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.
saw the ad for this in relevant magazine just today. looked like it may be just the kind of quirky fun to put on my calendar. after your endorsement, i’ll add it in pen! thanks for the review.
People asked about Jesus, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” To paraphrase, “Can anything good come up to Montana?” We may not have many people (or money), but we are part of the Union.