About a decade ago I was done with Christianity in my heart. I didn’t believe it. I wasn’t sure there was a God. (Full disclosure: still struggle with that one.) Beyond that, I didn’t really like Jesus either. The gospel I knew seemed all about getting to heaven after I die and being forgiven of my sins through believing a series of less-than-logical facts in my head. Since I was a pastor, I wasn’t telling people this stuff. I was just looking for a way out – a way out of my job and ultimately a way out of my faith.

And then I met Dallas Willard.

Dallas WIllard

Not, literally. I never actually met him. But he brought me to Jesus.

I didn’t know Jesus until I read The Divine Conspiracy.

I don’t know how else to put it: That book saved my life.

Dallas passed away today. It broke my heart to hear it. I feel like I lost my Ben Kenobi. If there’s one thing he taught me, it’s what he says in response to John Ortberg’s question at the 2:10 mark of the video below. The bottom line is that Dallas is in Heaven today, not because he died, but because he lived there in the first place.

*If you read my blog in an RSS feed you may need to go directly to www.joeboydblog.com to watch the video.

A few years ago I went through a series of fairly intense assessments while making some major life and career decisions. The person I hired to help me figure out my life, after reviewing my tests, came to a quick and firm conclusion: Joe Boyd is a performer.

When she said that to kick off our meeting I had two distinct and immediate emotional reactions:

1. Yep.
2. And that’s a bad thing.

The truth is that I am hard-wired to perform – to speak, teach, produce, improvise, act and write. And I’m not at all a pure artist. I only like doing those things with people watching. At the bottom of it all are some very dark and scary motivations: to be popular, to be needed, to be important, to control others, to acquire money or fame. I hate those things, but I’d be lying to myself to say they aren’t there. The truest thing I can say is that they are there, but they aren’t there nearly as much as they used to be.

Truth is, I should have had a third reaction to her comment:

3. It’s also a good thing.

The older I get, the more comfortable I am in my own skin…and with my own faith journey. I’m never going to not be a performer. My only hope is to become a redeemed performer: to use my urges to be seen in away that benefits others more than myself.

If you had told me ten years ago that I would be the leading actor in a movie coming out in over 40 theaters nation-wide, I would have acted humble but been inwardly proud. I would have thought about the perceived glory in that. The truth is that the greatest thing God has ever done for me is to consistently give my all of my life dreams AFTER I don’t want them anymore.

When I was 25 I wanted to be a mega-church pastor.
When I was 30 I didn’t want that at all.
It happened when I was 35.

When I was 30 I wanted to be a movie star.
When I was 35 I gave up on that dream.
Now at 40, I am not movie star, but I am starring in a pretty darn legit movie.

I tried to get out of acting in A Strange Brand of Happy no less than ten times. Every time I tried to quit, Brad Wise, the film’s director and my friend and collaborator, convinced me that I was the best man for the job. The main reason I didn’t want to act in the movie was that I was worried about people questioning my motivations. Brad pushed and pushed. Luckily, I find the release of this movie timing up perfectly with a true inner sense of not needing anyone to approve of my motivations. Think whatever you want to think about why I do what I do. I honestly don’t care if you think bad things about me. Thank God, I’m not that way anymore except for occasional short bouts of ego-inflated remission. (Side note: Richard Rohr’s book Falling Upward closed the deal for me on this. I recommend it to anyone ready to move beyond needing approval or success in life. There is a second half of life that is exponentially more fulfilling than the first half.)

So here’s the deal: I’m starring in a movie opposite Shirley Jones, the Academy Award winner for Best Actress in Elmer Gantry, a favorite movie of mine somewhat ironically about both preaching and acting. That’s a cool thing, but it’s not a big deal to me. What is a big deal to me is that I have been allowed co-tell stories of hope and faith in a world that needs that more than anything else.

I feel like the luckiest preacher in the world…I get to proclaim good news outside of the church walls to people who don’t even know they are getting it. I love that God is letting me do this – and to top it off, I get to do it with my friends. I can’t prove this to anyone, but all I care about in regard to this project is the story. I want people to believe, if just for a second, that perhaps there is a God…and perhaps that strange brand of happy you feel when everything suddenly feels right…perhaps that is a taste of heaven. Maybe what Jesus called the “Kingdom of Heaven” can break in anywhere. Like a movie theater in Canton, Lexington, Las Vegas, Kansas City or Dayton.

