He Was Just Visiting this Planet

The first time I heard his music I thought, "Ummm okay." It was different than your run of the mill Christian rock. In fact, he was different. He was Larry Norman; the Father of Christian Rock and Roll. His controversial songs spanned 15 years before the Jesus movement began. He was the original Jesus Freak and he shook the world of rock.

Larry Norman rubbed elbows with the movers, the shakers, and everyone in between including those inside and outside the music business. He wrote about politics, drugs, hypocrisy, free love, and everything else. Of the modern church he once said,

"The churches weren’t going to accept me looking like a street person with long hair and faded jeans. They did not like the music I was recording. And I had no desire to preach the gospel to the converted."

The song that I think was perhaps his most powerful was, I Wish We'd all Been Ready



1995 brought an album of Larry Norman's music performed by such artists as DC Talk, Rebecca St. James, and Audio Adrenaline, just to name a few. In 2001, along with Elvis, Larry was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

Beloved and our boy had the opportunity to see Larry live in concert just days before Beloved would return to the hospital for yet another surgery. In many ways we've felt a connection to this man whose only goal in life was to point others to Jesus Christ.

At long last Larry, you are not of this world. Rest in peace brother.