Sunday, November 3rd from 7 PM to 9 PM
Frank Runyeon Productions
They’re some of the most famous stories ever told, stories we have heard many times. –Or have we?
Join Jesus on the road and be as surprised as the disciples were to hear the stories that Jesus is telling. — And what you’ve been missing.
In an evening that is both entertaining and eye-opening, Runyeon performs the famous parables in Luke’s travel narrative, and then pauses to reflect on how we hear each story–and miss what it is really saying.
In many ways, we are like Luke’s first audience–affluent Greeks raised on academics and theater. It’s hard for us to “have ears to hear” these stories.
So Runyeon does what Luke himself did. He starts with Jesus speaking in the synagogue at Nazareth, and takes us on a journey to Jerusalem, so we can hear these famous stories in order, and begin to hear what Jesus was really saying.
As Jesus said in the synagogue, “This Scripture is fulfilled, as your ears hear it.” But how do we hear Scripture? All too often, as stories about other people, back then–or as fables in a storybook, rather than as stories told in the tradition of the prophet Nathan, stories about our lives here and now.
Sharing stories from his own life and his friends’ lives that are both funny and deeply touching, Runyeon helps us to see what we have been missing. And he encourages us to respond to these parables by entering the story God is telling right now, and coming to know the joy that Luke wrote about in his Gospel: the joy of becoming a story He is telling, out there, on the road.
We will also be including the abbreviated version of his Hollywood vs. Faith talk
Everyone is hotly debating the influence of the media today…
But few people are speaking a language that captures the attention of youth and adults, sheds new light—and ignites laughter…
Frank Runyeon admits he has always felt torn between the world of the media and the world of faith. He thinks much of America is. We go from our cellphone to church, and then back to our cellphone (or TV). We want to live in both worlds. But is that really possible?
Over the past 30 years, as the way of life embodied by the mass media has moved further and further from the Christian way of life, Runyeon confides he has struggled to make the right choices.
He speaks with humor about that struggle, and shares the fruits of lessons he has learned—from his studies at Princeton to working opposite Meg Ryan on the soaps and in movies, from hosting comedy talk shows on L.A. radio to studying at Yale Divinity, from 25 years touring America (and over 3,000 churches) to 30 years as a parent.
Runyeon shares the thoughts he’s found helpful over the years, funny experiences on set, and the surprising discoveries that come from “looking behind the curtain” at the wizard of Hollywood.
He urges us all to think (and laugh) about the media, not just take a bath in them.
He discusses the impact of commercial sponsorship, and the real reasons for all the sex and violence.
Finally, Runyeon identifies the four biggest distortions in the mirror which Hollywood holds up to our lives, a set of false beatitudes. He shares personal experiences that show how much Americans have come to believe in them and let them shape our way of life.
He suggests a surprisingly simple answer to how we can live faithfully as Christians —while still enjoying the best of the media.