CHAPTER 7

Shortly after we became Christians, Keith and I took two of our favorite people to one of our favorite places—Sequoia National Park.  Keith had known Peter and Cag for years. He even lived with them for a while in their large, rustic home overlooking downtown Hollywood. Peter was a record producer, but we had more than music on our minds as we wound up the mountain roads toward Sequoia.

A big moon had already risen high over the redwoods when we arrived, but as soon as we got into our cabins we made chili dogs and started telling them why they needed to become Christians. Peter and Cag were Jewish, and two of the most loving people we knew. I had become very proud of my Jewish heritage once I became a Christian and realized the spiritual significance of it. In our eagerness to explain all that we’d been learning about being Jewish and believing in Jesus, we unloaded both barrels on this beautiful couple. Keith took the first shot.

“God sent Jesus to the Jews first, because they were the only people who believed in the one true God. Everyone else back then worshiped idols!”

Then I chimed in. “Yeah, Jesus was Jewish, and almost everyone in the early Church was Jewish, too. Later on God allowed the message of his son to go out to the Gentiles. The Messiah the Jews are waiting for has already come—and he’s coming again, too.”

Peter and Cag listened patiently as we went on, telling them how Jesus might return at any minute and that’s why it was so important that they accept his sacrifice and his love. We wanted them to be in heaven with us when that happened.

Keith said, “We’d really like you to pray with us and accept Jesus as your Messiah. That’s all you need to do. It’s as simple as that to get born-again!”

I don’t think they’d ever heard a gospel message quite like that. Peter and Cag kindly but firmly declined our invitation. And if they hadn’t loved us as much as they did, we could have totally destroyed our friendship in that one evening. We applied quite a bit of pressure. As it was things were a little tense between us for the next few days of our trip.

After we got back home we remained very good friends, but we were disappointed that we couldn’t get them to pray “the sinner’s prayer” and find what we had found.

We had just learned about this thing called “the sinner’s prayer”, and our goal was to get everybody we knew to pray it with us. It could be said in several different ways. It just needed to contain a few important things. The person had to recognize they were lost without Jesus, and to repent of their sins and of living their life without God. Third, they needed to ask for God’s forgiveness. And last but not least, they needed to ask Jesus into their heart as their personal Savior. We thought if someone believed those things enough to pray the prayer they’d be saved. We had begun to lead people to the Lord that way—assuring them that’s all it took.

It was so exciting to see these “baby Christians” come to fellowship meetings and start to learn about Jesus and the Bible. If they started to miss some meetings Keith would always call them to remind them to come, to offer them a ride—anything that would encourage them to keep their commitment to God. Some people seemed to blossom once they became Christians. Their lives started opening up like beautiful, scented buds. That was wonderful. To us, there was nothing better than being able to help someone come to that place with God.

Everything had such a sense of urgency to it—especially when we discovered what a crucial moment in history we were facing. We’d learned that Jesus might return at any moment to catch all the Christians into the air with him and take them to heaven—and time runs out for mankind after that. No one can get right with God past that point. We’d even seen a movie about it, called A Thief In The Night. There wasn’t any time to waste when so many of our friends would be left behind if Jesus returned.

In fact, there was one day when Keith and I got separated in the supermarket and I began to panic. My heart started to pound as I hunted up and down the aisles, but couldn’t find him. I thought maybe Jesus returned and took Keith—but that I’d been left behind because I wasn’t really saved after all. To my great relief, I finally found Keith in frozen foods with a Sara Lee box cake in his hand—but that frantic, lost feeling stuck with me as a reminder to keep telling others about Jesus.

Keith and I got more and more involved with the Vineyard. However, Keith purposely held off doing any kind of concert for them, as he normally would for a new group of people. He wanted to just be accepted for who he was—minus the music. But after about a month he played at a Sunday morning service—the same service where Kenn talked about baptism. When we heard about getting baptized we knew it was our next step. That afternoon Kenn had a baptism service at the beach near Sunset Boulevard—at Lifeguard Station 15. We figured the Pacific Ocean was a good place to lay our old lives to rest.

We all went down to the beach and we got baptized. It was so fantastic, Mel and I were baptized together. We were all so close, I’ll never forget it.

