The Surfer's Mass

Living Water

The Surfer's Mass



===>Click headline to access article by John Zambetti of the Malibooz

"Evangelising Beach Boys"

When I first saw the "Evangelising Beach Boys" subject line (on the Pet Sounds mailing list),

I thought another Jerry Falwell sermon was being posted ... (:>)

Actually, at the risk of insulting and offending those who respond with such love and mercy to us theophobes, it reminded me of several BB/BW tunes that I connect to an aspect of the Christian faith. I am NOT saying the writers or singers intended anything "Christian" - I am only speaking for myself.

I haven't run this by Jerry Falwell, but I'll post it anyway ... (:>)

Phil

Our Prayer - focusing inward and upward . . .

In My Room - there's a place where I can go...

Matthew 6:6: But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.

Meant For You - there's peace in my heart ...

John 16:33: Jesus said, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world"

Add Some Music - the Sunday morning gospel is good for the soul

Psalm 108:1 (A song and a psalm by David.): Our God, I am faithful to you with all my heart, and you can trust me.I will sing and play music for you with all my soul.

I Know There's An Answer - I had to find it

Matthew 7:7: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

He Come Down - to save the world from sin

Luke 19:10: Jesus ... came to find and restore the lost.

You Still Believe In Me - (if sung to God) ...

2 Peter 3:9: The Lord isn't slow about keeping his promises, as some people think he is. In fact, God is patient, because he wants everyone to turn from sin and no one to be lost.

Walking Down The Path Of Life -

"Walking down the path of life, I feel His presence day and night."
Psalm 16:11: You have shown me the path to life, and you make me glad by being near to me.
Sitting at your right side, I will always be joyful.

"Touch me heal me wash my sins away; Touch me heal me wash my sins away."
Acts 22:16: And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.

"Every night, I will pray; I'll be good, everyday; Give me hope, Hope and pray."
Romans 15:13: So I pray that God, who gives you hope, will keep you happy and full of peace as you believe in him. May you overflow with hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Break Away - I can break away...

Mark 1: 14-15: Jesus went to (the people) preaching the Message of God: "The time has come! God's kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message."

Sail On Sailor - unsettled ocean, unrelenting ...

Matthew 16:24: Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Till I Die - until I die...

Hebrews 9:27-28: Everyone has to die once, then face the consequences. Christ's death was also a one-time event, but it was a sacrifice that took care of sins forever. And so, when he next appears, the outcome for those eager to greet him is, precisely, salvation.

Brian on "The Source" - "that song make me feel spiritual"

Psalm 89:1: Your love, God, is my song, and I'll sing it! I'm forever telling everyone how faithful you are.

This Whole World - I'm thinkin 'bout this whole world

John 3:16-17: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - tidings of comfort and joy

Luke 2:10-11: The angel said, "Don't be afraid. I'm here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David's town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master. This is what you're to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger."

Wake The World - brand new morning...

Lamentations 3:22-24God's loyal love couldn't have run out,
his merciful love couldn't have dried up.
They're created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!
I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He's all I've got left.

The Lord's Prayer - brand new world...

Matthew 6:9-11: Our Father in heaven,

Reveal who you are.
Set the world right;
Do what's best— as above, so below.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.
You're in charge!
You can do anything you want!
You're ablaze in beauty!
Yes. Yes. Yes.

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Pray For Surf Interviewed Eve of Destruction's Barry McGuire

PFS ~ Barry, many music fans know you only for Eve of Destruction - What milestones had you reached before that song went #1?

I was a commercial fisherman, and then became a licensed pipe fitter, and then started playing the guitar when I was 25 years old. NOTE>>> Click here to read about Barry's work (and hits) as a solo artist and with the New Christy Minstrels.


PFS ~ What circumstance led you to record Eve of Destruction? What did the song mean to you personally at that time?
When I left the Christys, I left looking for answers. I was in a kind of a spiritual, philosophical search at that time. We were going through the whole social question, turmoil of the day within ourselves. Why not do this? Why shouldn't we do that? How come we have to do this? Who says we gotta do that? And then we started to get down to, well, what is the basic ultimate truth, and what is life? What is the universe? Where did it come from? Where is it going? What's on the other side of death? What was on the backside of birth? 'Eve Of Destruction' was just a continuation down that road. At least I felt I could compile all the problems, and I thought that's what Phil (Sloan) did in the song. All the problems, but no answers. Unlike the cheery tunes of the Christys, "Eve of Destruction" was a grave, prophetic warning of imminent apocalypse. It was a song that expressed the frustrations and fears of young people in the age of the Cold War, Vietnam, and the arms race.

PFS ~ What was your response when you heard Jan & Dean had recorded it on their Folk & Roll album?

I never knew they recorded it.

PFS ~ You worked with some of the best writers/producers/singers of the 60's - How about an insight or two ...

I met Phil Sloan when he was 19, I only just barely met Steve Barri once or twice, I didn't know Jan & Dean at all, I didn't know any of the Dunhill record family except for all the smoke they blew my way telling me how great I was until I stopped making money for them, then they didn't know me any more. NOTE>>> Click here to read an amazing story of Barry's role in the recording and release of California Dreamin'!



PFS ~ Did you have any contract with the Beach Boys?
No. I never knew the Beach Boys ... I loved "Help Me Rhonda" and "Good Vibrations."


PFS ~ You became a follower of Christ a few years after Eve of Destruction. Has your perspective of the song changed since then? How relevant is the song today?

No, my perspective has not changed. Tragically the song appears to be more relevant today back in the the summer of 65 when I recorded it. I still sing it at every concert.

PFS ~Which of your many albums, subsequent to your conversion, best exemplify your worldview?

Pilgrim - it was an independent production that no-one wanted to distribute, but it's available on my website music store. NOTE>>> Click here to view Barry's music inventory.


PFS ~ Are you currently recording? touring?
Yes, I do about 50 concerts a year. I just signed a contract with the New Christy Minstrels to do 120 concerts with them over the next eighteen months, 90 in the US and 30 overseas. We're recording three albums, a Christmas album, A Christys Biggest Hits album, and an album of new songs that have just been written. Also I'm working with Terry Talbot putting together a show featuring all the songs that my friends did in the sixties.
I'm also re-recording Eve of Destruction in three different genres, folk-rock, hard-rock and hip-hop.
And I just recorded two new songs, and anti-tobacco tune called "Hakk n Koff" that has a school curriculum that goes along with it and "I Pledge Allegiance" and they'll both be out early next year.
PFS ~ Barry, I know you believe in the reality of prayer - Would you write a prayer for someone who wonders if we are on the eve of destruction ...
Phil, reality is my prayer, and I firmly believe that ultimately every tongue will confess and every knee will bow confessing Christ as Lord before God. Blessings, Barry

PFS thanks Assist News for their assistance!

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PFS Interview with Howard Kramer of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

*On my first trip to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, God Only Knows by the Beach Boys was playing throughout the commons - This Beach Boys fan thanks you for such an appropriate and appreciated welcome ...

There is nothing like good timing.

*...How does the Hall view the Beach Boys' place in Rock and Roll history? So many musical commentators can't see beyond their surf and hot rod songs.

The Beach Boys were not only the biggest rock act of their era, they, more than any other artists, codified the idea of California as a lifestyle and state of mind. Additionally, Brian Wilson's growth as a composer and producer elevated the group from a surf band to a truly enviable creative entity.

*Being inducted the same year in which the Beatles were inducted was a strong statement as to the Beach Boys stature among the rock community...

That was merely recognition that they started at the same time. I should point out that Dylan and the Supremes were also inducted the same night. 1962 was a good year for music.

*What memorabilia have the Beach Boys given to the Hall? I noticed a few items on display but wonder if you have a large collection from which yu rotate for viewing.

We have guitars and clothes from Carl, a guitar from Al, clothes from Mike and Dennis's Gretsch drum kit. We also have Audrey Wilson's collection.

*Beginning in the early 70's, so called Jesus Music was very mainstream; Larry Norman (formerly of People), Chuck Girard (Hondells, Castells), Dan Peek (America), onto Kerry Livgren (Kansas) ... Has the Hall recognized this genre? Like Gospel, this music has had an influence on many different musical streams.

This is not a genre we've explored.

*Lastly, what type of comments are helpful to you from fans of a particular group or artist?

