TONY JONES, DOUG PAGITT, MARK SCANDRETTE

AUGUST 3, 2008

7:00 P.M.

FELLOWSHIP EVANGELICAL

COVENANT CHURCH

1569 44th Street

HUDSONVILLE, MI 49426

National Emerging Church leaders and authors Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and Mark Scandrette are crisscrossing the country in a bio-diesel RV to visit 32 cities with a message that combines old time revival flair with a 21st century gospel on a tour called the “Church Basement Roadshow,” and Jeremy Bouma, a colleague in ministry and first year seminarian, was able to snag them and set them up at the church I’m now serving as pastor. High five to Jeremy!

Taking a page out of the Billy Sunday playbook, the authors will spread the emergent message of a generous, hope-filled Christian faith in the style and cadence of the tent revival preachers of a hundred years ago. They plan to have fun with it, wearing frock suits and selling “healing balm,” but the goal is, as in the revivals of yore, to preach the good news. “This will be unlike any book tour people have seen,” says Jones. “We’ll be barnstorming the country, shaking the rafters with our ancient-future message of hope.”

The second to the last stop on their journey is Grand Rapids, MI and Fellowship Covenant Church is hosting that stop on Sunday August 3 at 7pm. If you live in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, or Indian (and EVEN Canada!) and are interested in dreaming of an alternative Christianity and following of Jesus, please come to what should be a rockin’ good time! Also, if (somehow) you read this blog and live in the area I’d love to connect during and after the show, so please try and make that Sunday evening.

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JESUS THE PASTOR: Interview by the Internet Monk

Michael Spencer, the Internet Monk, has posted an interview with me about my first book, Jesus the Pastor: Leading Others in the Character and Power of Christ (Zondervan: 2000).

I have recently published a new, short book Out of Print: A Novel. The story revolves around the complete disappearance of the Bible from the planet except in spoken word. No printed Bibles, no verses carved in stone or quoted in books or preserved in manuscripts or in taped or digital media. How will the church survive?

Popularity: 9% [?]

THE NFL STUDY BIBLE

WIVES, GIRLFRIENDS, DO YOU HAVE A HARD TIME GETTING YOUR MAN TO READ THE BIBLE?

WELL, THOSE DAYS ARE OVER! GET HIM…

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It’s no longer the Israelites against the Hittites…

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The drab Book of Psalms is now the colorful Book of Pom-Poms!

Learn about how Jesus huddles up a rag-tag Twelve Man team and

whips some self-righteous Pharisee butt! Go, team, go!

No more boring letters from dead dusty Apostles…

you’ll read the “playbook” for

the GAME of LIFE!! Play by play!

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S & H not included in the price (worth two SuperBowl tickets).

Not officially endorsed by the National Football League.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Good News in the Diner

by

John W Frye

Jake leaned over the counter in the diner across the street from the hospital and breathed in the aroma of the hot, black coffee. He was tired from being with his daughter, Mandy, and her husband, Steve, all night. Mandy had complications with her pregnancy, went into premature labor and something caused trauma to the baby and he (little Jason) died in the womb. Mandy, devastated and drained and still in labor, will deliver a still born child. Steve is by her side. Jake needed some air and space to think.

Another man sat down on the stool next to Jake and placed a Bible on the counter. He ordered coffee, too. They sat there side by side in silence until the man said to Jake, “You look tired and kinda down, friend.”

“Guilty on both counts. I am tired and down,” Jake said. “My daughter just lost her first baby a few hours ago. I’m trying to sort it out. She was so thrilled to have little Jason. That’s his name.”

“Well, friend, even in the darkest hour, this is the day the LORD has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

“You gotta be kidding me.”

The man looked confused as if Jake had slapped him.

“Well, no, I am not kidding. God is in control. The death of your daughter’s baby…”

“Jason.”

“Yeah, Jason. It’s all part of God’s wonderful and beautiful plan. It all works out for his glory. We may not understand, but God does. He’s still on the throne.”

“Did I just hear you say ‘wonderful’ and ‘beautiful’ and ‘glory’ about my grandson’s death? What are you talking about? My daughter’s eyes are so swollen and red from crying over the death of her baby. She is a wreck. And you’re talking ‘beautiful’”?

“I am just telling you the truth. God’s ways are not our ways. But ‘God works all things together for good to them that love God…’. Do you love God?”

“No. Right now I hate God.”

“Ooooh, be careful, friend, that’s no way to respond to a sovereign, holy God. You need to submit to his plan even it you don’t like it.”

Jake took a sip of coffee and looked around the diner and then at the holy man next to him. The waitress behind the counter rolled her eyes at Jake. He slightly nodded in response. Am I in the twilight zone? he thought. The man was rambling on.

“And that’s how God works. He planned your grandson’s death before the foundation of the world…all for his glory.” Jake wanted to knock the man to the floor, but he just glared him.

“You see, God wanted your grandson in heaven more than he wanted him on earth. So, God just took him…”

“Jason.”

