EBA presents Godspell, Gregory

[Haruo]

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Haruo have you read Joel Gregory's Too Great a temptation? I wonder if perhaps some of the African American leaders in EBA may have gotten the Idea to invite Joel after hearing him at the New Baptist Covenant meeting back in January.

[Haruo]

[Big Daddy Weaver]

Actually, Ed, Joel Gregory has been preaching at predominantly African-American churches and their conferences for 5+ years now. I'm quite confident that some of the Black Baptists in Atlanta knew Gregory and had heard him preach before.

A year or ago I heard a good friend of Joel's describe him as a "regular on the Black Baptist preaching circuit."

He's got a website where you can listen (and purchase, I think) some of his recorded sermons. The sermon I listened to was preached at a Black Baptist church. The crowd loved Gregory and his whole 'Voice of God" sound.

[Ed Pettibone]

[David Flick]

[Haruo]

Remember that most of our African-American ABC churches are also aligned with one or another of the National Baptist Conventions (Incorporated, Unincorporated or Progressive, or maybe Missionary in some cases), and those conventions give them a much closer tie than Euro-American ABCs outside the Border states tend to have to the South and the SBC. And Gregory was of course quintessentially SBC in the days when he was "running" Dallas FBC. Now I'm sure he's more a CBF type, if he was "quintessentially SBC" at this point he probably wouldn't be taking invitations from a "liberal, probably Socialist, maybe closet Islamic" outfit like Evergreen

[Ed Pettibone]

[Haruo]

The Godspell rehearsals are going on this evening at Fremont. I'm in charge of the PSST program, and I am trying to figure out some way to work listening to them rehearse into the order of worship.

[Cathy]

I agree with those that remember Gregory as being more aligned with the moderates prior to his taking FBC. It was a surprise to many.

Harou, off topic, but I enjoyed this NYTimes article about your neck of the woods.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/tr ... an.html?hp

[Haruo]

[Haruo]

There are some photos from the Godspell production, which Mrs H and myself, and our non-Baptist guest Kathleen, thoroughly enjoyed, in the (page four). Here are a couple of them...

[Haruo]

In spite of the good time that was had by all and the $25 ticket price, this note unfortunately appears in the January issue of Evergreen Notes:

Anyhow,

in 2009 I would like to see Evergreen stage of , if the author can be persuaded to permit it; I'm sure it would be much less expensive than Godspell, and I thought it was a really good show (). Note to self: tell Marcus.