Here’s a newspaper article from the Lexington Hearald Leader on The Ordinary Radicals, atheism and Christianity.

http://www.kentucky.com/158/story/552241.html

I’ll be in Lexington this week to screen The Ordinary Radicals.  Stop by and say hey!

~jamie

Recently, Relevant Magazine interviewed Jamie Moffett about “The Ordinary Radicals”.  You can read the interview here…

Peace-

Ryan

This Sunday, “The Ordinary Radicals” will debut in Orlando.

In preparation for Sunday’s debut, there will be a LIVE radio program discussing the film. This Friday, Sept 19, from 8-9PM, Director Jamie Moffett, and Lisa Sharon Harper (Executive Director of NY Faith and Justice and featured interviewee in the film) will be guests on The People Power Hour with George Crossley on WAMT 1190AM - Orlando, FL. AND you can also listen live online at www.peoplepowerhour.com.  Make sure to tune in!

  Hi all, 

     This is a bit different from the usual info you get here, but I thought it important to do a small part to help a friend in need.  Our good friend Rebekah Joy Wilcox wrote that her father, Paul, is sick with a rare form of cancer called Leiomyosarcoma, which affects the soft tissue of the body.

     So, would you mind signing this petition on behalf of Paul S. Wilcox, to help bring about awareness (and hopefully more research) of this form of cancer?  It’s a small little act that’ll show the Wilcox family support and maybe, just maybe, bring about a tipping point towards a cure for this terrible illness. 

   Consider signing the Leiomyosarcoma Awareness petition on behalf of Paul S. Wilcox.

Thanks,

   ~jamie

Well, after meeting up with Deanna and Dan in Atlanta, we drove down to Orlando, FL for the J4P event there…and it was massive. Thousands of people gathered at the Discovery Church to hear Chris & Shane tell their story. I have to tell you it was certainly the most fashionably dressed group of any on the tour, and I’ve pretty much been wearing the same cargo shorts for the last 5 weeks. Looks like they dug the story, as they were clearly moved by the message and eager to share their own stories with Chris and Shane after the event.

I’m most excited that my dear friends Zack and Andrea McKinley drove up to visit us and hang out. Zack has been a part of The Simple Way story years before there was an organization called The Simple Way, as he was a part of the group of us back at Eastern who came across the amazing moms and kids of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union who’d taken over the abandoned St. Edwards Roman Catholic church to get out of the cold, then subsequently arrested by the police on behalf of the church (and tried to have their kids removed). Anywhoo, important times and I’m so glad they got to visit. Here’s a shot of Zack & I back in the day while studying ethnomusicology in Cuba.

The ATL.

Dan and I pulled into the Atlanta venue, Atlanta Community Fellowship with moments to spare before the 7 pm show. We were sweating “like it was our job” (a popular saying among the FF team…oh yes, we are a team. Embroidered, tear away sweatsuits are coming!) Dashing into the church which was quickly filling with gear strapped to his back Dan quickly went about placing tripods in pews before folks could stake their claim. I recall a young excited couple leaning over the pew to ask us if they were allowed to sit in the second row. They wondered if someone more important than them was coming and if they should move. Who could be more important than you?! You coming to join community to listen and learn and question and make new the idea of kingdom. Sweat pouring off me I told him he was fine right where he was.

The church filled up and the overflow became the grassy courtyard next door with a speaker set in the corner. As the sun, the temperature and the humidity dropped what a wonderful evening to spend setting on the lawn of a little church building listening to old words with new ears.

Jamie and I parted with Dan and Dee to head down to Austin with our
faithful photographer/driver Sam Lamb.  D & D were off to New Orleans
then Atlanta where we will reunite.

Jamie spoke at a session during the Netroots Nation conference, a gathering
of progressive bloggers. He, along with Zack Exley, dialogued with
folks about faith and politics. Jamie pretty much talked my ear off about how much he enjoyed the conference and was encouraged by Zack and the excellent panel discussion & people excited about this movement

We also had some great conversations at the GQ party we happened to get invited to the night before (from
GQ parties to camping with mennonites - really?). Well, back in the
saddle.

New Orleans. What a city! I-10 glides above the bayou, a highway risen up from the murky waters. Tree lined streets sprouting mardi-gras beads. Shot-gun houses with six-foot shutters, and restaurant dining in the back of pick-up trucks. This is how New Orleans greeted me and I loved it and it loved me back with the first bite of seafood bouillabaisse from jacques imo’s. Many thanks to our host, Erin McQuade

who not only housed us in the abode of the famous artist Thomas Mann but introduced us to Michael Wong,

a man choosing to move into the margins of emipire in Central City and nourish and learn from the roots of an old and wise community.

Looks like CNN’s listening, or at least it’s on their radar. Let’s see how they tell the story, or better yet which story they decide to tell.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/29/evangelical.campaign/index.html

Hey all,
Just got an email from Chris Smith of Doulos Christou Press in Indianapolis. It’s the story of a member of the community who’s given most all his possessions away and lives as a full time volunteer.
If you know folks like this in your community, let us know!

**************************
Jamie–

Hope that the tour is going well and that you’re staying sane!

Kyle came around for our church dinner on Wednesday, and I had him walk me through his story. This morning, I had a chance to write up the conversation.

Peace,
Chris

——————————-

Six months ago Kyle Schlenz had a decent job and was living on his own in an apartment, with all the typical stuff that a twenty-something guy enjoys: video games, movies, etc. Kyle had dropped out of college a couple of years earlier on the realization that his degree in English would not offer him many opportunities to eliminate the debt that he would build up. Such a debt, he believed, would be like “promising years of his future,” committing him to focus his life on paying off the money he owed. So, he set himself to working a variety of jobs. Having grown up in a fundamentalist church and having more recently felt compelled to deconstruct those religious roots, Kyle wrestled to understand what the shape of his faith would look like in this new, independent phase of his life. However, he had found a new church home that offered him the freedom to question and wrestle with challenging issues. At the same time, he was reading the Gospels, especially Jesus’s teachings on wealth and poverty, and had a nagging sense that he was only building up his own kingdom. Stories of gross poverty from around the world helped him to realize that despite his modest means, he was – as an American – very wealthy. It seemed to him that the church of his youth, and many other Christians, were quick to dismiss or explain away the Gospel teachings about wealth. Over several months, God used these troubling realizations to lead Kyle to relinquish control of his possessions and indeed his life. He sold or gave away everything he owned, except for a few odds and ends that would fit in his pickup truck. He finished out the lease on his apartment and decided that for now his truck would be his home. He had a strong sense that his church would help him with any needs as he followed the call of Jesus in this way.

Today, Kyle serves his church in urban Indianapolis for no pay, doing whatever needs to be done; he helps with the church’s tutoring efforts, and with their work of providing affordable housing. In the urban people that he works with, Kyle has seen profoundly that a primary factor in homelessness is an individual’s isolation and thus the lack of an adequate “support system.” Thus, even though he lives out of his truck now, he does not consider himself homeless, and he is deeply grateful for God’s abundant provision for his needs through the church. He has had people offer to help support him, without his even asking. He is being mentored by the church’s pastor and he has a passion to connect people in his church that have resources with those who have needs that such resources could fill.

This is a new adventure for Kyle, and he realizes that challenges will come his way as he continues down this road. He will soon have to take on some part-time work to meet his needs, but those needs are much fewer than they were six months ago. But in the face of uncertainty, Kyle reads the scriptures, thanks God for the ways in which he has already been provided for and trusts unswervingly that God will continue to use the church to meet his needs.