So here’s what all this means for you:

I need your help.

I don’t want you to help me become famous or make money or be successful. I need you to help me get people to see this movie. My friends and I have devoted three years of our lives to create a story that sparks hope and action. We want people to see it. Of that, I am unashamed.

So here’s how you can help me get this story to lots of people:

1. Fork over some American greenbacks and pre-buy a block of tickets for you and your friends. I know it’s really silly to buy tickets for a movie four months in advance. I’ve never bought tickets for a movie more than one day in advance. But the bottom line is that we haven’t yet proven to the Hollywood decision makers that we can sell tickets to our movies. If we sell tickets now, they will take notice. (Money is their love language.) More tickets now = more theaters opening in more cities on September 13th = more people seeing the movie in more cities = a little more hope bubbling up in the world.

It’s that simple. So please reserve your seats today.

2. If you live in any of the 42 markets currently booked, please consider connecting us to your pastor or a community leader who can help us get the word out. Or volunteer to join one of our street teams in each city.

3. If you live in another city where the movie isn’t scheduled to play and you think you can lead an effort to pre-sell 500 tickets, then we can open up in your town. Again, contact us. (Pastor friends, we can work with you to sponsor it through your church as an outreach for non-churchgoers.)

4. Sign up for weekly email updates and stay in the know.

5. Help us spread the word on social media by linking the website and trailer.  Follow the movie on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.

6. Have a little patience with me if I talk about it too much. It’s important to me. I’m eerily silent during presidential elections, so maybe I’ve bought a little grace to talk about my passion area? I will try to be careful not to annoy you…

7. Pray for all of us involved. Sign up for Rebel Pilgrim prayer updates by sending an email to pray@rebelpilgrim.com. We sincerely believe this matters more than anything else.

I just asked for a lot. But I think I’m ok with that.

We have but one life…and when we find what we were put here to do it seems best to me to talk about it and to invite others to join the adventure.

So, join me in telling this story. I’d be honored.

Here’s a video explaining more about the movie:

And here’s the trailer:

*If you receive my blogs via email, you may have to go to www.strangehappymovie.com to see the videos.

Rebel Pilgrim was offered an advanced screening earlier this week of Blue Like Jazz. I was unable to attend, but my creative partner Isaac Stambaugh was. I asked him to review the movie here on my blog. Blue Like Jazz opens today in Cincinnati at the Esquire.

Blue Like Jazz Doesn’t Miss a Beat

A review by Isaac Stambaugh

“Don’t suck. Please don’t suck.” That was my main thought as I entered a pre-screening of “Blue Like Jazz” this week.

I have seen many films in the last ten years that attempt to blend the medium of film with topics of faith. Nearly all of them embarrass me as both a filmmaker and a Christian. Some of them lack adequate production quality, but most of the time, the lacking is more in the story itself. I think part of the problem is that faith-based movies prefer to promote answers rather than ask good questions.

“Blue Like Jazz” asks good questions. And it doesn’t suck. It was actually pretty great. I don’t want to go into too much detail as to not ruin your viewing experience (I feel I should tell you that I haven’t read the book) – but I am going to touch upon the movie’s scope and style.

It offers a look into the life of someone willing to explore God, suffering, creation, and purpose. Reed College, the university attended by protagonist Don, provides the perfect setting to explore some of life’s hardest questions with fairly balanced diverse perspectives. These topics are explored alongside solid cinematography, good acting, realistic dialogue, a great indie rock soundtrack, and a heavy dose of fun not usually afforded to such subject matter. Jazz culminated into a theatrical experience I have longed for – a wrestling match with serious issues while managing to not take itself too seriously and the acknowledgement of a few of the dark realities of life while delivering a little authentic hope.

If you’re a fan of well-done indie cinema such as “Lars And The Real Girl,” “Juno,” or “Little Miss Sunshine,” or you are interested in spirituality, or you appreciate the quirky humor served up by the TV show Portlandia, then there’s a good chance you will enjoy “Blue Like Jazz.”

This past weekend I was honored to guest speak at Southbrook Christian Church, just south of Dayton. I was assigned the following text from Luke 22:

 ⁶³ The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him. ⁶⁴ They blindfolded him and demanded, “Prophesy! Who hit you?” ⁶⁵ And they said many other insulting things to him.

