A HISTORY OF THE JESUS PEOPLE MOVEMENT IN THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA AND AGAPE CHRISTIAN CENTER CHURCH SERVICES IN 1972 BY PETER ROMANOWSKY

WELCOME TO A JESUS PEOPLE MOVEMENT HISTORY IN THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA. Which is your WINDOW into the past, present and future of the JESUS PEOPLE CHRISTIAN REVIVAL AND MOVEMENT AND THE CHURCH CALLED AGAPE CHRISTIAN CENTER CIRCA 1972. Which web site is originating from Marin County California, located on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge in the San Francisco Bay Area. Where some modern church historians and scholars believe that the sixties Jesus People Movement and revival began, among intellectuals, artists and counter culture hippies, as well as the disillusioned baby boomer youth of that era in general and the anti-materialistic attitude these counter post war culture baby bommers reflected .
This is also the little known story of and to the best of my knowledge, might be THE FIRST DOCUMENTED CHRISTIAN SUNDAY MORNING CHURCH SERVICES FOUNDED BY A BORN AGAIN CHRISTIAN HIPPIE IN THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA of the "JESUS PEOPLE MOVEMENT", to begin formal sunday services in a public location from a grass roots group of converts. After the first and full time Pastor Peter Romanowsky received his in house training as a General Baptist Minister in 1969, along with co-pastor Bronik Romanowsky who eventually spent almost as much time pastoring as I did. Even though our congregation ran it's course in the latter part of the seventies,(when the youth and street population began to dissolve) and our young converts married and started having children and had moved to the more affordable area to the north of us in Novoto California.
After the more well known people in the early Jesus Movement like Arthur Blessitt,(the father of all missionaries to this hippie generation), Lonnie Frisbee (the first notable convert in San Francisco 1967), Kent Philpott (the first home missionary to start a drop-in coffee house in the Haight Asbury or San Francisco, Ted Wise ( who along with Lonnie Frisbee was one of the first notable converts, also fellowshiping together in the Living Room Ministry. Which was the first known and recorded drop-in center). Moishe Rosen (the founder of Jesus For Jesus) David Hoyt (first known and notable convert from the Hare Krishna Temple in the Haight, under Kent Philpot's ministry). Danny Sands(also an early convert from the notable Living Room Ministry). Mark Buckley (early convert and Pastor of Springs of Living Water Church in Phoenix, trained by Rev. Kent Philpot). Frank Worthen (co-founder of Exodus International, the largest known umbrella ministry in the world to reach homosexuals, gays and lesbians for Christ, also former member of Agape Christian Church where his own ministry Brother Frank began and eventually became Love in Action). Robert Gaulden and Dr. Robert Leslie Hymers, just to name a few. Most of these missionaries and or early converts moved to Southern California, or wrote popular books, or became Pastors, Evangelists or heads of New Movements in Christ. A few of us stuck around Marvelous Marin by the Bay and plugged on through the daily tests and trials of being a Born Again Christian, and are still here holding down the fort in a sense. in this most influential of all counties as far as movements are concerned (being the unofficial bedroom community or suburbs of San Francisco.
Now it's time to tell our story, the story that was in some ways more quite, and in others ways even more dramatic. People like myself Peter Romanowsky my brother Bronik Romanowsky, Sue Romanowsky Larry C Smith, Pastor Fred Small, Dr. Lars Williamson, Mike Rielly, Ken Hopkins, Michael Payton, Rory Chapin, Kevin & Diane Lawson, Steve & Barbara Eckroad, Lisu, Jane Gorham, Cathy Steenbergen (now Cross), Linda Weaver, Frances and Augie Criesco and Janice Criesco Reynoso just to name a few again, along with our wives were quietly holding the fort in Marin, by faith Building a foundation that one day would be heard all over the world (by faith via internet). TRULY "THE FIRST SHALL BE LAST AND THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST"!
There are other names that shone out of the Bay Area in General like Dick Keys in San Francisco, Jack Sparks and Holy Hubert Lindsey and Mario Murrillo in Berkeley, Kenny Sanders, Dennis Peacock and Richard Paradise in Somoma County to the North of us and so on. So here we are in one of the richest and most influential Counties in America! Where the Sixties Jesus Movement had it's California beginnings in the Bay Area, and in THIS COUNTY. Which is the "TWIN" more socially liberal Sister County to the more conservative ORANGE County, in Southern California.
There are other names like the late great KATHRYN KUHLMEN who was instrumental in bringing me to the Lord along with my mother the late Ritva Romanowsky , whose testimony is in Kathryn's book "GOD CAN DO IT AGAIN," the chapter named "From Russia with Love"....to be continued by Peter Romanowsky
Current Email Address peteromanowsky@gmail.com
Tel. (415) 261-5917 Mailing address P.O. Box 1591
Sausalito, Calif. 94965 "

