Remembering A Friend...25 years ago today Keith Green went home to be with the Lord

I was at Carman's apartment in Tulsa, OK visiting with some friends when the news came that Keith had died in a plane crash at Last Days Ministry. All that I remember was falling back into a chair weeping in disbelief.

I had just been with Keith a month earlier visiting with he and Melody at LDM. Leonard Ravenhill, Keith and I also enoyed a tremendous time of fellowship together.

I flew down that week for the memorial service...

Keith's music still to this day remains powerful and influential. He rejected the CCM industry and didn't charge for his records (something I adopted due to his encouragement in the early 1990's). He was concerned about the entrance of secular ownership of Christian ministry - something he would be outraged by today. He and I shared a passion on those issues and much of my burden for ministry in evangelicalism today can be traced back to those earlier conversations with him.

Though Keith was severely influenced by the writings and life of Charles Finney; his music remained for the most part doctrinally sound and untouched by Finney's Pelagistic convictions (Finney was heretic who denied original sin, justification by faith, the doctrine of imputation, penal substitutionary atonement, the authority of Scripture, etc.)


My favorite song of Keith's was "Asleep in the Light" - IMHO, the most passionate missions song ever written. Keith and I were working that summer on an arrangement of that song for my "Fire and Ice" record. Sadly, that session never happened. I always try to include, even to this day, a few of Keith's songs in every concert I minister. Not so much to pay homage to my brother, but to honor the Lord through lyrics that exalted the Lord Jesus Christ.

Keith was characterized as a "voice in the wilderness" for most of his ministry. By spiritual gift, he was an exhorter. No question his zeal for the Lord was undying and his love for evangelism unfettered. Keith, as I, was a product of the Jesus Movement. Though his ministry in song began after the movement had ended, Keith remained a strong voice for encouraging the church to send missionaries abroad and for the American church to return to holiness and Christlikeness once again.

Here we are 25 years later recalling what the Lord Jesus Christ did through our brother's life. Though his time in ministry was brief, he impacted a generation for the cause of Christ. May his tribe increase once again in Christian music.

I miss my friend greatly.