What struck me in the passage was that Jesus was blinded. The one who brought sight to so many loses his own in the end. The one who brought freedom is enslaved. The one who brought dignity to the poor is stripped naked and humiliated. I believe the blinding of Jesus runs concurrent with a theme in the book of Luke. If you are interested in more, you can watch the teaching below.

If the embedded video isn’t working with your browser, you can find it here.

This is a guest post as part of an ongoing series from my friend Dave Nixon of Sustainable Faith. You can read his first article here.

Reflections on Stability: Part 2
By Dave Nixon

I don’t remember the exact year this occurred — maybe 1997 or ’98, but maybe it was long enough ago that I can now tell the story without being prosecuted.

A year or so after taking our vow of stability we had a difficult summer. It was exceptionally hot and humid, so without AC, sleeping at night was often hard, but it was made harder by the emergence of a drug house on our corner. Each day the dealers would begin their business in the afternoon and wouldn’t stop until about 4:00 a.m. And because of two facts — our windows were always open for ventilation and the acoustics of the corner made it sound as if their activities were right outside our window — we were subjected to a constant stream of cars, profanity, raucous laughter, shouting, and beer bottles breaking.

We confronted them. We prayed for them. We called the police on them. Through it all nothing changed. Because the dealers had scanners in their apartment, they always knew when the police were on the way. Within seconds the corner would become a ghost town. Then gradually they’d return when the coast was clear.

As the summer dragged on into the swelter of August, I became more and more sleep-deprived and angry. If God and the police wouldn’t do anything, then I sure as hell would! (I think I started occasionally cussing then.)

So one night, after Jody had gone to bed, I reset our alarm for 4:00 a.m., turned the volume way down, placed it near my pillow, and fell asleep like a kid before Christmas. When it rang several hours later I instantly shut it off, slid ever-so-gently out of the bed, and went to the closet where the night before, in addition to my clothes, I had set out a trench coat, a ski cap and some gloves. I put the ensemble on as quietly as possible and slipped out of the room. I then made my way via the back door into the garage where I grabbed a boltcutter, slid it up my sleeve, and then made my way to the corner.

It was sprinkling lightly that night, and I remember the remarkable calm. So still, so very still. Peace had descended over the neighborhood, and I saw no sign of life. And right across from me on the opposing corner, less than 20 yards away, was the supreme object of my attention — the payphone.

The linchpin of the dealers’s operation was this corner payphone. It was how they arranged their meetings. For me it was the motherlode. So without any hesitation I walked directly to it, let the boltcutter slip from my sleeve, grabbed the handles, and in one deft move severed the receiver and cord from the booth. I then wound the cord around the receiver, shoved the bundle into my trenchcoat pocket, pushed the bolt cutter back up my left sleeve, and walked home … via a circuitous route so that in case I was seen, I’d be reported as going in the opposite direction from where I lived. Along the way I threw the receiver into a trash can.

And then I went home and slept. Very well.

The next day, shortly after lunch while I was working in my office, I heard from that corner one of the loudest F-bombs I’ve ever heard. It was from the ringleader. And then I heard it again, and again, and again. Admittedly, an intoxicating thrill of glee shot through me with each outburst. Mission accomplished.

A few days later the phone company replaced the receiver. And a few days later I repeated my crime. A few days later the phone company came again, but this time they removed the payphone.

Fall came, windows closed, the little drug cartel imploded, and life became more bearable.

In one sense it’s a comical story — the vigilante Vineyard pastor dressed up in a trenchcoat and wielding boltcutters in the dead of night. And sometimes in the telling, the story elicits, I suspect, a certain admiration — how daring he was!

But here’s the real truth: I was no different inside than, say, the zealot who shoots the abortion doctor. Whatever makes a person like that snap made me snap. I was “righteously pissed,” was fed up with waiting on God, and had by that time lost the capacity to engage the enemy in a communal, creative, forceful yet loving way.

The vow of stability had been “for better or worse,” but it became clear to me in the wake of my petty crime that I only wanted better … and that I was capable of doing things I never imagined in order to get there.

