Remembering Tom Stipe

Tom Stipe has gone Home.

He was not a household name. But Stipe was a giant in the Kingdom of God. He passed from this life on new year's eve, 2020, surrounded by his family.

"It is with mixed emotions, always, when a believer has to say goodbye to one dear to their heart," wrote former Calvary Chapel Broomfield pastor and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee Richie Furay in the immediate aftermath of Stipe's homegoing. Furay continued: "Tom Stipe was a friend and co-laborer in the Lord Jesus Christ. He will be missed by many, but the hope of many more is the promise we have in our Lord that one day we will be together again." Stipe had been a member of the Richie Furay Band; he played keyboards and co-wrote several songs on Furay's classic I've Got a Reason album in 1976.  

Richie Furay Band
(L-R: Jay Truax, John Mehler, Tom Stipe, Richie Furay)

A website called phoenixpreacher.com published an article that Tom Stipe wrote in 2018. Titled, The Calvary Chapel Chronicles: The Music, it basically re-lived the early Jesus Music days as experienced by one who was there. "I was a 19-year old piano player and self-taught guitar strummer and I was stunned to hear Love Song for the first time," Stipe recalled. "It was my kind of music performed flawlessly while openly expressing love for Jesus." Stipe remembers approaching Tommy Coomes of Love Song and asking him what he thought about taking popular secular songs from the day and changing the lyrics to reflect Christian themes. "With a look of complete disgust," Stipe remembered, "as though I had suggested drinking a Slurpee from the holy grail, he said, 'Why don't you write your own?'" And so Tom Stipe did.

Tom Stipe

Stipe became part of a sizable, organic community of musically gifted Christ-followers who were ready, willing and able to tell their stories of faith through song. "We were mirroring but not mimicking the rest of Southern California's rich, creative, if not drug infested, mainstream musical atmosphere," Tom said. "No line between sacred and secular had been drawn yet. We were just being part of our 'rock generation,' penning our life stories and core beliefs in song."

Stipe led a Tuesday night Bible study and helped host the popular Saturday Night Concerts at the Mother Ship - Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California. He also organized a musicians fellowship group and even tried his hand at being a radio DJ at KYMS in Santa Ana.

Tom Stipe's early musical contributions to the Jesus Movement came through two bands, Country Faith and Wing and a Prayer - neither of which ever recorded a proper record but were featured on Maranatha! compilation albums. 

Country Faith
(Chuck Butler, Tom Stipe, Scott Lockwood) 

Country Faith's Two Roads is one of the best songs on the classic Everlastin' Living Jesus Music Concert album. Country Faith may not have recorded an album together, but that didn't stop the band from being active in evangelism efforts that were such a hallmark of the Jesus Movement. Stipe recalled how charismatic street preacher Lonnie Frisbee would almost always want musicians to accompany him as he sought to minister to street people. "One time he called me at 3 a.m. from England saying, 'You've got to bring Country Faith to London right now! Revival is breaking out!' Forty-eight hours later we were standing in front of thousands with Lonnie, Larry Norman and Arthur Blessitt, guitars in hand, sharing our faith," wrote Stipe.

Wing and a Prayer
(Tom Coomes, Tom Stipe, Jay Truax, John Mehler, Al Perkins)

According to Mark Allan Powell's Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music, Wing and a Prayer was essentially a second edition of Love Song, and Tom Stipe replaced Chuck Girard in that group. Joining Stipe in Wing and a Prayer were Tommy Coomes, Jay Truax and John Mehler, all formerly of Love Song, and Al Perkins, one of the best peddle steel players around. You can check out Wing and a Prayer on the Maranatha! Four collection.

Take away Coomes and Perkins but add Richie Furay...and you've got the Richie Furay Band. Tom Stipe co-wrote four songs on the seminal I've Got a Reason LP. (Much more about that album coming up later in the countdown.)

Tom Stipe became a record label executive for a while, heading up the short-lived Bluestone Records, label home to alternative rockers The Violet Burning and Danny Daniels (formerly of Bethlehem). And he recorded a critically acclaimed solo album in 1991 that has been called "one of the finest country albums of the year...like a visit from an old friend." Never Too Late contained sentimental, heart-tugging songs about the lives of everyday people. 

But it was as a pastor that perhaps Tom's greatest impact was felt. It is said that Crossroads Church in Colorado was founded in Tom and Maryellen Stipe's Boulder home in the fall of 1976. Today it is a thriving Calvary Chapel community of believers in the suburbs of Denver. It is clear that the people of Crossroads Church loved Tom dearly. 

As did his Jesus Music brothers.

"The very first session that I ever played on was a 45rpm single with Tom Stipe and Country Faith," Alex MacDougall told me recently. "That was probably in 1972. He was one of the few pastors that could also be 'one of the guys' when around musicians. Four years later I toured and roomed with him at times in the Richie Furay Band. We also held the very first Calvary Chapel Boulder church in his basement, and I was there. As a pastor he challenged me in a profound way, and I still carry his words to me in my mind." Alex said that he last saw Tom about four years ago at a worship conference in Dallas, Texas. "It was a warm and sweet time to be with him," MacDougall said. "He always gave great place to worship and music. He did not just facilitate them in church. He loved them both and was a good man and dear brother."

Oden Fong and Alex MacDougall

Oden Fong, another Jesus Music veteran who would later become a Calvary Chapel pastor, called Tom Stipe a "good friend" and "buddy" and said, "This brother's gifts and talents and deeds are so vast that it's difficult to cover all that he has done over the past fifty years."

Country Faith

When reflecting on his early Jesus Music days, Stipe said, "We witnessed culture penetrating evangelism against a backdrop of Biblical literacy. I think that Jesus referred to this kind of activity as 'casting seed.' We were not reaching out to the culture, we were the culture...with a belief that Jesus could somehow change lives." 

Tom Stipe certainly did his part to see that the lives of people here in this world were changed for the better as a result of the grace and the love of God, not just during the Jesus Movement revival but throughout his earthly life. 

Our prayers are with his family.

Tom and Maryellen Stipe