At the beach that day, we found out the Vineyard was about to lose its temporary building. Since the weather was really nice, Kenn announced that we’d start having our Sunday services at that very lifeguard station—with the ocean and sky as our backdrop! We met there for several months, which was great with us. People would ask, “Where do you go to church?” And we’d reply, “We go to church on the beach!” It was non-traditional, and that had a strong appeal. However, we found that there were some rules we didn’t want to see broken.

One day we overheard some of our Christian friends talking about a party. We were immediately curious. One of them said, “Keith, we don’t think you’d be interested in going. It’s pretty wild.”

“What do you mean wild?”

“It’s at Leo’s house. Sometimes he has lots of booze and dope around. Some people from the study will probably be there.”

We knew Leo had a drinking problem, but we thought he was fighting it. We didn’t believe he’d throw a wild party and invite other Christians. The next night, Keith and I decided to go and see for ourselves.

As we walked up the stairs we heard blasting music. Inside, it was wall-to-wall people, most of them lying on the floor or on big pillows. Carefully stepping over the guests, we took one sweep through the house—there were a few kegs of beer, some people smoking dope and, sure enough, there were a few people there from the Bible study—and they weren’t just passing through. We left right away feeling very upset.

“I can’t believe it,” said Keith as we drove.

“What can we do?”

We had such strong feelings about seeing Christians getting loaded, but we felt helpless. We wondered what we were supposed to do when we saw other Christians making wrong choices.

A short time later we felt like we found some answers at the Cramers’ Bible study. The monkey was chattering in the background, but we were tuned in to the message. It was from the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, in a passage about a watchman who had the job of sitting on the wall of an ancient city. His job was to alert the people in the city if he saw danger coming. If the people heard the watchman’s warning but ignored it, then it was their own fault if they ended up getting hurt. The Bible said their blood would be “on their own head”. But if the watchman fell asleep and neglected to warn the people about approaching danger, it was the watchman’s fault if they got hurt—and the blood of the people would be on the watchman’s hands. He would be held accountable.

The Bible teacher went on to say that as Christians we are the watchmen. God wants us to warn others if we see disaster coming their way—and what could be more of a disaster than living in a way that would separate you from God eternally? We left the study feeling like the weight of the world was on our shoulders. One of the reasons we were so troubled was because we had a Christian friend, Tom, whom we really loved, and we knew he was having a hard time breaking off with an old girlfriend—and they would sometimes sleep together.

That night another friend came home with us and we all sat on the floor in Keith’s music room wondering what to do. The thing that made it so heavy for us was that Tom sometimes helped to lead Bible studies in another church where he was really outspoken about the need to accept Christ. He sometimes came to the Vineyard, too, and Kenn knew him. It was only because of our close friendship with Tom that we knew what was going on. What if Jesus returned tonight, before Tom had a chance to repent? He might be separated from God—forever! And his blood would be on our hands. We knew we were responsible to say something right away.

So, sitting on the floor in front of the old upright piano, Keith came up with an idea. “One of us should phone Tom and warn him right away.”

I thought Keith should be the one, since he had the most nerve. Besides it was his idea. But Keith’s eyes lit up. “Let’s draw lots,” he said. “They did that in the Bible.”

Keith rifled through the scattering of half-finished lead-sheets on the piano and found three different sized pencils. He tucked them into his hand, making them all even at the top. Wouldn’t you know who came up with the short one—me! I protested that one of the guys should phone, but I knew that we all had equal responsibility before the Lord in this situation. Anyway, I was never one to back down from a challenge and if God had chosen me to sound the alarm I was determined to do it. I dialed the phone.

My heart was pounding as it started to ring. After the first ring I thought, Maybe I should hang up. . . . It rang again. I said, “Keith, it’s late. He’s probably already in bed.”

Then someone picked up the phone. A groggy voice said, “Hello . . .”

“Uh, hi. It’s Melody. Did I wake you?”

“It’s okay. What’s up?”

I could feel my face getting warm. “I’m sorry I woke you, but we went to this Bible study tonight. It was about being watchmen and . . . Well . . . uh . . . of course we know what’s going on . . . and well, we just wanted to tell you that the Bible says you really shouldn’t be doing that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Tom said softly. “I’m getting some counsel from my pastor. And I’ll be taking care of it really soon.”

“Okay. I just wanted to tell you. Good night.”

 “Thanks. Good night.”

I hung up the phone and couldn’t believe I’d really done it.

Keith said, “Wow, I’m really proud of you, Mel. You did great! “

I was just relieved that it was over. I knew I’d done the right thing, but it was really hard. And I was a bit puzzled. I couldn’t figure out why Tom was getting counsel. What was there to get counsel about? The Bible was clear on the subject of having sex outside of marriage. What was there to talk about?

The next time we saw Kenn, on the following Friday night, we were excited to tell him we’d taken the watchman teaching we’d just heard to heart.

“Did you hear we called Tom?” Keith said, expectantly.

Kenn paused for a minute and looked thoughtful.

“Well, actually, I did hear about it . . .”

Keith happily went on to explain about the Bible study and the watchman and my phone call.

Then Kenn said, gently, “You know, you probably shouldn’t have called.”

Probably shouldn’t have called? We were shocked.

“What do you mean?” Keith asked, incredulously.

“Well, maybe it would have been better if you’d just prayed.”

As we drove home that night we were really confused. Just prayed? What kind of advice was that? If Jesus came back before Tom got things right, he’d be separated from God forever—and we were supposed to “just pray” and not even talk to Tom? We were hearing all these things about living holy lives, practicing what we preach, being watchmen . . . and now this? It seemed to us that watchmen were supposed to sound an alarm, not “just pray” about sounding one!

We loved Kenn so much—and really respected him. We knew he was a man of God, and that he understood God’s unconditional love. But we were confused. Did unconditional love mean that you ignored sin? Maybe there were things he and Tom’s pastor knew about the situation that we didn’t. Still, it didn’t make sense.

“First the wild party at Leo’s. Now Tom. I can’t believe this,” said Keith. “The Church is just filled with sinners!”

I couldn’t believe it either. But something told me Keith’s reaction might be a little strong.

“We’ve met some really great Christians in the past few months,” I countered. “It can’t be all bad.”

“I know, I know. But I’m beginning to feel like this is just the tip of the iceberg,” Keith said thoughtfully. “I know we’re not perfect, but we’re trying. It’s not just Tom. It’s a lot of people. They know the right words to say, but their lives don’t match up.”

As I said, in the beginning it seemed to us that some people just seemed to blossom and grow. But after several months, it appeared that quite a few of those “blossoms” had already withered. Sometimes, after leading someone to the Lord, we’d run into them weeks later at Topanga Plaza and they didn’t even want to look us in the eye. Then we’d learn that they were back on drugs and sleeping around, as if they’d never even seen the light. Keith was never afraid of confrontation and he’d try to reason with them. A few, we convinced to return to God. Others we couldn’t. And the few who returned to church still lived the same old lives.

Why was this happening? They’d prayed the sinner’s prayer, but they weren’t acting very saved. Why did some Christians “stick” and some just fall away? We started to think that just giving your heart to the Lord in a prayer might not be enough.

One day, a Christian friend named Robin asked me to pray for her brother. We really looked up to her because she’d already known the Lord for eight years—which to me seemed forever. I asked her why we needed to pray for her brother.

“Oh, he’s saved. He’s just out of fellowship.” She went on to give me more details. “He used to come to church all the time. But he’s living with his girlfriend now and back on drugs. I know he’ll go to heaven—but he won’t have any rewards in heaven if he keeps this up. I really want to see him back in fellowship. I know he’ll be happier then.”

I wondered about this. Is losing “heavenly rewards” the only thing we need to worry about after we pray the sinner’s prayer? What about living for God now?

I told Robin I’d pray, but I felt really odd inside. I figured she knew what she was talking about since she’d been a Christian a lot longer than me, but something didn’t add up.

Later on, Keith and I talked about it, voicing the questions that were collecting in our minds. If you prayed and asked Jesus into your heart, was there ever a point where he might leave you? What if you decided to leave him? And if you asked Jesus to save you, could you keep living in sin—and just be automatically forgiven of everything? All we knew was that we were getting really frustrated with what we were seeing around us.

One day, after trying to figure out how to pray for Robin’s brother, Keith spent the whole morning telling Feather, a young hippie girl, about the Lord. In fact, that day it brought all our questions to a head.

Feather was very skeptical about Christians, and she gave Keith a run for his money.

“I don’t think they’re any better than I am. The Christians I’ve known have all been a bunch of hypocrites. They say one thing and do another.”

“Real Christians aren’t like that,” insisted Keith. “They really love the Lord and they live holy lives.”

“Well, I don’t need a list of do’s and don’ts in my life. I believe there’s a supreme being, but I don’t want anybody telling me what to do.”

