Taking Jesus to the Fringes: Good Vibrations in California

Tucked between a tarot card reader and a Rastafarian artist, Cindy McGill is offering “Organic Spiritual Alignments” at her table along the circuslike boardwalk of Venice Beach, California.

As part of an innovative outreach to the New Age movement, McGill is giving “Free Spiritual Readings” and dream interpretations in this bohemian community in Southern California.

Using gifts of the Holy Spirit, McGill and her team of prophetic evangelists attract people who would normally just walk by more traditional proselytizers.

“When I started out with this, the Lord said to me: ‘Cindy, I want you to raise up a team of evangelists because My people are going to hell. I want you to run with the dream thing,'” says McGill, founder of Hope for the Harvest Ministries, an organization that evangelizes at the Burning Man and other pagan festivals.

“I remembered the verse that says God in the last days would pour out His Spirit on all flesh, and many people would dream dreams. They are having God dreams.”

Draped with its “Catalyst of Light” sign, McGill’s table entices an eclectic mix of people.

Venice’s head psychic-a woman with wild, blond hair; pink highlights; and long, red fingernails-is the first to approach the table. She tells McGill she has spent 17 years working as a psychic on the boardwalk.

“I put a spell on someone,” she tells McGill. “I want to make sure everything is going well.”

McGill-co-pastor of the Salt Lake City, Utah, Foursquare Church-reaches out to take her hand, saying she wants to invite her to have a spiritual alignment-a euphemism for asking the Holy Spirit to touch her heart.

“I just want to release the Spirit so everything is very, very clear,” McGill tells her, “so you can see the Truth, the Light and the Way absolutely illuminated.”

McGill gets up from her chair, places her hands on the woman’s shoulders and speaks in tongues, while asking the Holy Spirit to separate the psychic from any demonic forces that may try to interfere with God’s plan for her life. Afterward, the woman graciously thanks McGill and leaves.

“What I wanted to do is to give God an opportunity to let her feel His presence,” McGill says. “I went as far as I could. The bottom line is just to show them love. It’s their language.”

McGill says it’s often necessary to change “our language” to reach New Age believers. In the same way Jesus used parables, McGill says she uses euphemisms, initially, so people will be more open to an encounter with Jesus.

Before each outreach, McGill and her team of volunteers ask God to show them what people’s dreams mean and to give them guidance on the best strategies to reach the lost. After a dream interpretation, people are “even hungrier to learn who we are,” McGill says. At that point, McGill often reveals they are followers of Jesus and ask if they would like to have an encounter with their creator.

Around noon, two Iraq War veterans approach the table. Jeff Lovejoy, a 34-year-old Los Angeles resident with black plastic earrings, tells McGill he’s been having vividly horrid war dreams, but near the end everything fades to black. “I don’t know if I died,” he says.

McGill tells him the fact he doesn’t die means God has a plan for his life. “You have a destiny, something you have not fulfilled yet,” McGill tells him. “You have divine protection and intervention around to help bring you to your purpose.”

Lovejoy’s friend, Brentwood, California, resident Jason Hughes, 31, tells McGill he has been having recurrent chase dreams in which he has to rescue people, but he wakes up before the “bad action” occurs.

His is one of the 25 most common dreams. McGill tells him a spiritual stronghold in his past is trying to block his destiny.

She prays, asking God to stop the dream and show Hughes his purpose in life. She asks if he’d like to commit his life to Christ. He does and gives her a hug. He tells her he plans to go to church.

After the team finishes for the day, McGill says she plans to continue her outreach to the New Age community as God gives more people dreams-including “apocalyptic dreams.” She’s working as well on launching a dream-interpretation reality television show.

“People are getting dreams about the end of the world, and these are nonbelievers,” McGill says. “Hollywood is picking up on this.

“I taught a dream course for a bunch of 5- to 9-year-olds, and they started telling me dreams that were blowing my mind. These little kids are dreaming dreams about Jesus coming, things blowing up, wars and all kinds of things the Bible talks about in Matthew 24.”