Given our choice, we prefer constructive criticism over scathing and uninformed blanket denunciations.

rock and roll hall of fame and museum
one key plaza, cleveland, ohio 44114
ph: 216.515.1503 l fx: 216.515.1284
www.rockhall.com


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The Seeker: "People thought they were part of the Manson Family"

'Turn on, tune in, drop out’
The pastor of one of Southern California’s largest churches reveals his time as a disciple of Timothy Leary and how God changed his life

By Dan Wooding,

Jeff Johnson at KWVE

SANTA ANA, CA (ANS) -- Timothy Leary, the American writer, psychologist, and advocate of psychedelic drug research, was a 1960s counterculture icon who became the most famous as a proponent of the therapeutic and spiritual benefits of LSD. He coined and popularized the catch phrase "Turn on, tune in, drop out."

He had many followers and one of them was Jeff Johnson, who as a teenage hippie decided to find out for himself what the “spiritual benefits” of Leary’s philosophy were.

In an interview for my Front Page Radio program on KWVE 107.9 FM in Southern California, broadcast on Sunday, December 3 at 5:00 PM, Jeff agreed to talk about those days.

“God’s in Hawaii”

He began by saying that in 1976, a lot of young people were going to Hawaii to explore LSD and so he decided to follow them. “I had a friend of mine call me and he said, God’s in Hawaii,’ and I said, ‘Well he’s not in LA you know.’ So I decided that I was out of here [Southern California]. I had just graduated out of high school and so I took my surfboard and went to the island of Oahu to join the hundreds of hippies already there on the north shore, the home of epic big waves.

Timothy Leary "flying"

“Very soon, we got into the psychedelic drug experience with Timothy Leary; living in the jungle; dying to self and taking heavy doses of LSD. The relationship was just being in a commune where he was kind of overseeing it and just really studying his book and getting into the psychedelic experience; just going off long periods of time and fasting and taking heavy doses. One day I almost killed myself. It was horrible.

“I think they cut it with strychnine, which is rat poison, so that makes you just deathly sick. I was by myself in a little pup tent and it was raining. I fasted for four days so I had nothing in my body. Then I dropped the acid and I went out of my mind and I lost a day and I don’t know what happened. I was lost in the jungle and it was one of those nightmares where you see yourself running through the jungle and there’s spider webs hitting you and then finally you just stumble on a road and you find yourself where you’re at. It was crazy.

“When I came down, I was still messed up for about a week after and that’s when I realized that I had to get out of Oahu or I would kill myself. So that’s why I left the Hawaiian Islands. I think we were there for about four months.”

Jeff Johnson said he returned to the Los Angeles area and then began a search into eastern religions and then got involved with Roy Masters, a British-born American talk radio personality who runs the Foundation For Religious Freedom.

Despite his thoughts about his search for happiness, Jeff Johnson began to settle in on what, on the surface, appeared to be a more conventional lifestyle, and married Karyn, his high school sweetheart.

Smoking opium

He said he did conventional things like buying a house with a white picket fence, a van and a dog. “I even put down drugs for a little while and then I got right back into smoking opium and I really got addicted,” said Jeff.

“Soon we had a child and I was outside just hitting the opium and I’d pass out. My wife would wake me up and say, ‘Come to bed.’ It was just insane.”

His drug supplier gets saved

Jeff then said that his supplier of opium suddenly revealed that he had “got saved” and was immediately baptized. He went on, “Three days later, he comes to my house and I was waiting for him to bring me a big ball of opium. I’m freaking out and I’ve got the shakes and I say, ‘Hey Paul, have you got it? Is everything good?’ He replied, ‘I don’t have it; but what I have I want to give you.’ He suddenly added, ‘Jesus has changed my life. He’s come into my heart and He’s saved me and He wants to come into your heart.’

“I looked at him and said, ‘Wait a minute. What about the drugs? Where are the drugs?’ He said, ‘I don’t have it. I had to leave it. I don’t have anything, but I’ll give you Jesus. Come with me to this little church down at the corner…”

Jeff said he was incredulous at his friends’ words and told him, “What are you talking about? I mean, I want some drugs and you’re giving me this Jesus.”

Four-Square hippies

Finally he said he agreed to go with his friend to a nearby Four-Square Church where a group of hippies were participating in a Bible study and singing lots of songs he had never heard before.

