Memories

Greetings sent to the Jake’s Book Launch

Opening Address:

Jake’s Book Launch by the Revd Martin Rosenberg, retired Uniting Church in Australia Pastor

We will be launching the book in a little while, but first let me tell you a few things about Jakes. As you may know—and the book gives much more detail on this—during those 10 years, Jakes morphed through a number of different stages and many people seemed to come for a time and then leave.

It all began with the efforts and passion of a small group who had a vision for the coffee shop and they found a suitable place at 102 Gawler Place in the city. It was a group who were called the Dorian Society who worked with the Lutheran Youth of SA (especially the Metro South Zone) and they were the ones who got it up and running—all the details are in the book. There are some people here today who were a part of that chapter of Jakes.

Some were the organisers behind the scenes, others worked in the coffee lounge, others were happy just making the ham and cheese toasted sandwiches. This period from 1970-73, developed a solid foundation on which the remaining history of Jakes was built. If you like, the members of the Dorian Society were the founding fathers and mothers of Jakes. Amanda and Geoff Strelan and Monica and Ivan Christian are here today.

Then it took the faith of a particular established church group, who had the resources to help, to take it to the next level—that was St Stephens Lutheran Church in Wakefield St. They were the ones who called a pastor to come and give it some leadership.

That culminated in Doug and Erna Kuhl coming to Jakes as its pastor and leader. Doug was installed in January 1974.

Two months later Kairos 74 happened and this one single event changed everything. Kairos, in the 70’s, was a national Jesus People movement and in 1974, it was held in Adelaide to coincide with the Adelaide Festival of Arts. Christian groups from all around the country came to Adelaide to share the message of Jesus all over the city, in a hundred different ways.

Some of those who came were (and these names might be familiar to you): John Smith (God Squad), Athol Gill (house of the Gentle Bunyip in Melbourne), John Hirt (House of the New World in Sydney), Teen Challenge in Brisbane, The Glebe Zoo in Sydney, the House of Freedom, Agape House and Theos Coffee Shops—to name just some of them.

There were:

• Rallies & concerts in high schools and universities, in the city, and on the beaches.
• People were handing out leaflets on street corners.
• Street Marches through the centre of Adelaide.
• Lots of coffee shops and drop-in centres where street workers would take people who wanted to know more or just talk.
• Evangelism or Mission was the focus.

To quote a bit from Steen’s introduction to the book:

The Jesus Movement was in full swing, the Devil had no right to all the good music, and we constantly saw God at work in the lives of kids who came off the street, from outlaw bikie gangs and from among those dabbling in drugs and Eastern Religions and philosophies.

Kairos ‘74 used Jakes as its base, the message of Jesus was shared and the Holy Spirit came and caused the place to explode and it continued to grow in ways that no one expected. The problem we faced at that time was what do we do with all these new converts.

Many of them did not feel comfortable in the established churches because culturally they were a million miles from it, although some did fit there. St Stephens was hosting a Sunday evening service with Kindekrist trying to bridge that gap and that went some way towards bridging that gap. However, there were still lots who couldn’t handle even walking into a church building.

So there were all these new members to the body of Christ that needed to be fed spiritually and steered away from their old influences and supported in their Christian growth. What do you do with all of that?

You will have to read the book to find out all the details.

The one thing that was constant throughout the life of Jakes was that it continued to change the lives of those who came in contact with it (again, a lot to do with the Holy Spirit). That included the workers as well as those who went there to find out more of what these Jesus People were all about.

Somehow, despite our naivety, despite all our inexperience and our lack of professionalism, somehow despite ourselves Jesus was able to use us to make a significant difference in many lives.

Not everyone was impacted positively. We know that. To those people we give our heartfelt apologies for the things that shouldn’t have been.

There were a number of parallel stories that overlapped with Jakes. Things like the relationship of Jakes with the Lutheran Church, the Charismatic Renewal, Manoah and a few others. We don’t have time to talk about them all here today, but again, these are all dealt with in the book.

I want to thank Steen for all the effort he put in to bring this book to this stage. It was really written on our behalf to record a significant chapter in many of our lives and I know some of us are getting copies for our families and friends so we can say to them: “This is the story of what happened to me back in the 70’s that has influenced my life to this day. Please read it because then you might understand me bit better.”

I know that after Jakes disbanded, many people went all around Australia and some overseas and had an impact there in the work they did. So now—with this book—what happened back then in the 70’s has the potential to influence another generation of people in the 21^st century all around the world.