“…Jason to heaven to make heaven a more beautiful place and to make you want to go there, too. Will you go to heaven when you die? Oh, God is so wise.”

 And you are a flaming idiot, Jake thought. He gulped the last of his coffee and gave the waitress some money. He got up and walked out.

He heard as the door closed behind him, “…and have a blessed day.” The waitress, in refilling the holy man’s cup, poured black coffee all over his Bible. By accident. Or was it planned before the foundation of the world?

Popularity: 9% [?]

I was trained to do proper exegesis, that is, to rightly divide the Word of truth. Seminaries are good for teaching students how to do that kind of thing.

Jesus is teaching me to another type of exegesis: to exegete lives. Exegesis comes from a Greek word that means “to lead out.” It is the discipline of studying a text and “leading out” the proper meaning. Exegesis is a field of biblical studies. Pastoral exegesis is the field of human lives.

Scholars primarily exegete (ancient) texts. Pastors, who can be scholars, too, primarily exegete present human lives.

In the Western world the developing Christian pastoral ministry took a sad turn and a horrible confusion occurred. Pastors were taught to primarily deal with the sacred text (the Bible). Peoples’ lives were disposable; the Word was eternal. Pastors with Bibles in hand, therefore, were called and paid more to talk and to teach than to listen. We were trained to lay down the truth on people’s lives without even knowing much about those lives. Lives were disposable, transitory; the Word was eternal. We forgot that the good Shepherd said, “I know my sheep…by name.” Many pastors today could not tell you the names of the people to whom they “exegete” the Scriptures. The text is supreme; people are disposable. 

Am I saying the Bible (biblical exegesis) has no place in pastoral work? Of course not. But if we take our cues from Jesus, we’ll listen long and well to people before we start spouting off good biblical exegesis. Maybe every seminarian should spend 30 years in obscurity, like Jesus did, before he or she is inflicted on the people of the land. I am convinced that the stories (aka “parables”) Jesus told were based on years of listening to the concerns, the dreams, the pains, the histories, the passions and the hopes of his people. I imagine when Jesus spoke, the people said, “Finally, someone is speaking my language.” We can only speak a person’s language when we know the person’s story. Jesus was a radical exegete.

Some people think Jesus was clairvoyant, with supernatural powers to read minds. I think he was a keen listener and sharp observer. One time his disciples freaked out when a woman poured expensive perfume on him. Jesus, however, ”exegeted” the woman and her actions as exceptionally sensitive.

I know of a pastor in my area of the world who actually avoids his people. Using the excuse to be “in prayer,” he hides in his office between his morning services. He prides himself in being a good Bible teacher. Maybe he is, but he’s a sorry excuse for a pastor.

 When pastors, of all people, in the USAmerican form of church are too busy to exegete lives, then they betray their primary study. People are amazingly unique human beings made in God’s image and redeemed by God’s Son and loved by God’s Spirit, each one with a story uniquely his or her own. The pastor’s task–a diligent, artistic contribution–is to show people how their stories may be caught up into God’s grand story.

Maybe pastors should be sent to detective training school rather than to seminary. It’s a thought.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Julie and I and Julie’s mother, Lois, just returned from a short trip to the great State of Tennessee. We visited Julie’s sister, Diane, and her family in Nashville. Diane is the Administrative Assistant to Mike Glenn, the pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church. Diane’s husband, Larry Mayfield, is known for his many original contributions to Christian music. One evening we ate and laughed with the growing Mayfield clan–Jonathan and Grace, Jeff and Kristin and Austin and Zachary, and Shelley, the VW bug-driving diva.  

Julie and I also visited my mother and step-father, Margaret and Neal Parrish, in Linden, TN. We kicked back and enjoyed good country food, some of which we got right out of the garden. We launched into many leisurely conversations, reminiscing about life together. Neal’s recipe for grilled short ribs is out of this world. I learned the secret…and I’m not telling. We drove part of the Natchez Trace, one of the most beautiful partk highways in the continental United States.  

Tennessee overall is a beautiful state with a rich history and breath-taking terrain.

We’re back in Michigan. Whoopee.

Popularity: 7% [?]

JESUS EMERGES

by

John W Frye

Jesus emerges into the public eye,

a young man into a stiff culture that revered

the Torah-seasoned wisdom of old age.

Jesus, pushing hard on received, sacred categories,

created quite a stir on the Bible-based, right-wing blogs,

where he was labeled a deceiver, demon-possessed,

crazy and, oh!, leading the simple youth astray.

The Jerusalem posts skewered this upstart Galilean

carpenter, who healed blind people, and

who outwitted the most learned in the land,

who dared to ransack their place of worship and

their ransacking of very poor widows.

The nationally-known religious leaders did not like

the emerging movement he led out of Nazareth.

“We have no king but Calvin!” they shouted.

They conspired a cross for the trendy One.

Sound  familiar?

Popularity: 9% [?]