. In one of these house meetings there was a Jesus band from the west coast that had decided to settle in North Carolina and that was re-forming. Several of it's members were going back to the west coast and so they we're looking for new members. The name of the band was "The Bridge". I remembered my word from the Lord about playing in the Lord's band ( I always took the word as being literal: although I do think it also refers to the Kingdom of God) and turned in my name and address. I didn't think I would hear anything from them because it sounded like they weren't looking for a keyboard player. One late afternoon a car pulled up in my driveway with two Bridge members wanting to talk more. I played a few licks on my Hammond organ and spinning leslie speaker and they wanted me! So, there I was at 20 yrs old, embarking on a journey of Christian music ministry which lasted almost 10 years.