I was a long way from doing my work patiently and hopefully, and because these two things were lacking, I was unable to do my work faithfully and lovingly. But choosing to stay put for nearly two decades, and doing this as a kind of spiritual exercise, has been changing both me and our community of faith. Our hope is that we can in time learn to be present, faithful and loving in the days we are given, not those we imagine having, even if those days feel difficult, trivial and hidden.

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. (Psalm 37.7)

In case you have any desire to know who you are drinking green beer in honor of tomorrow…

Around 405 A.D. the 16-year old grandson of a priest in Wales was kidnapped by foreign raiders. The boy, by his own admission, was not interested in God or religion at any level until that day. Stolen from his family, he was forced into herding sheep in Ireland – a culture far from his own. It was in these six years of slavery and solitude that Patrick called out to the God of his father and grandfather. God has always had a thing for shepherds. We are all, after all, like sheep going astray until he finds us. He found Patrick in Ireland.

At 22, according to his own letters, in his prayers he began to hear God say that he would soon return home. Then one night he clearly heard, “leave for a ship is waiting for you.” On that night he escaped and began a journey of 200 miles to a port where he boarded a ship for Britain.

Upon his return home, Patrick never felt at home. In a dream he saw a man named Victorious from Ireland pleading with him to “come and walk among us.”

So he left for Ireland.

The slave returning to set others free. The freedman enslaving himself to Christ. The shepherd seeking his lost sheep.

If we look closely into history, Patrick wasn’t the first Christian missionary to Ireland. But he sparked something. He ushered in a communal grace-centered expression of Christianity that swept through the culture like wildfire. He probably didn’t drive out snakes or teach life lessons with shamrocks, but he did something more significant.

He loved his enemies.

So much so that he is remembered today as one of them.

Patrick died 1,551 years ago tomorrow – on March 17, 461.

That is the day the church (and pent-up Americans looking for an excuse to party) celebrate his life.

It’s probably one worth celebrating.

Cheers.

I’m very excited about an opportunity coming up though The Vineyard. Some of my friends have planned a spiritual retreat called Refresh on March 23-25. It will be lead by Dave Nixon, a long-time friend and mentor of mine. Dave is someone I used to visit in Cincinnati when I lived in Las Vegas to get spiritual guidance. I would also have him come out to Las Vegas and teach my church there. I’m thrilled to share a city with him now.

My friends Dan Henry, Karin Maney and Jim Zartman are also helping to lead the weekend experience. I trust them implicitly with this. They are people I personally go to in order to help me connect with God.

Here’s the deal – there are only 40 spots left. The cost of the weekend just covers expenses – nobody’s making out on this. If you need a clean break from the chaos of life, this is it. This is something I would personally travel to attend…but for those of us in Cincinnati, it’s in our backyard!

If you want to find out more or register you can…

Check out Refresh on Facebook or

Learn more and sign up here.

To learn more about the good stuff Dave Nixon does, check out www.sustainablefaith.com.

The story goes like this.

It was 269 A.D.

The Roman governor Claudius was seeking a way to strengthen his army. He pontificates that soldiers who have wives at home may not fight as bravely on the front lines for fear that they will not return home to their family. Therefore, he made marriage illegal for soldiers. He believed that loyalty to the state would supersede the natural desire to take a wife, birthing a generation of soldiers completely loyal to Rome.

He was wrong, of course. Many soldiers desired to marry in spite of his decree.

A young priest named Valentine held the firm conviction that marriage should not be denied by the state. He began to secretly and illegally perform marriage ceremonies. More and more Roman soldiers sought him out.

St. Valentine

Valentine’s crime was eventually uncovered. He was brought before Claudius and told to repent. He refused, believing that he must be faithful to his King, whom he claimed to be a resurrected Jewish rabbi named Yeshua, over the King of Rome. He was immediately arrested and condemned to die as a traitor. From his prison cell, Valentine wrote notes of encouragement to his family and friends signed “from your Valentine.”

On February 14th, 270 he was executed.

But not before making a mark on history for standing on the side of love with undying loyalty to his King…

And that is the real story behind why florists and chocolatiers are having such a good day today.

My book club on The King Jesus Gospel by Scot McKnight met last night to discuss chapters 3 and 4. Lots of great questions come my way from the people gathered there. I take one of the questions each week and discuss it here.