“If you had a child you’d want to protect him, not control him. God loves you so much that he doesn’t want you to do things that will cause you pain. I know. I really blew it before I was a Christian. I hurt a lot of people, but mostly I hurt myself.”

As Keith started to share from his own life I could tell Feather had really started listening. We both knew exactly where she was at, because we’d been there ourselves once. The more open Keith got about himself, the more I could see she started to believe him.

Keith said, “God wants to be in a relationship with you. I think he’s been speaking to you for a long time. You need to start listening.”

As her attitude grew softer Keith really encouraged her to open her heart to the Lord.

“Just pray with me. You don’t have anything to lose—and you have everything to gain.”

Finally, after a few hours, she came to a point where she was willing to pray and ask Jesus into her life. Keith led her in a really precious prayer, and then wanted to take her to meet some of our friends. He said, “I want to introduce you to some of your new brothers and sisters who really love God. We want you to meet some real Christians.”

We jumped into “Victor”, drove up to Hollywood and ended up at the home of our friends the Cramers, but they weren’t around. The Cramers happened to live next door to Leo, and now we heard some noise coming from Leo’s backyard, so we walked over. There were a few people from the Bible study swimming in Leo’s pool, and we pulled up a few chairs at poolside, all the while telling our new sister, Feather, how great being a Christian was. She was starting to look more relaxed and I knew we were getting through to her at last.

We were only there a few minutes when the sliding glass door from Leo’s house flung open wide. A new Christian we’d met at the Cramers’ home came charging out at full speed. He ran across the concrete with his arms raised over his head, yelling—”Praise the Lord!”—and dove into the pool. There was only one problem. He was totally naked.

Now there he was, swimming around in front of us, with nothing on but a big smile. I quickly glanced at Feather to see her reaction. She looked upset.

Keith immediately jumped to his feet. Standing on the edge of the pool he said firmly, “Get out of there, right now!” Then he had immediate second thoughts. “No! Don’t get out. Where are your pants?”

The guy didn’t want to tell Keith where his pants were, but Keith insisted. He gave in and Keith went into the house to get them. Then he brought them out to the pool and handed them to this happy streaker.

“Put them on!”

He did.

Leo was really angry when he heard what Keith had done. He thought Keith had a lot of nerve to tell a guest at his house that he needed to put his clothes on. But we were really upset, too.

The incident had unraveled our whole testimony to Feather, who was just hours old in the Lord. Even though nudity was widely accepted among hippies, we’d told her Christians were different. We never saw her again after that day and we knew it was because of what happened at the pool. Everything we’d told her about Christianity had been ruined. We didn’t know if she’d ever believe another Christian again, and our hearts really hurt for her.

This, coupled with the time we “raided” Leo’s beer blast, served to fuel Keith’s quickly growing reputation as some kind of radical. It also earned us the name “The God Squad”. The name didn’t stick, but these things stuck in our minds and caused us to be really troubled.

It was apparent now that the attitude of many Christians was pretty lax. It seemed like you could be a Christian and do almost anything you wanted—sleep around, smoke dope and swim nude in mixed company. And it seemed as if nobody was objecting.

Keith fell into a real depression over what we were seeing.

“Something’s really wrong here,” he said. “I’ve struggled too long and too hard to find Jesus. I’m not gonna quit now,” Keith said. “But I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not going to compromise what I know is right, no matter what people around us are doing.”

“It seems so crazy to play games with God,” I added.

“Yeah,” Keith concluded, “we have to give God more than lip service—we need to give him life-service.”

We were wrestling with some big questions—like what it meant to really be a Christian. The Bible says, “. . . if you confess [Jesus] with your mouth you will be saved.” But is just saying you’re a Christian enough? Anybody could do that. Does something more need to happen to “prove” you’re a Christian? Even though we had a lot of unanswered questions, something in us really began to hurt for other people who’d been just like us. People who were trying to find something real in life-a reason to live. We had an aching desire to reach out to those who were looking in all the same places we did-drugs, occult, free love. We knew how they felt and understood how hurt some of them were. We wanted to help them find the peace and hope they were longing to find.

Since Keith loved to tell people about Jesus, we usually made a point of going out to find people to talk to-anywhere. One Sunday, a few friends were over and we argued about where we should go to find some hurting people to lead to the Lord. It was between Muscle Beach in Santa Monica and Tapia Park in the foothills. The beach came out the winner and off we went!

