In 1970, 14th Street in Atlanta was a hippies on drugs haven. It was Atlanta’s version of Haight-Ashbury. There were mostly kids and young adults living on the streets trapped in that culture.
That summer, I got my mom to drop my almost 15-year-old self off at a location near 14th Street to meet up with a bunch of other teens from all around the Atlanta area. On behalf of the Bill Bright Foundation and Billy Graham, we marched through the area handing out rehab/resources info and Bible tracts.
Our mission: Let them know there were people and a God who cared about them and to give them options that would allow them to “split that scene.” We had a police escort and not one single negative incident occurred. It was an amazing, GROOVY day!
Fast forward 25 years.
I met a man and his wife who were very dedicated to youth ministries. I got goosebumps when I heard their story.
Twenty-five years earlier, Mike and Brenda were living on the streets around 14th Street strung out on drugs and fast tracking to a really bad place. One day, a group of teens came through handing out Bible tracts and telling them how much people cared about them. It literally changed their entire lives forever.
Mike said that, a few hours after the teenagers left, they were sitting around trying to figure out what to do that night. Mike pulled out the tract he’d been given and read it, After Brenda read it, they started talking about whether something like that could be real. They decided they would go check it out. Neither had been raised in a Christian family, so they basically knew nothing about God or Jesus.
Now, I really can’t believe it was MY group they’d encountered. But it DID allow me to believe that maybe something I did back then made even a small difference. And THAT is a great feeling!
1970’s God Rock Songs I loved (click to listen):
Day By Day (Godspell, 1970)
Jesus Is A Soul Man (Lawrence Rence, 1969)
Put Your Hand In The Hand (Ocean, 1970)
Are You Ready? (Pacific Gas & Electric, 1970)
