Greetings friends!
Last night, Sarah and I, along with Sarah's mom, went to see Rob Bell's Fit to Smash Ice Tour. If you've been following this blog even for a few seconds, you know that I am one of the world's biggest Rob Bell fans, so there wasn't a chance I was going to miss this!
I had only missed one of his tours up until this point. Everything is Spiritual and The God's Aren't Angry were amazing. First of all, they almost made my head explode with the level of complexity and theology contained within each, to the point that I don't think I really "got it" for either of them until they came out of DVD and I could watch them two or three more times to try to wrap my head around everything. They were like two hour sermons, which when you think about it is amazing that anyone would pay money to go see in this culture of ours. He's that good of a preacher.
But last night didn't feel like a sermon. It didn't even really make my head want to explode. Rob came out with a stool and a box of props, and proceeded to tell stories. Actually, mostly stories about his personal life. I do this all the time for my sermons, but even I will confess that it takes a lot of guts to share your personal life with that many people on a nightly basis, which is what happens on a big speaking tour like that.
The topics were all over the place really, from failure to creativity to originality, and even a few moments on what it feels like to be publicly criticized for a book you'd written by faceless bloggers (it's probably no conciliation to be praised publicly by faceless bloggers, but here we are anyway...). When the event was over and I looked at my watch, I simply couldn't believe that 2 hours had passed. It felt like 5 minutes.
The tour isn't going to very many cities thus far, but if it's coming anywhere near you I'd go and see it. It's an unbelievably brave thing for someone to open his heart up like that, and when someone does, I think we all have a lot to learn from it!
Godspeed,
J
3 comments:
Hey, Jason. I emailed you earlier today and promised I'd comment.
Great review on the FTSI tour stop you attended. I'd never actually seen Rob before, so I didn't know what to expect, but I know his style seems to be that of a gifted ADHD-infused story-teller and I, too, was not disappointed in Ithaca, NY.
There doesn't seem to be much in terms of reviews online and this is a good one.
I agree that it DOES take guts to be open to sharing one's personal life, but I think that Rob is working on being "unoffendable" and "unembarrassable" and that's a good thing. After all, I think that Jesus was both of these things (still is).
And I want to be these things to my daughters when they get to be adolescents as well.
Interestingly, you and another reviewer that I read recently are both Youth Pastors. I'm working in the "secular" (hehe) world now and this was a breath of fresh air.
I laughed and cried at what Rob shared and the impact that I experienced will forever be a part of my heart.
Thanks for your words here.
My link is my review. A spoiler is included (warning).
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