True to its name, Muscle Beach was filled with flexing masses of manhood-posturing, lifting weights and balancing girls in very small bikinis far above their heads-in swan-dive positions! We plopped ourselves down on the grass right in the middle of all this and Keith started playing some worship songs on his acoustic guitar. We all sang out loudly and with a lot of enthusiasm. A small crowd started to gather around us as Keith’s energetic playing drew people like a magnet.

After singing for a while I noticed one blond girl who was sitting several feet away. Her head was down and it looked like she might be crying. I got up, went over and sat down by her. She was crying.

I sat there for a minute unsure of what to do. Finally, I said softly, “Excuse me. You seem kind of upset. Is there anything I can do to help?”

She lifted her head. Her eyes were red and questioning.

“I know you don’t know me,” I ventured, “but that’s my husband playing the guitar over there. I just felt like I was supposed to come over and talk to you.”

Her lip quivered a little as she started to speak. “I . . . I just don’t know what to do. I’m pregnant and I don’t want this baby.”

“Why don’t you want it?”

A sob caught in her throat. Then she said, “My husband and I are separated, and I can’t take care of a baby by myself.”

Her light hair and delicate features made her look too young to even be married, let alone pregnant. She continued with her story and I played with the grass, silently praying that God would help me to help her. Bit by bit her story unfolded.

Her name was Cassie, and she and her husband had gotten involved in some kind of strange group that was very repressive—especially toward women. She could only wear a certain type of clothing and had extremely limited privileges. Then to make things even worse, her husband started beating her.

She dropped her face into her hands and started sobbing. “I went to the leaders and told them he was beating me and that I was afraid. But they told me I couldn’t separate myself from him. I was so afraid. And . . . and then I found out I was pregnant.”

She really broke then, and just wept. I looked away. Muscle men were still tossing tanned bathing beauties around. Little kids were running by with corn-dogs and lemonade. And Keith was still playing his guitar and singing about Jesus.

Cassie lifted her head in a moment. “In spite of all the threats, I left and moved into a Salvation Army unwed mothers’ home in Los Angeles. The reason I’m so upset is because today’s Sunday.”

“What’s so upsetting about that?”

“On Tuesday I’m scheduled to have an abortion.”

My heart broke for her. Before becoming a Christian I would have thought getting an abortion was a good solution to an unwanted pregnancy. Now I knew better. Destroying her baby was not Cassie’s answer. I talked hard and fast, knowing I might be her last hope. I told her not to get an abortion, but that bit of advice seemed kind of empty considering her whole situation.

Hoping that Keith might know what to do, I went and told him everything. Keith immediately got up and went to her side. His eyes were filled with compassion as he said a few comforting words of encouragement. She really responded to his kindness. And then I heard him say, “Why don’t you come home with us? Come and live with us. We’ll help you.”

I was probably as surprised as Cassie by Keith’s invitation. I thought, Come and live with us? Is he serious? We don’t even know her.

But as I thought about it for a minute, I realized that Keith saw exactly what she needed—someone to love her enough to take her in and walk through this terrible time with her. And there was also a second little life at stake. It really seemed like God brought us together so we could help her, and I was glad Keith asked her to move in with us.

We drove to the unwed mothers’ home to get her things and it was a very depressing place—filled with some really young girls, who were very pregnant. We helped Cassie pack and took her to our house in Woodland Hills, assuring her she’d have a nice room all to herself.

Cassie looked relieved as we turned onto Dolorosa Street and she could see it was a nice family-type neighborhood. She seemed to love our little house with its warm sunny-yellow kitchen and big picture windows in the living room. We had three bedrooms off a narrow hallway—with the only bathroom at the end. We showed Cassie to her room and helped her get settled.

By Tuesday, we had actually talked Cassie into cancelling her abortion. On Wednesday her baby was still alive. We also led her to the Lord, and talked for hours on end about Jesus, and her husband, and baby.

Then one morning, Cassie was nowhere to be found. She returned late that night and told us she hitchhiked down to Muscle Beach. And after she’d been with us about two weeks, we woke up and she was gone again. Only this time she didn’t come back.

We often wondered what happened to her and worried that she might have scheduled the abortion after all. We had no way of knowing.

