On The Road with Jim and Casper

2

By Jim Henderson

Last month, Matt and I had our first road trip since writing Jim & Casper Go to Church.

We flew into Denver Colorado at the invitation of The Refuge, a cutting-edge community of Jesus followers. They set us up with Young Life at Colorado University in Boulder on a Friday night. The room was full. Matt and I were shocked at the turn out and the energy that was in the room.

Next morning, we spoke at Pathways Church in Denver to a group of about 200 bright, young urbanites. We couldn’t figure out why they would show up on a beautiful day at 10:00 in the morning to hear from America’s spiritual odd couple, Jim and Casper.

We wrapped our tour with a tent meeting. The Refuge got bumped from their regular rental spot so they set up a few tent like structures and again it was packed and very energized. Kathy Escobar and Karl Wheeler, co-pastors of The Refuge, are outstanding leaders and a joy to be around.

Both Kathy and Karl served on a mega church staff and could easily be following a much more lucrative path if they chose to. But they decided that doing church in a way that allowed them to express who they really are was much more important.

Just for fun Read The Refuge’s Statement of Faith.

Following Denver, we headed to San Diego where we met up with a group of warm hearted mega church executive pastors who had chosen to read our book as a way of learning about their own churches. They were kind, inquisitive and curious learners.

Danny Dodson Executive Pastor from Central Christian Church near Phoenix organized the meeting and a video interview with his Senior Pastor Cal Jernigan (note: the Jim and Casper segment runs from 18:52-26:52).

And as if that wasn’t cool enough, later that night we met with Kerry Mackey,and Tony Steward from Saddleback church. Kerry is the membership pastor at Saddleback and the person in charge of first impressions. (Although Kerry is a Saddleback pastor, he was not speaking on behalf of Rick Warren, Saddleback’s senior pastor.)

If you remember the Saddleback chapter of Jim & Casper… you will remember that some of our first impressions weren’t all that complimentary. But Kerry took us to “the Jesus school of humility” and asked us to be even more direct about our impressions of Saddleback. (The links under Kerry and Tony’s names lead to Kerry’s podcast interview with us and Tony’s video review of our book.)

Here is what I learned from our first Jim and Casper tour:

We are onto something. There’s a fair amount of media and cultural attention being paid to “the Atheists and the Christians” right now, and almost no one—except Jim and Casper—are dialoging. They’re debating.

Atheism is sexy. That’s right. Christians are fascinated with atheists. If I had brought a plain old unbeliever or even a famous “lost” person – far fewer people would have showed up. Not sure what it is but I think it has something to do with an anecdote Casper shared with me: “I was having dinner with some friends of the family, and the book came up. I told them what it was about, and they said, “’So…! What’s this atheist like?’ And I said, ‘Uh, I’m the atheist…’ Big silence. Jaws wide open. It was like I produced a goat and slaughtered it for the devil right there.”

Christianity is well defended. At each stop we encountered (usually right up front) men (never women) who would stand up for Jesus, remind Matt that he was Hell bound and ask him if he knew the verse the fool has said in his heart there is no God? These people did us a great service in that most people in the audience were so uncomfortable with their rudeness that they sided with us out of protest.

People wonder about 3 basic issues. At each stop most of the time was dedicated to Q&A. The questions fell into three basic categories:

1. Beliefs—Matt’s lack of right beliefs (and for some people, my lack of right beliefs, too) was at the top of the list of things people wanted to ask us about. Some peppered us and some asked thoughtful questions. Almost no one said “I’ll bet you guys have already thought about this, so forgive me if I am repeating someone, but I am genuinely interested in knowing…” It amazes me how Christians often assume that we have never thought about these things until they brought it up.
2. Reviews—In spite of the fact that Matt is an atheist and I failed miserably as a church planter, people continue to ask our opinions about churches and treat us like authorities on the topic. We often preface our opinions with something like “You couldn’t be asking two less qualified people… but since you asked, here is what we think about church.” It probably speaks more about the isolation people and leaders have about their experiences and less about our insights. We may be giving people a way to express their feelings.
3. Relationship—Far and away the most interesting thing about this project for Matt and I is the relational side – the friendship – the respect- the humor – what we call “defending the space”. Yet this is the last thing people question us about; often they don’t even bring it up.

The most touching and honest question we received along these lines was from a young woman at The Refuge who asked, “ I really want to talk with people who are different from me but when they say things to me that I disagree with I tend to get angry. How do you guys handle that?” I told her I was working on that myself and I mostly appreciated her having the courage and insight to ask the question in public. It helped all of us get a little better reality.

The trip, the conversations, and the time shared helped me find a new level of respect for some Christian leaders. And while not all of them are comfortable even calling themselves Christians, all of them were sincere and honest people who cared about becoming more authentic and real. In my book, true followers of the way of Jesus.