Discover the remarkable true story of Greg Laurie, founder of Harvest Christian Fellowship and author of Jesus Revolution, a journey that began not with certainty, but with a turbulent childhood in a changing America. Born into the hopeful 1950s, Greg’s world quickly shifted as the buoyant optimism faded into the rebellious 1960s, a time when many young people questioned everything. This episode explores how an extraordinary life, marked by a rebellious and often absent mother, ultimately led to profound faith and a pivotal role in the iconic Jesus Movement that swept Southern California and beyond in the 1970s.
From the “Charlene’s Wild Ride” of his youth, moving between his mother’s many marriages and the stability of his disciplinarian grandparents, young Greg wrestled with life’s big questions. He found solace in a portrait of Jesus and the distant voice of Billy Graham, even as he joined the burgeoning youth rebellion of the era. This personal quest for truth amidst chaos mirrors a generation’s spiritual hunger, laying the groundwork for an awakening. Join us as Greg Laurie shares how his path, from a boy talking to an imaginary “Mr. Nobody” to a leader of one of America’s largest churches, beautifully illustrates the enduring power of faith in America and how even the most challenging beginnings can spark a spiritual revolution.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
Speaker 2: So I was born in nineteen fifty-two. That seems like ancient history now. Yes, I was actually alive in the fifties. Eisenhower was president. We had just come through World War Two. There was this buoyant optimism in our country. Everything had this sort of futuristic look that now we call fifties design. But, in the day, it was supposed to look like the future, and it was actually a really great time to be alive. I read a survey a while ago that said, “If people could live in any era, what era would you pick?” And the most popular choice was the fifties. But it wasn’t long until the fifties turned to the sixties, and then the sixties turned very dark. I was born in Long Beach, California, in nineteen fifty-two, to a woman named Charlene McDaniel. She was from a very large family with many siblings. They were from Friendship, Arkansas, old-fashioned values, and as you look at the old of my mother with her siblings, she stands out. It’s not that the siblings weren’t good-looking men and women. It’s just that my mom was extraordinarily beautiful, literally a Marilyn Monroe look-alike, and so she ran away from home at a very early age. My mom was a rebel at heart, and she would wear pants when you weren’t supposed to wear pants. And to show you how what her home was like, her father, Charles McDaniel, once saw her wearing pants. He made her take him off. He cut him up with scissors and threw him into the fire. That just fueled my mother’s rebellion, and my Aunt Willie actually helped her pack a suitcase, and she eloped with some guy, and off my mother went to her series of what would become seven marriages that would take her all around the United States. So, along the way, she met a guy. I found this out later. His name was Barney. He was a sailor in the U.S. Navy, and they had a one-night stand, a fling. And my mom got pregnant. And she married another guy named Kim and put his name on my birth certificate, and I believed he was my father. So my mother just went on a series of marriages and divorces. She was a raging alcoholic. She was a literal men magnet; men were always coming to her, so she had a lot of boyfriends in between the husbands. And I went along for what we might describe as Charlene’s Wild Ride. You’ve heard of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at Disneyland. It was Charlene’s Wild Ride. But, at times, she would leave me to live with my grandparents. So I, now as a little boy, was living with the parents she rebelled from. And it’s not just that they were older, they were from another generation, but they were strong disciplinarians. They forced me to adhere to standards rules, which was actually kind of good for me, because up to that point, I felt like I’d been raised by wolves almost. I really didn’t have any absolutes or standards to live by, so it was a stable time in my life. But they would take me to church, and I was bored, and I remember drawing on the little church bulletin. But in the house where my grandparents lived, there was a little portrait of Jesus hanging up on the wall, and I would often find myself just staring at that portrait. There was something about Jesus that fascinated me at a very young age. Another thing that we used to do was watch television together. They had these two big Lazy-Boy-type chairs, and I had a little stool in the middle, and we would watch this little black-and-white TV and watch Bonanza and Gunsmoke, all these popular shows of the late fifties, early sixties. And I remember we also watched a preacher named Billy Graham, and I really liked him. Sometimes that night, after my grandparents went to bed, I would pull a cover of my head and I would talk to an imaginary character I had invented, and I named him Mr. Nobody. And I would just kind of pour my heart out to him, tell him what was troubling me, what was bothering me. And I think, in my own little kid way, I was reaching out to God. You know, the Bible says God has placed eternity in our hearts. And I knew that God was out there somewhere. I just didn’t know who he was or what his name was. So, fast-forward now, and we’re in the turbulent sixties, and youth are starting to rebel against their parents, and I joined them. And there was a saying of the day: “Never trust anyone over thirty.” And that ring truth for me, because all of the adult role models that I was exposed to disappointed me. And there was not one adult that I admired or looked up to or wanted to be like. Now, I left up one of my mother’s seven husbands; she was married to divorce seven times. He was different than all all the other husbands. His name was Oscar Laurie. He actually took the time to adopt me. He treated me as a father should treat his son. He disciplined me; he gave me an allowance; he took time to help me explain things to me, and I really loved him. So it was really a big shock when one day I came out of school in New Jersey, where we lived. He was a practicing attorney, and our Cadillac was loaded up with luggage, and I asked my mother, “Where are we going?” She said, “We’re going to Hawaii.” Well, I’d never been to Hawaii before. I was very excited. I said, “Where’s Dad?” She said, “He’s not coming.” So we got in the car. We went to the airport. We landed Honolulu, Hawaii, and there, standing before me, is this very tall man named Eddie, and this was my mother’s new husband. How she met him, how this came about, I did not know, but I remember one thing. They literally had recreated the room I had in New Jersey in Hawaii, which I found very surreal.
Speaker 1: And you’re listening to Pastor Greg Glory tell the story of his own life. A surreal life, is right. And he said something so so haunting: “I had not one adult I admired or looked up to or wanted to be like in my life.” What a sad thing to hear! But, in the end, it would fuel who we’d become when we come back. More of Greg Glory’s life here on Our American Stories. This is Lee Habib, host of Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people, and we do it all from the heart of the South, Oxford, Mississippi. But we truly can’t do this show without you. Our shows will always be free to listen to, but they’re not free to make. If you love what you hear, consider making a tax-deductible donation to OurAmericanStories.com. Give a little, give a lot. That’s OurAmericanStories.com. And we continue with Our American Stories and the story of Pastor Greg Glory’s life, told by Greg Glory himself.
Speaker 2: Let’s pick up where we last left off. And so my life started changing rapidly, and they began to read the Bible. And what surprised me so much about the Bible—I had a modern translation that I was reading called Good News for Modern Man—is that this book related to me. I understood it, and so I’d never had anything like that to guide my life by, to have principles to live by. So my life began to change, and I began to attend Calvary Chapel pretty much every night of the week; they had all kinds of services going there. And it wasn’t long after that that I thought I would use my cartooning ability for my faith. And I found out where Chuck Smith lived, so I went to his house. He had never met me before. I said, “Hi, Pastor Chug. I had ten, and I heard you give a message on the Woman at the Wall, and I drew this little cartoon booklet.” He’s looking at it, and he starts smiling. He goes, “I love this! Hey, can you redraw it in this other format?” “Why don’t we publish it?” Ultimately, I think well over a million of those were printed. And that was my entree, if you will, into what we’ll call ministry. And I remember one day I was walking along down in Newport Beach, and there was this woman about the age of my mom sitting on t
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