One night at a Bible study we met a young mom, named Cindy, whose husband had moved in with another woman. Now Cindy was raising her three-year-old daughter, Kelly, alone. Kelly was real cute and looked like a miniature version of her very pretty mom. We became friends and did a lot of things together. Cindy was sweet and vulnerable—as a new Christian she was always trying to help others.

One night when she came out of the bar she was working in, there was a drunk guy by her car. She talked to him about Jesus and the next night she picked him up and brought him to a Bible study. When he got angry at the teacher and stormed out in the middle of the study, Cindy started to chase after him. But Keith blocked her way at the door.

“Let him go,” Keith said firmly.

“But I brought him. I feel responsible to drive him back home . . .” she insisted.

“He’s a big boy. He can find his way home. It’s just not safe.”

Later that night we all sat down and had a talk. Cindy had recently looked up an old boyfriend who wasn’t a Christian—and yet she was struggling to keep strong in the Lord.

“You know, it would really be good for you and Kelly if you lived in more of a Christian environment,” Keith offered.

“The only people I could think of living with is you and Melody.”

“Well, we’ll just pray about that!” Keith told her.

Keith and I did pray that night, and the next day we told her she and Kelly could move in with us if they wanted. They did. As soon as they moved in, Keith sat down with her and they had a long discussion far into the night. There were a few guys wanting to take Cindy out but Keith told her he didn’t think she should be dating anyone because she was still a married woman. He also pointed out that she should look for another job because by working in a bar she was helping people get drunk. Cindy really wanted to do what was right, and she took his counsel on both points. Now she and Kelly shared one of our three bedrooms, leaving the one remaining bedroom for us, and a music room.

But there was still more room at the inn.

A short time later, I struck up a conversation with a young woman at the health club Keith and I belonged to. We were always trying to keep in shape, but I admit I spent most of my time in the jacuzzi. In fact, that’s where I was when I met Maureen. She looked sad, and we got to talking. She was going through a personal crisis and was very open when I started to talk about Jesus. We invited her to church with us—and, well, one thing led to another. Pretty soon, I was asking Keith if she could come and live with us, too.

Some people thought we were crazy for having so many people move in with us. We’d often hear comments from people at church. They’d say things like, “You guys are nuts. You haven’t even been married that long. You need time alone.” It was true we were young in our marriage, and even younger in the Lord—but it just didn’t seem like the urgent needs of these people were going to wait. Where else were they going to go while we made sure we got our time alone? So we did what we felt the Lord wanted us to do—we kept our home and our hearts open to anyone who needed help. It gave us a deep sense of joy to know we could be used to make a difference in someone else’s life.

In the process of seeing other people’s lives change, our lives were radically changing, too. We used to go to all-night parties and run around doing whatever we wanted. Now that people were moving into our house, Keith and I were spending a lot more time trying to help them grow in the Lord and overcome the effects of the past. Cindy, for instance, seemed to be having problems with her jobs.

After she’d quit her job at the bar, Cindy started waitressing in a deli. But now her boss told her if she wanted to keep her job she’d have to stop reporting the full amount of her weekly tips to the IRS. The other waitresses were complaining because Cindy was consistently reporting a much higher figure than they were and they were afraid they’d get caught cheating.

Once again Keith sat up late at night and talked with her.

“What am I going to do?” Cindy asked, desperately. “They want me to lie.”

“You can’t lie. And it wouldn’t be right to cheat the government.”

“I don’t want to lie. But I need my job.”

“It’s more important to do what’s right.”

After much discussion, Cindy came to a firm resolve and made a decision we were all really proud about. Keith wrote in his journal that Cindy “had to quit because they wouldn’t let her be honest.”

Not only were we staying up half the night counseling people, there were other meetings taking place at our house, as Christianity soaked into every nook and cranny of our lives. One night, after a Friday meeting at the Vineyard, Kenn announced, “Everyone’s invited to an all-night prayer meeting at Keith Green’s house!” Keith’s natural leadership was starting to surface again.

So here we were, having all-night prayer meetings when we barely knew how to pray ourselves! But Keith had read books about giants in the faith who prayed all night. One man used to go out in knee-deep snow and pray all night for the Indian tribes he was trying to reach. Another man would crawl into a hollow log in the woods to pray all night. We figured if all-night prayer helped make them strong, it would help make us strong too—even in our comfortable living room!