Here is the question that I took directly to Scot McKnight this week:

What were the Jewish people of Jesus’ day expecting in a Messiah?

Here is Scot’s answer, fresh from his iPhone:

In one word: King.

Liberating king.

Peace-bringing king.

Justice.

That’s what “salvation” would have meant.

He then listed the following passages to read:

Gen 1-22. Exod 1-16, 19-24; Deut 28; 1Sam 1-7; 1Kings 3 on Solomon’s prayer; Ezra-Nehemiah; Isa 40-55; Haggai

I also asked the same question to my friend, Dr. Tom Thatcher. I love the way Tom thinks about Jesus and the Gospel. He is a professor of New Testament Studies at Cincinnati Christian University and a proud product of Norwood, Ohio.

My Question:

Tom,

Can you state in a very concise way what the Jews of Jesus’ day would expect in a Messiah?

Tom’s Answer:

No.

To you I would say that the problem here lies in what the question assumes: that “the Jews,” considered as a whole and not as subgroups or individuals, had an expectation, a unified complex of beliefs, about “a Messiah.” Consider how you would answer this question:

Can you state in a very concise way what all modern Christians expect to happen when Jesus returns?

You see my point. However, for sake of your discussion in this book club, I personally would say, if trying to generalize this, that Palestinian Jews particularly would expect the Messiah to be an agent of justice—the world is inherently unjust, and God is going to fix this by sending an agent to reverse the social order and make things right.

How that justice would be restored, and what would have to happen to make things that way, would depend on your sense of what needed to change (if anything). For many Palestinian Jews, it would be fair to say that the needed changes would involve some kind of political reversal (the Gentiles live and our exile in our own land is ended) and/or religious reform (the temple is purged of foreign influences).

But no matter how you slice it, the justice piece is primary in this kind of thinking. God realizes that the world is unjust and has a secret plan to fix it, which will be dramatically exposed at some point through his agent.

If you’d like another different, yet similar, outlook…

Here is a video from N.T. Wright referencing Messiahship:

The point to think about in all three of these responses is that those of us who follow Jesus constantly throw around the title “Christ” referring to him. We’ve probably all been guilty at some point of calling him our Messiah with little knowledge of what it really means…or little expectancy for him to reign and actually bring justice to the world through his Kingdom.

Last night we launched a book club with about 70 folks at Vineyard Cincinnati. We are reading The King Jesus Gospel by Scot McKnight. I plan on posting here the day after each of our five sessions. Hopefully, the comments section can serve as a place for civil discussion for those in the class and those following along at home.

For this past week we read the first two chapters.

McKnight begins his book with this statement:

I think we’ve got the gospel wrong, or at least our current understanding is only a pale reflection of the gospel of Jesus and the apostles. We need to go back to the Bible to find the original gospel. (p. 24)

His point clarifies with this:

I believe the word gospel has been hijacked by what we believe about “personal salvation,” and the gospel itself has been reshaped to facilitate making “decisions.” The result of this hijacking is that the word gospel no longer means in our world what it originally meant to either Jesus or the apostles. (p. 26)

And even more specifically…

In this book I will be contending firmly that we evangelicals (as a whole) are not really “evangelical” in the sense of the apostolic gospel, but instead we are soterians. Here’s why I say we are more soterian than evangelical: we evangelicals (mistakenly) equate the word gospel with the word salvation. Hence, we are really “salvationists.” When we evangelicals see the word gospel, our instinct is to think (personal) “salvation.” We are wired this way. But these two words don’t mean the same thing, and this book will do its best to show the differences. (p. 29)

The first two chapters of the book lead the reader to one question that is not answered until chapters 3 and 4. Namely, “What is McKnight’s view of the gospel?”

He will devote the rest of the book to answering this question. What he establishes clearly in the first two chapters is that reducing the gospel to a message of personal salvation is unacceptable – at least to him.

What do you think?

Here are a few questions we tackled at last night’s discussion.

What was your definition of the gospel before beginning the book?

What was the most unsettling part of the first two chapters? (Or the excerpts quoted above?)

Do you tend to agree that we as Evangelicals have “gotten the gospel wrong?”

Here are some useful links for further reading on this topic:

My review of King Jesus Gospel.

My thoughts on having the right gospel.

Scot McKnight’s Blog.

Scot McKnight’s Twitter.