15 Facts About Jim Palosaari

James Michael Palosaari was an American evangelist and performer, one of the leaders in the Jesus Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s.

Jim Palosaari was a first-generation American whose Finnish father emigrated through Ellis Island, New York.

Jim Palosaari became a Christian in Seattle, Washington during the Jesus Movement of the late 1960s.

Jim Palosaari put together the rock band Servant, which became the first Christian rock band to use lasers and an extensive light show.

Jim Palosaari spent his early adult years in the Chicago and the Detroit theater, including The Unstabled Theater run by Edith Carroll Canter and Woodie King, Jr.

Jim Palosaari went to work in Texas with CITA, which he would continue to return to periodically over the next decade.

Jim Palosaari narrated the movie Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher, the story of one of the earliest and most well-known Jesus Freak leaders, Lonnie Frisbee, released in DVD form in January, 2007.

Jim Palosaari married Joyce Warner in Detroit, in 1962, and moved to New York with his wife and stepson, Michael, about a year later.

Jim and Jeanette Palosaari met in Wisconsin and became parents of a daughter, Sonja, in 1967.

Shortly after his arrival in southern California Jim Palosaari moved to northern California.

In 1970, Jim Palosaari married Susan Cowper, and had four children: Jedidiah, Seth, Cody, and Sophia.

In 1981 Jim Palosaari and Sue's second oldest son, Seth, died in an automobile accident with two other members of the community.

Five years later, Jim Palosaari married Susan Mattson, who died in 2008.

Jim Palosaari was a self-described Democrat and socialist, committed less to party and politics than to the ideals of social justice, living in poverty, communal living, and a religious lifestyle in which everything is given up for God.

Jim Palosaari considered himself a Christian Primitivist, trying to live in the 20th century with the ideals of the 1st century Christians.