“So I went in there and I saw what seemed to me to be long haired druggies and I just sat down in the back and the guy, who preached about Noah and his ark, suddenly said, “Do you want to get into the ark and be saved? If so, you need to receive Jesus.’ I suddenly raised my hand. I was still loaded and I had brought my wife and kid I remember they were sitting there as I went forward and then went into the back room and prayed with them. I came down off the drugs instantly as Jesus came into my heart and changed my life from that period on.”

Jeff got himself the Bible version called “Good News for Modern Man,” and read it day and night; marking up passages that he felt were “speaking” to him.

“My wife thought I flipped,” he said. “She was dabbling with drugs like LSD and marijuana and drinking and stuff, but she was an old Baptist and she got saved way back. She told me one day, ‘You’re with some kind of cult now. What is this all about?’ And I’m just reading the Word, going to prayer meetings and Bible studies and finally one night I went home and I flushed all my drugs down the toilet. It was then that she thought I had finally lost it.”

Instead of being pleased with his new life, his wife decided to get a separation and she went to live with her parents and Jeff joined A Christian commune in Downey.

“Two weeks after I got saved I went to Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa where there was a tremendous Jesus People revival taking place. I saw Lonnie Frisbee and listened to the whole thing and then went in the back room and got baptized in the Holy Spirit. And that just kicked me off into another realm and I was on fire for Jesus. So from that point on, I was going to Costa Mesa four times a week and my wife definitely thought I’d lost it.

People thought they were part of the Manson Family

“We were finally divorced and separated for a year and I prayed for her the whole time. I continued to live at the commune where we had about ten guys and ten girls living in it. It was a two storey big house owned by the head of Teen Challenge of Los Angeles and he wanted to move to LA to do more involvement in the Inner City, so he let us use his house and we rented from him. The neighbors thought we were part of the Manson Family.

Cover of The Seeker

“They were calling the cops every night and we were being raided. There would be helicopters overhead.”

The group at the commune began a work with about sixty local high schoolers who would visit the house. “We brought them into the upper room upstairs and they got the baptism of the Holy Spirit,” he recalled. “I mean God was moving. I was six months old in the Lord and I was just reading out of the Bible. That’s the Bible study I was doing. And I didn’t even know what I was saying but I just read the scriptures out loud and then I would ask, ‘How many of you want to receive Jesus?’ and the hands would go up. It was unbelievable.”

I then asked him if he was able to resolve the marital difficulties. “Well it took over a year that we were separated then we were divorced,” he said. “I was always inviting her to a Bible study and finally she went and she heard the Word and it convicted her heart and she came to the Lord and then we had to go through a lot of counseling because we were all messed up. We needed to learn how to communicate, to love each other, to do it biblically and to do it God’s way because we were just kids and got married very young and had kids very young. So, through the counseling for about six months, we got everything sorted out and we were re-married in 1971 by Chuck Smith. It was awesome. It was in the little chapel that the church had on Fairview, where God put us back together again.

“It was just a miracle of God. He put us back together. She had been gone for over a year and I’d been just serving the Lord, and God was just changing my heart and he humbled me.”

Jeff went on to found Calvary Chapel Downey, which has grown to the 12th largest church in the country. The congregation is approximately 8,000 strong. His life story is told in a new book called “The Seeker: Jeff Johnson's Search for the Clear Light (Paperback) by Mark Maciel and Jodi Jacquart (Calvary Chapel Books).

You can find out more about Calvary Chapel Downey by going to their website which is http://www.ccdowney.com

Note: I would like to thank Robin Frost for transcribing this interview.

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Dan Wooding is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS). He was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. Wooding is the author of some 42 books, the latest of which is his autobiography, "From Tabloid to Truth", which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, go to www.fromtabloidtotruth.com. danjuma1@aol.com.

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ASSIST News Service is brought to you in part by Gospel for Asia (GFA). Through God’s grace, GFA’s native missionaries have established more than 29,000 congregations across Asia—and with them, a growing need for church buildings. A building not only provides a place for worship, but it also is a testimony to God and makes believers less vulnerable to anti-Christians activists. The average cost of a simple, concrete-and-brick building that reflects the local culture and seats 300 people is $11,000. Right now more than 1,000 churches are in desperate need of a building. To learn how you can play a role in constructing church buildings in Asia, visit our website at www.gfa.org or call 1-800-WIN-ASIA (US) or 1-888-WIN-ASIA (Canada).

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