Three guys – Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and Mark Scandrette – play six characters in their 90-minute show, which is a provocative way to sell their books and reach an audience hungry for more. The show opens with them as 1908 revivalists – Preacher A.L. Withee (Scandrette), Big Brother Duke (Pagitt) and Professor A.W. Hawthorne (Jones).
 CRISSY PASCUAL / Union-Tribune
A revival can get the spiritual juices flowing, and that's just what happened when Doug Pagitt (left), Mark Scandrette (center) and Tony Jones came to town.
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 CRISSY PASCUAL / Union-Tribune
The songs brought the folks at the Church Basement Roadshow to their feet.
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“We're growing a constituency among people who feel disenfranchised, but long for a spiritual path,” Scandrette says.
“Our philosophy is, it's time for us to take back Christianity,” Jones explains. “It's not the property of ordained people. It's not the property of seminary master. It's not the property of elite people with diplomas. It's the property and purview of all of us.”
To that end, emergent churches don't have services; they have gatherings.
“In the early church, everyone sat around, they brought food and had a potluck meal and someone would say, 'Hey, look, we got a letter from Paul. Let's read it and discuss it,' ” Jones says.
And the conversations began, and interpretations expanded understanding, Jones says, and faith grew and people went out and did their best to live the way Jesus did, ministering to the sick, the poor, the people looking for God in their lives.
“I would describe it as a network of friends and colleagues who are all committed to being in conversation with one another about being a people of God in the world today,” says Erin Martinson, outreach pastor at Christ Lutheran.
A Minnesota transplant, she's been in San Diego for three years and has been with Christ Lutheran for 18 months. Her long friendship with Pagitt and her desire to spread the word about the emergent movement prompted her to ask her church leaders about bringing the road show to San Diego.
The three friends explain on their Web site why they chose to re-create the atmosphere of a revival.
“Perhaps no American archetype better embodies the glories and struggles of our search for collective meaning and divine purpose than the tortured soul of the self-proclaimed and duly anointed gospel preacher or revivalist – that rare mix of eloquence, showmanship, falsetto emotion, alligator tears and stark piety – selling us God, salvation or a revelation from the best or worst of intentions.
“But secretly we know that the perspiring troubadour is just like us, and we wonder and we hope that the healing change being proclaimed is really possible – because if there was ever a time when our world needs love and healing and reinvention and redemption, that time is now.”
And in that spirit, the show begins.
“Good evening, brother,” says Pagitt as Big Brother Duke, walking down the aisle in Christ Lutheran's church hall, greeting everyone, putting his hand on a shoulder here or there. “Good evening, sister.”
Soon everyone's on his or her feet, clapping and singing lyrics on a projector screen, accompanied on the guitar by Jones, who is dressed as Professor Hawthorne.
The three men of 1908 talk about their lives, their world, their spiritual journey. A clever script lets the audience of about 60 know that, for people back then, times seemed as revolutionary, as tumultuous, as tenuous as in 2008. Slides of advertisements and narrative make it easy to slip back 100 years. And with the stage set, the men bring the audience quickly forward in time. Portraying the great-grandchildren of their historical characters, Pagitt, Jones and Scandrette connect the dots, then link both eras to the time of Jesus and how he responded to challenges of the day.
Using music and humor, and reading excerpts from their books on spirituality, they prompt the audience to consider the thought-provoking message.
“I think a lot of people have been searching and searching,” Jones says. “What people want in a religious community is to ask questions.”
He adds that some of those people don't buy the answers they hear. “It's all scripted.”
Don't misunderstand the emergent church, these three men say. They are Christians to the core, but they want to discuss the Scriptures, find out how to apply them to their lives today, how to live in this world as Jesus did in his. “We still think there is something magical in the life and message of Jesus,” Scandrette says. “Jesus was inviting people to become part of a revolution.”
Emergent Village, the online and off-line community of the emergent church, puts it this way: “We believe in God, beauty, future, and hope – but you won't find a traditional statement of faith here. We don't have a problem with faith, but with statements.”
Jones says the idea is to be more open and welcoming about “who gets to serve communion, who gets to preach” and even about how to interpret the Bible. To that end, emergent churches welcome everyone to share ministry ideas, ideas for how to work in the community, even how to worship.
For example, Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis, founded by Pagitt, who is pastor, describes itself as “a church of people, not an event created by the leaders.” But the emergent movement also has prompted plenty of criticism, the three men say.
“There are people who think I'm a heretic, the anti-Christ, a cult leader,” says Jones, “because I'm questioning the way it's always been.”
Pagitt, with a shrug of his 6-foot-6 frame, says the road show is meant to “shine a light,” to prompt people to consider this question about Christianity: “Is it possible that your version is fitting for you but not for everyone else?”
Jones likens the difference in the traditional and emergent churches to the difference between an encyclopedia and Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
“The Encyclopedia Britannica has what is thought to be the authoritative version of, say the Vietnam War,” Jones says. “On Wikipedia, the authoritative version of that war is a constantly evolving entry that gets longer every day” as people add their own experiences and analysis of the war. The facts don't change, but because they are added to, the Wikipedia version “is truer because more people have a hand in editing it.”
Over the last decade the emergent church has grown as more people, who hadn't found what they wanted in traditional Christian churches found each other.
“By 2001, we had formed an organization around our friendship, known as Emergent, as a means of inviting more people into the conversation,” reads the history of Emergent Village. “As time passed, others joined the friendship, and the friendship began generating things like books, events, Web sites, blogs, and cohorts.
In San Diego, the emergent church exists in a small group at Christ Lutheran, led by Martinson on Thursday nights.
“You can have a conversation about anything anyone feels about faith,” says Jennifer Kent, 37, who attends those gatherings.
“People are eager for that kind of dialogue,” says Erin Jones, 31, who also is in the group at the church, with her husband Bryan, 32.
“Each generation is trying to be faithful,” he says.
That kind of thinking also is alive on Sunday mornings at Missiongathering, in the ballroom behind Claire de Lune Coffee Lounge in North Park. Missiongathering, which hosted the road show Sunday morning, is a cohort, or one of the local cells around the country to help members connect with one another.
“We have about 120 people every week,” says Alex Roller, part of the teaching team and creative director at Missiongathering. “We have young families, college students and people up in their 60s.”
The spirit of the movement is evident in the road show.
“I think I've always felt this way,” says Loni Vossekuil when the lights came on in the hall. She and husband Craig had come from Encinitas after reading about the road show coming to town. They acknowledge that, though they are in their early 60s, they, too still are searching. They lost the pastor of their former church and are intrigued by the emergent movement.
“I've been doing some reading about this,” Craig Vossekuil says.
They liked what they heard during the show, which doubles as a provocative way for the men to sell their books.
“If you're a pastor of a mega church or have a radio show” it's easier to do book promotion, Jones says. “But this is more fun.”
Jones, national coordinator of Emergent Village, is author of “The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier.” Pagitt, founder of the network that became Emergent Village, is author of “A Christianity Worth Believing.” Scandrette, executive director and co-founder of ReIMAGINE, a center for spiritual formation in San Francisco, is author of “Soul Graffiti: Making a Life in the Way of Jesus.”
They started their tour last weekend in Santa Monica, moved on to San Diego and will hit 32 cities across the country before they return to their wives and children.
“This summer will be a defining time,” Pagitt says. “We're preaching a fresh way of life and faith – one that is in rhythm with the life of God.”
Says Scandrette: “People will laugh and sing, but they'll also be challenged to join the Jesus Revolution.”