Who would have thought?

We are also here to launch this book – and I invite Steve Haar up to the front to officially launch the book, “Jacobs Ladder, Missional Church in the 1970s”.

From the blog of Steen Olsen 11/9/2020 www.lca.org.au/enews 

^{Fifty years ago, something changed my life, and I wasn't even there!}

Last Saturday evening Ruth and I drank a toast: “To the Holy Spirit for stirring up the ministry and mission that came to be known as Jacob’s Ladder, and to the people who listened, believed God’s promises, and made it a reality.” You see, last Saturday was the 50th anniversary of Saturday 5th September 1970, the night that Jacob’s Ladder Coffee Lounge at 102 Gawler Place, Adelaide, first opened its doors.

Neither of us was there that night, nor did we meet at Jakes. We met at St Stephens Lutheran Church in Wakefield Street, where Ruth was working as a deaconess and I was assigned for fieldwork as a Seminary student. However, our lives would not have been the same if Jacob’s Ladder had not happened. For that, we are eternally grateful. Jakes had a profound influence on shaping who we are today. The Spirit was at work, and he is still at work shaping our lives now.

I can’t tell you the story here, but I have just done so in a book, Jacob’s Ladder: Missional Church in the 1970s. It will be published in the next month or so. I will let you know when and where you can get a copy.

Meanwhile, let me tell you a little about why it was such a significant time for us. The Jesus Movement was in full swing. No way was the devil going to have all the good music! The Spirit touched the lives of many, mostly young people, around the world. It was all about Jesus and bringing him to those who did not yet know him. It wasn’t a burden or a drudge. It was exciting. We knew we were on the cutting edge of something God was doing in his world. Even here in little old Adelaide. We prayed. We talked about Jesus with anyone who would listen. We studied and shared. Miracles happened. People’s lives were changed. Many others, like Ruth and me, look back on those days as a time when God used us and prepared us for the service of the rest of our lives.

It began as a coffee lounge and grew into a community that brought Jesus to young people on the streets, in the pubs, and anywhere that people gathered. Many of those who came to faith were involved in drugs, outlaw bikie gangs, crime, and eastern religions. The focus was not on feeding the poor and hungry, but people were fed and given a place to stay. The focus was not on justice, but the oppressed were set free. The focus was not on human rights, but God-given dignity and freedom were proclaimed. It was unapologetically evangelistic: bringing Jesus to those who did not yet know him.

What can we learn for today?
If the church is going to bring Jesus to those who do not know him today, it also needs to form a Christian community in ways that are different from most established congregations. The old attractional models where we run worship, programs, and events that we hope our non-Christian friends will find attractive simply don’t work in Australia and New Zealand today. Years ago there may have been a societal pressure that saw non-worshipping parents want to send their children to Sunday School. Even that is long gone.

Jakes went out into the street culture of the time and sought to form a Christian community with those we met. The clear expectation of the Church at the time was that we would bring them back into existing churches. That was also the hope of many when the LCA expanded its network of schools. It didn’t happen then either. I hope that expectation has finally changed. The Jakes's story clearly illustrates why that doesn’t work. The reason is cultural.

Jakes set out to form ‘Church’ with and among those it was led to. We did our best to bridge the cultural gap rather than expecting them to do so. That is being a missional church. The kids on the street were not ‘seekers’; they were not looking for a church to join, nor did they generally have an interest in spiritual things. Many were aware that their lives could be better but most were too busy dealing with their daily problems in their family, housing, and relational issues and did not have any idea about getting their lives on track. While we set up a Coffee Lounge/House/Drop-in Centre it was really still an ‘evangelism first’ not a ‘service first’ or ‘worship first’ approach. The Centre gave us a base and became important when it came to follow-up, but the real work was done by teams that went out onto the streets, pubs, and other venues, and we listened to and talked with people.

That makes biblical sense. After all, Jesus didn’t say, “Sit in your churches and wait for them to come.” He said, “Go and make disciples of all nations….” GO! And, “As the Father sent me, so I send you…” SENT! into the world. God is missional. The Father sent Jesus, Jesus and the Father sent the Spirit, and Father, Son, and Holy Spirit send us into the world with good news.

