Peace Christmas From The O’Hara’s

Roadshow California Roll

Following an evening of preaching, reading, singing and dancing, the cast and crew of the Church Basement Roadshow left town at around 10:30 p.m., pulling out of the Sequoyah Community parking lot and beginning the long trek through darkness to Portland after the “Rollin’ gospel revival” wrapped up its’ final California event in Oakland last night. Revivalists Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and Mark Scandrette have been at this for just under ten days, and have clearly found the rhythm of life on the road even as the subtle cracks of fatigue become apparent. But they’re giving it a whoop, and a push, and they’re giving it all they’ve got; and the Oakland show was no exception to the rule.

These are guys on a mission:

Come on down to a lively hootenanny

Grab a tambourine and all your neighbors! It’s The Church Basement Roadshow – A Rollin’ Gospel Revival!

No, really. Grab a tambourine and come on out to Oakland on Saturday, June 21 @ 7pm. Featuring music from The Cobalt Season and a lively, old-timey revival with Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and Mark Scandrette. And seriously… you’re invited to dress up circa 1906 and bring an instrument to join the revival band. Start growing those mutton chops, gents…

UPDATE: Now you can get a ride from BART…

Re-Humanizing at Hoover Elementary School

I’m joining my faith community in being God’s planting at Hoover Elementary School in Emeryville/W. Oakland this Saturday, April 5 from 9 a.m. to Noon. Everybody’s invited to love on the school in the Way of Jesus, through garbage pick-up, pressure washing, bubble gum scraping, painting and planting… and praying, always praying.

E-Mail me at john(at)sequoyahcommunity, or join up at the Facebook Event Page.

Jesus for President Blog Tour

Shane Claiborne is campaigning for Jesus in his new book and tour, “Jesus for President.”

While I haven’t yet read the book, my first observation about the book tour alone is that Shane Claiborne and his subversive message of radical adherence to the Way of Jesus seem like strange bedfellows when matched with Zondervan, a Christian publishing juggernaut. Even more so when, at first blush, it seems like the publisher is going for a mega media blitz by way of viral advertising, baiting bloggers like me to post links to their merchandise in exchange for the potential for wider readership and comments from Claiborne himself.

Experiencing Good Friday

Making last minute preparations for our first annual Stations of the Cross meditation labyrinth at Sequoyah (inspired by the Highway Community in Palo Alto – Thx. John et. al.), and started looking for music we can play in the background as people experience each of the stations.  I stumbled upon Peter Gabriel’s Passion, which was his soundtrack for Martin Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ (one of my favorite treatments of Christ’s passion, by the way).  This is an amazing album. I’ll update this post tonight with a link to photos from tonight’s gathering.