Jesus Day

Staff,
I had a pure Jesus day last week. I'll tell you the story behind each of these videos.

This first video is absolutely priceless. It was like the priests stepping into the Jordan river holding the ark. You can't think of a worse start! If there was any question or not whether or not I am a charismatic speaker this first video will answer those questions! I've watched it several times and I think out of about 80 people about six are actually looking at me. They had to endure a 40 minute Bible lesson or sermon in order to get lunch. (By the way, I just handed my iphone to their Director of Development, Richard Meekley and asked him to video me. Then I uploaded it to YouTube right from my iphone.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6Kui4rDrPg

The awesome thing is that as soon as I began to ask questions and saw that I really meant it they began to come alive. And their answers were right on. Occassionally one of the down turned heads would give a great answer and I had to ask the guys "who said that" and they would point to one of the down turned heads! The most fun question to ask was, "Ok, you are homeless, people are walking by, what do their eyes do?" They quickly said, "Their eyes turn away!" I have to tell you it was the most challenging, but also the most fun I've ever had doing a Person of Jesus lesson. I think of the 80 guys at least twenty participated, which is fairly typical for that large a group. I could even ask them the question, "From your knowledge of the gospel stories, when does Jesus look at people." They quickly rattled off some obscure scenes including John 19 where Jesus looks at his mother.

I did two adaptations to the lesson. The first you can see to my left. I wrote out the text on the flip chart. I always do that if I think there might be problems with either concentration (from distractions) or a problem with reading levels. The first time I did this was when I did a whole Person of Jesus seminar in  a Level 5 Maximum Security Prison in St. Louis. Then when I read the words, I trace them with my finger. It just gives someone who is a marginal reader a little extra boost.

The other adaptation I did was on the fly. With so many people with their heads down and a 280 turn to my speaking...almost a theater in the round...I acted out the funeral scene in the open area in front of me instead of drawing it out. That drew them in more and put me right in the middle of them. It worked pretty well. I was "Jesus" and I would show where everyone else was around me. Then as I went through the different stages I would ask them questions like, "Okay. So where is the crowd now?"

On the opening of the video you'll see a woman with her head bent down. She had some serious mental struggles. Right after I asked the question, "What does looking have to do with love?" someone said "listening." Then God tested me. This woman began speaking at about 300 words a minute while looking down and writing on her tablet. Jill knows I am not a good oral processor. I do much better with reading, and I often do some lip reading. So it was a mini-test. She talked for about a minute, with a long involved question that went something like this, "I know Jesus died for us, and he takes our sin, but in some way don't we also enter into his sufferings?" Isn't that amazing. You just don't know where someone is at.

Here are three guys I ate lunch. The first guy, Nate, is off to Brother John's for his second free lunch. Andre is a Ukranian tailor who is out of work. Listen to what Pilot learned! His response was fairly typical. Pilot also told me that he was the laziest person he knew. I didn't disagree with him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYuCW-lSw7k

In the evening Jill and I traveled down to a Young Life Capernaum chapter in Northern VA. Jill was exhausted but look at her energy and her love for both the Word of God and these kids. What struck us both and you can see it in the video is how well they remembered material from previous lessons. So it was a neat test of transferability. So something Jill adapted is taught by someone else and Jill is going directly to the end user to find out if it is work. It is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYyAdboFlfQ