Calvary Chapel's Chuck Smith reminisces about Love Song

RENOWNED pastor Chuck Smith was interviewed recently by Greg Laurie for K-Wave 107.9. The 84 year old, who is suffering from cancer, is the founder of the Calvary Chapel churches and is widely credited with being a key figure in the Jesus Movement of the early '70s which spawned contemporary Christian music. In the interview Smith reminisced about Jesus music band Love Song, "I was sitting in the church one afternoon and these guys introduced themselves and said 'we are a rock band and live in Laguna Beach and we accepted the Lord and he's been giving us some Christian lyrics'. They had the long hair, beards, and you just wondered, they're new Christians, what kind of lyrics would they have? So I said, 'Well, I would like to hear something. . . The Church was sort of stuck in a rut you might say as far as the music was concerned. We were singing a lot of Fanny Crosby and these were all written in past generations and they didn't really relate to the everyday environment that the kids were in and so the Lord began inspiring their hearts with music and it was just so exciting."