Caji Dog and Peter Romanowsky entertaining in Sausalito

EARLY PHOTO OF AGAPE' CHURCH IN THE EARLY SEVENTIES with Mark Buckley and his brother, Peter Romanowsky and his brother Bronik and sister-in-law Sue, Steve Ecroad and his wife and daughter, Lisue and more names to be added later
TESTIMONEY OF SALVATION BY PETER ROMANOWSKY

OPEN AIR BAPTISM PICTURE IN A STREAM

HARVARD UNIVERSITY CHRISTIAN WEBSITE /AARON ROMANOWSKY

POLITICAL SOCIAL MISSIONARY ACTIVISM
MY LIFES GREATEST MISSIONARY JOURNEY FROM FINLAND TO THE MIDDLE EAST BY PETER ROMANOWSKY

PICTURE OF EARLY SEVENTIES HOME BIBLE STUDY IN FOREST KNOLLS CALIFORNIA, IN THE HOME OF CATHEY (STEENBERGEN, NOW CROSS) AND LISUE HER BEST FRIEND

PICTURE OF GALILLEE HARBOR SAUSALITO AREA WHERE I LIVE AND WORK TODAY IN SAUSALITO CALIFORNIA

Anthony Tipacio took this picture after asking me to pray for a rainbow. After a rainbow appeared he asked me to pray for a double rainbow, and here it is! In this area where many of the Sixties Hippies moved to from San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge.
Here people don't follow trends they set them. Everything you can imagine, good, bad and ugly has started here in the triangle of communities that make up San Francisco, Berkeley and Sausalito here in Marin County.
Here is where the League of Nations started, here is where the United Nations was initiated (and dedicated in Cathedral Grove in Muir Woods, Main County). Here is where the first proposed site of the United Nations was to be built, which is now occupied by the Golden Gate Theological Seminary here in Mill Valley, CA. Marin County.
San Francisco (and this triangle) is where it is believed by many, to be the birth place of the Beat Movement, Hippy Movement, Seamen's and Longshoremen's Movement, (quote) Gay Movement, First Church of Satan by Anton Lavey and his Satanic Bible, Sixties Jesus Movement, Rebirth of the Civil Rights Movement (declared by Rev. Jesse Jackson at the California Regents Meeting in San Francisco), and other movements that I can't even remember of at this time, except for names like Allen Watts here from Sausalito, and the well known beat writers of the fifties in San Francisco. Mario Salvo declared the first great Student Rights Movement in Berkeley in the sixties, and so on and so on.
I have said all this, "to say" that here is the logical place for the rebirth of the Jesus Movement as experienced in the sixties, but applied to the new millennium.
I said all this to say, that this is where the rebirth of the Jesus Movement in the spirit of the sixties, is a logical place to be. As the scriptures teach, "When the enemy comes in like a flod, the Spirit of The Lord shall lift up a standard against him" (paraphrased from the Book of Isaiah).
A HISTORY OF SIXTIES JESUS MOVEMENT IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE