Twenty-five years ago Corky and I were adjusting to the news that Keith Green had been killed in a plane crash. The news rocked us. We were in the middle of adjusting to life as new parents, and to the joy of having brought Hope home from the hospital (miraculously healed!) about two months before. In fact, we had taken Hope on a trip to Stone Mountain, Georgia to see her Aunt Judy and Uncle Jerry and her cousins, Todd, Troy and Trent. We woke up hearing the terrible news via a phone call.
There was no greater influence on us and our ministry than Keith Green. We never saw him in person but eagerly waited each month for the Last Days Newsletter and knew and sang each of his songs. Keith and the Last Days team paraphrased and printed articles written in the 19th century by Generals William and Catherine Booth, Samuel Logan Brengle and Charles Finney. They published current sermons by David Wilkerson and Leonard Ravenhill (their neighbors in Lindale, Texas).
More than anything, I was influenced by Keith's prophetic passion for the Kingdom of God. His songs are still my "First Love Music", always drawing me back to a more consecrated life for God. I will never forget worshiping in chapel at St. John's in England and singing with the congregation, "There Is a Redeemer". For me, it was a moment of true worship in the Hollis Gause sense: rapture, rapport, proleptic.
I've often thought that had Keith Green lived, he would have been so consumed with zeal for the Lord that he wouldn't be able to exist. The present state of the church in America is so far from the Holy Church for which Keith Green interceded.
'My eyes ard dry, my faith is old
My heart is hard, my prayers are cold
And I know how I ought to be
Alive to You and dead to me!
So what can be done for an old heart like mine?
Soften it up with oil and wine.
The oil is You, Your Spirit of Love
Please wash me anew in the wine of Your Blood."