God was at work
We had a theology of the incarnation but this was not only about being a Christian presence. We weren’t just trying to improve people’s lives a bit, but to bring them to the cross of Jesus Christ. We, therefore, did not focus on being a ‘presence’ of Jesus, but rather on bringing Jesus in both law and promise. The sense of guilt and shame in street kids often indicated that the law was already doing its work. The promise, on the other hand, was good news, but it couldn’t just be a head-trip or a doctrine or philosophy. Christians often seem to believe in their theology, rather than in God; and bring a product called ‘the forgiveness of sins' rather than Jesus. Forgiveness is essential, but there is more to God’s mission than that. It is not about teaching a doctrine but helping people to meet Jesus. God is doing so much more than getting a few individuals into heaven.

For us, Jakes's was a lasting lesson in God being at work. He is doing things all the time. God has ‘agency’ as some people like to say today. He is a player, not a spectator. We learned that we were working with God, not for him. We learned that if God didn’t ‘show up’ we had nothing to offer anyone. Sure, there were many failures, and our sin and weakness ruined much, but in spite of that, God worked in and through us imperfect, young, at times arrogant human beings. God is good. All the time. And when we fell on our faces, when there was pain and disappointment, we learned that this, too, was part of the Christian walk. We needed to trust God and hang on to his promises.

Evangelism
During our time with Jakes, we learned that evangelism was not a naughty word. Today talking about evangelism seems to make many Christians cringe. They immediately picture someone brow-beating another or manipulating people with emotional blackmail. They think of canned programs with set questions and presentations. They imagine it involves a ‘bait and switch’ methodology that approaches others with some pretense, only to switch the focus to making a gospel presentation. Jakes taught us that evangelism was not like that at all. We didn’t feel any superiority nor that we had things to give, but nothing to learn. By God’s grace, we had met Jesus, and that was worth sharing. That was good news. Too often today, so-called ‘outreach’ has become a gospel-free zone. We do many good things but never clearly say why we are doing them. Sometimes it even gets to the point where Jesus is no longer necessary. Evangelism is not a dirty word. It is just one beggar showing another beggar where to find bread, as Luther reportedly said.

Structures and Policies
Jakes has been a lifelong reminder to me that we need to hold structures, processes, and their associated rules, lightly. They are our servants, not our masters. That is difficult for those of us with a Germanic/northern European mindset. A friend recently suggested to me that we Lutherans should have much more freedom than we do. He said that it went right back to the Reformation. When none of the German bishops came over to the Lutheran side, the princes stepped in and filled the void. A secular authority oversaw the church. It was made up of individuals who were Christians, but it was secular nevertheless. The princes ruled and bureaucracy won out. The legacy of that today is a focus on management and control, and not on creativity. We should not use our constitutions and policies to take away what we give in our theology. That is not to say that we don’t need some of that to keep us functioning in a safe and responsible way and to meet modern legal requirements. However, it has become stifling and more importantly tends to quench the Spirit, not set him free. Jakes, with all its problems and weaknesses, showed us another way.

Mentoring
We needed leaders from outside the community who would walk alongside us, pray with us and help us talk things over. Instead, we generally got controlling boards and committees, mostly made up of people who were not involved in the ministry. Our thanks to the late Dr. Daniel Overduin, who was one of the notable exceptions. There were others. However, sadly, for many of our older brothers and sisters, we were the ‘problem child’ or the ‘designated patient’ that needed to be fixed. Good order can easily become an idol, rather than a means to an end. The Holy Spirit seems to have a habit of disrupting our good order. Jakes operated with a ‘centered set’ not a ‘bounded set’ approach. The Church mostly wanted to guard the boundary, rather than elevating the center. We focused on the center, which was and is Jesus, and were a fuzzy-edged community. Conflict, I guess, was inevitable.

As one who went on to have wider leadership responsibilities in the Church, that is a lesson I needed, as well as being one that too often, I failed to heed. To the extent it got through my thick skull, I tried to raise an umbrella when a person was ‘raining on someone else’s parade’, and to create space for those whose approach and understanding were less than perfect. I discovered that, if your eyes and ears were open, the surprises of the Spirit were often there to be discerned. My ‘office’—in the sense of my role and responsibility— was not to control God’s church, but to try to stay out of the Spirit’s way, and to support others as a fellow traveler on the journey, while still being free to step in on occasion, and say, “I don’t think so!” It was a great privilege and I thank the Jakes community for preparing me for further service.

For the rest, I guess you will need to read the book!

Therefore, Ruth and I are grateful for that day fifty years ago, when Jacob’s Ladder opened its doors. Thanks to all those whose hard work made it happen. And to the Spirit for inspiring them to do it!
Steen Olsen