It all started in the “OC.” Yep, sunny Orange County in Southern California is where this magazine was born in 1978—26 years after my mother gave birth to me. Now, in this final printed issue, I am tasked with writing a history of the magazine from the perspective of someone who was there from the beginning.
I have some boxes stashed away in my garage that contain every single issue of this publication ever printed. I pulled them out recently and started looking through them—beginning with issue No. 1—thinking it couldn’t be that hard to find some amusing stories and self-deprecating anecdotes about the making of the magazine.
It wasn’t long before I realized a few things. 1) Reviewing all of the issues that have been published over 30 years is overwhelming and impossible. 2) While the first issue and the most recent issue are not really recognizable as the same publication, most of the bedrock issues facing Christians and modern culture have not changed. We’re still discussing the same basic stuff! I also came across the names of many, many people I have lost track of and that I miss.
Okay, let me explain how we got from 1978 to 2008. In a nutshell, what happened was this: In the early ’70s, following a youth revival known as the Jesus Movement, the original Calvary Chapel (in Costa Mesa) became a magnet for hippies who had found Christ, and many of them used music to express and share their new faith in Christ. So out of the Jesus Movement came Jesus Music.
Just down the street from Calvary Chapel were the publishing offices for a publication called
Contemporary Christian ACTS. It was owned by Jim Willems, who also owned a Christian store called Maranatha Village, and Steve Zarit, a local publisher.
CCA was an Orange County Christian lifestyle newspaper with sections on sports, family and music.
I was a business partner with Jim and Steve, producing radio programs and commercials for another aspect of our little company, which was called Praise Productions. Since I was the music guy in the organization, I became the default editor of
CCA’s music section. By late 1977 we were having internal discussions about how the Christian music scene really seemed to be growing. We believed that expanding the
CCA music section into a separate publication could be a viable business opportunity. The idea, however, was to aim the music publication at retailers, radio stations, record labels, artists, etc. In short, it would be a “trade” publication for people in the business rather than one for music fans.
I went around the country to meet with all the major Christian record labels and tell them our idea as well as solicit ideas. No, that wasn’t just a trip to Nashville. At that time the major labels were located in Southern California, Waco and Kansas City (in addition to Nashville). Everyone was supportive except the largest label of that era. They advised against it, citing the two other retail-focused publications that were already being published. Well, despite their lack of enthusiasm and support, we decided to go ahead anyway.