Jesus People USA

A Covenant website news item this morning cites the upcoming Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, Illinois June 30 to July 5 that will celebrate its 25th anniversary this year.

Sponsored by Jesus People USA, a Covenant church on the north side of Chicago, this festival--which gathers as many as 20,000 people each year--has become known world-wide as the 'Jesus Woodstock.'

To read more about the flavor of the event--highly charged with Christian Rock Bands playing constantly to tentground fans--might seem a bit outrageous to many. The music is certainly not my cup of tea. But look to whom Jesus People minister--both down and out types and those either largely disengaged from the church and maybe even themselves.

Look, too, at who is their major speaker this year--Yale Professor Miroslav Volf, one of the world's leading theologians who also addressed our Covenant Midwinter Conference in February. Others in former years have included Ron Sider, John Perkins, Jean Vanier, and Brian McLaren. Continuous seminars "are even more important than the music," Festival Director John Herrin declares. And one look at the Jesus People website (http://www.jpusa.org) will likely amaze many at how seriously literate and thoughtful this movement and their dedicated leaders are.

Kudos to my long-time friend Neil Taylor and Musician Glenn Kaiser and all the others whose service to Christ in the inner city of Chicago is a model of Christian witness and compassion. Strange as is the world they live and work in to most of us, we ought be grateful not only for their devotion to Christ but their passion as well for the lost and their devotion to the lone and the needy. Keep them and Cornerstone this year in your prayers. They will all bne in mine.