this past sunday night, i attended the church basement roadshow at a lovely little lutheran church in the pacific beach area of san diego (where erin martinson is on staff — erin is one of the san diego emergent cohort coordinators).

no one is denying, of course, that this tour is a promotional tour for the three great books published by these guys — all of which i’ve reviewed here (the new christians, by tony jones; soul graffiti, by mark scandrette; and a christianity worth believing, by doug pagitt). but if you expect three guys standing at a lectern or pulpit talking about their books, you will be in for quite a surprise.

the roadshow is equal parts:
– vaudeville
– camp meeting (complete with an original sing-songy sing-along that will dig its way into your brain and pop up for days – i’m singing the dang thing in my head as i type this!)
– performance art
– spoken word
– storytelling
– mini sermons

the guys have done an admirable job of creating the most creative book tour i’ve ever seen, that’s for sure. each have created a fictional personality from the year 1908, which, as the premise goes, are the great-great-grandfathers of tony, doug and mark. each character has some things to say, as do mark, tony and doug in current-day-mode. the whole thing is timed and staged, with support visuals on a screen. really, for three guys on a shoe-string budget, traveling in an rv with a trailer full of gear, they put on quite a show.

highlights for me: tony’s smackdown of plato, doug’s conversion story, and mark’s story of emperor arcadia. oh, and doug’s annoyingly hilarious trombone blasts (yes, you read that correctly).

i highly encourage you to check out this show if it’s coming to your region.