One night, something unusual happened. It was sometime in the gray, pre-dawn hours. We had lost ourselves singing songs of praise. Gently, slowly, it seemed like the whole atmosphere in the room changed as we worshiped the Lord with our friends. An overwhelming sense of peace settled on us—the air was thick with it. In fact at one point we all looked at each other and saw what looked like a misty fog gently hovering in the room. We all saw it at the same time. The Holy Spirit seemed to be with us in a very sweet way, and we could feel the closeness of God.

When we weren’t meeting at home or at the beach, we could often be found at one of Keith’s favorite restaurants—talking about Jesus with friends while trying to get our waitress saved. In fact, Keith would go anywhere, anytime, if it meant being with Christians or reaching someone for the Lord.

One time, Keith even went so far as to drive a guy we’d just met all the way to Arizona. We met Ray through some Christian friends, but he wasn’t a Christian. He was a genuinely nice guy—a clean-cut, all-American type—but that didn’t matter to Keith. Ray still needed the Lord. When Keith heard he was taking a Greyhound Bus to Tucson the next day, he announced, “God just told me to drive you!” Everyone, including Ray, kept telling Keith he was crazy. But Keith figured how could he measure a few days drive against the value of someone’s eternal soul? Their mutual friend Jerry Houser, who was an accomplished actor, went along so Keith wouldn’t have to drive back alone—or maybe he went so Ray wouldn’t have to be alone with Keith!

At any rate, Keith returned a few days later, road-weary but excited. “We’ve got a new brother in the Lord!” he announced, bursting in the front door.

Even though we saw lives being turned around, like Ray’s and Cindy’s, we were still troubled by the friends who didn’t stick. A few more had dropped out and weren’t around anymore. We wondered where they went. And more importantly, why they went. What made them fall away? Was there some attitude in their hearts that they hadn’t dealt with? It made us question our own hearts and attitudes.

Keith could be painfully self-examining. Quite often, he was much harder on himself than he was on anyone else. He would say, “If they could go cold toward God, what about me?” We realized that outward changes were the easiest—things like giving up drugs and drinking or cleaning up our language. The inner changes were the hardest. Some of our attitudes were a lot more subtle and harder to detect. Were there things we hadn’t dealt with in our own lives?

In particular, Keith started to question his music. One day, he said to me, “If my life is going to be totally submitted to the Lord, what does that mean about my music?”

I was amazed that he was even open to this question. For years he’d believed part of his destiny was to use his music as a platform to deliver a spiritual message. It was a sense he’d had long before he was a Christian. But now that he really knew the Lord, Keith felt he needed a new “go-ahead” from him. Singing for people seemed like the natural thing for someone with Keith’s talent to do—but he didn’t want to assume anything.

This was an excruciating question for Keith. His music was more than a hobby—he’d been singing all his life. Music was who he was. And it was most certainly our means of support. A lifetime of hopes and dreams were wrapped up in his music. Was it possible that after so many years of searching for acclaim and musical success that Keith might not ever sing before an audience again? We talked about it more than once.

“You know Mel, since I was a little kid, music has been a part of my life. My grandfather taught me my first rock-and-roll chords, my parents have stood with me. . . . But I’m not sure anymore if God wants me involved in music.”

“Keith,” I countered, “God gave you your music. Wouldn’t he want you to use it?”

“I don’t know. Why should I think Jesus wants me doing music just because I’ve always done it? Because it’s the thing I do best? That’s not enough of a reason. Maybe he wants me to go get a job making hamburgers at McDonalds.”

I didn’t know what to think. How could he not do music? On the other hand, I knew it was always important to obey God. But this seemed like a pretty high price to pay.

“You need to do whatever you think God’s telling you to do,” I said finally.

Keith spent many hours, even days, agonizing over his decision. Finally, he announced his decision.

“Mel, the only way to know for sure if God is giving me my music is to give it up. I need to let it go. I think it’s okay to keep writing for CBS and to play at home—but I’m laying down all of my public performing at the foot of the cross. I won’t pick it up again unless God tells me to.”

I swallowed hard. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” he replied. “I don’t want to presume upon the Lord.” Then he got an intensely serious look in his eyes.

“Mel . . . I don’t really know if God will ever let me pick it up again. Once I lay it down that may be it forever.”

If anything left me with an uneasy, open-ended feeling, it was that decision. We were getting down to the roots of big issues. That was really scary.

But Keith had made his mind up. As far as he was concerned, Keith Green would never play in public again. The old Keith—the one with the dream of being acclaimed as a singer—was dead.