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Soul Graffiti: Making a Life in the Way of Jesus

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If one were to take the mind of Dallas Willard, the tongue of a beat poet, and the heart of a Franciscan brother, put them in a blender, and pour them into a book, you might end up with Soul Graffiti. Soul Graffiti is a poetic, prophetic, call to follow the radical Way of Jesus. Mark Scandrette rips off the scab of encrusted, safe, sentimental American Christianity and invites the reader into the provocative, fresh, improvisational riff of discipleship with Christ. The book is a call to imagine the Way of Christ for the Post-Christian West.

One of my difficulties with the emerging church movement is that I can't find enough stories about people who are actually living what they say they yearn for. The "conversation" and the "dialogue" seemingly take precedence with many who yearn for a way of life with Jesus on this planet, in this lifetime that is somehow more meaningful than their former spiritual practices, relationships, affiliations and beliefs have delivered.

Mark Scandrette's book, SOUL GRAFFITI - Making A Life In The Way Of Jesus is a first, hopefully not last, model of what's been missing, addressing the fundamental concern I expressed above. Jossey-Bass should be congratulated for their foresight in producing this work as part of A Living Way: Emergent Visions Series. Soul Grafitti is a superbly crafted work that profiles what it really means to live the emergent way...this is footprints in the sand with a real live human being attached to those feet, holding your hand, stirring your soul, tugging at your heart --- walking you through life today, the emergent way --- Making A Life in The Way of Jesus. As Mark says, "As important as conversation is, it is stillborn if it doesn't eventually lead to common action. In our fragmented society it is too easy to have discussions about problems and how we wish things could be different without making a commitment to work together to see change occur" (p. 56).

The term `vision' typically contains a dimension that allows one to do, feel and believe that which you had heretofore been unable to experience on your own. `Vision' provides elements of power, persuasion, passion and permission to move beyond where you presently find yourself in your spiritual journey. Mark Scandrette unselfishly shares his journey with us, weaving the `vision' so many in the emergent movement have been so desperately yearning to visualize. I am humbled, grateful and awed by the bountiful, multi-dimensional contribution of this work. - it is unequivocally bountimensional.

From a critical standpoint, the first 100 pages were a bit slow and somewhat redundant for me. Don't skip the first hundred pages. After that, the book increasingly picked up momentum. That was my only complaint. The contemplation/action sections at the end of each chapter provide individuals and groups a superb resource for practical experimentation with growing into a life in the way of Jesus. (I hope Jossey-Bass will consider a separate `journey book supplement' to the actual book that people can take with them during the week to ponder, relish and act upon). The psalms, Scripture, poems and people that Mark shares are precious. He is truly a companion, artist, healer and mystic led by Jesus today.

This book will not be without the anticipated critical backlash from those threatened by the emergent movement. However, one of the blessings of this book is the `Jesus dojo'defined by Mark in the final pages of the book. Wondering what the "theology" of `this (Mark) emergent' is, read Chapter 15 in Soul Graffiti. Of course, there is discussion of a number of theological constructs that are bound to elicit howls from those who really don't understand the emerging church. There is the "opt-in/opt-out" stuff (p.87) that Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor illuminated in their recent book. There are distinctions about doing v. believing, good news vs. the gospel, doing v. being, intellectual assent v. actual behavior, and a myriad of other issues that will provide fodder for the cannons of the critics. However, in my opinion, all the controversy is overshadowed by the overpowering truth of a boundless love and endless compassion, as evidenced by Mark's life...a life we must admire...a Christ centered life available to all.

One of the most common criticism's of George Barna's book entitled `Revolution,' (Tyndale House, Fall 2005) was from people wondering "where are they, these revolutionaries Barna is speaking about?" Well, read Mark Scandrette's book, SOUL GRAFFITI - Making A Life In The Way Of Jesus - you'll meet one. Learn to reimagine making your life in the way of Jesus. The choice is yours. Indispensable fare. Buy the book. You'll be indelibly infected for the better. I have been.

I needed this book. Jesus tattooed my soul with this book. May Christ continue to change my life as Mark has modeled. The milepost literary work I have been looking for in the emergent way.

Thank you Mark (and Sheryl)

Bill Dahl

Mark Scandrette is an artist with his life. And his life is painted throughout his first book, Soul Graffiti, which released last week from Jossey-Bass. Mark is one of those people willing to get his hands dirty as he seeks to depict a more authentic and more organic way of "making a life in the way of Jesus," the tagline of this great book.

But perhaps Mark is more of an actor. Throughout Soul Graffiti he interacts with a wild cast of characters who, like him, want to know God but are filled with fear, misgivings and hurts. Mark's loving engagement with these folks on the stage of life will inspire you and fill you with hope.

Or maybe Mark is a poet. His words weave the stories of his life throughout Soul Graffiti, providing lyrics for the songs sung by the crazy, the disenfranchised and the wounded, people that too many of us pass by without a word or a thought.

Artist. Actor. Poet. Soul Graffiti is the event that is Mark Scandrette. This should be reason enough to purchase this book. But if you don't know Mark, buy this book because it is an honest depiction of someone who takes seriously the command of Christ to sell everything and become a radical disciple, and that is sadly lacking in today's Church. Buy Soul Graffiti and let Mark Scandrette help you reimagine what it means to follow Jesus.

There is a word that you rarely hear nowadays - gentle. Our times seem to call out people & things that are bold, that are fierce, that can do things that get noticed. You can see this fierce world raging in urban streets, in popular media and (sadly) in many communities of faith.

Mark Scandrette is gentle - in a way that pulls people into his story and in the process a much bigger story. FMark, his wife Lisa and their kids Hailey, Noah or Isaiah live in the Mission District of San Francisco. To say they live there is not enough - they inhale all that this area has to offer, they are colorful portraits in the multi-color mural that is constantly being painted in the Mission. Mark has helped foster seven, a community of people, living in SF, aiming to "collaborate with the Creator in bringing about greater wholeness and love into the world". As a community they have committed to 7 vows: Creativity, Prayer, Community, Service, Obedience, Simplicity and Love.

Of Mark's many gifts, hospitality is a strong strand. His life/work seems like one grand, floating party - shifting from locale to locale, with celebrants weaving in and out. In the hospitality that the Scandrettes embody, drag queens sip red wine with Fuller grads, gallery owners bunk up in the small but warm Scandrette living room with recovering pastors. In the '30s & '40s in NYC, they'd call these floating crap games: dice games which is moved from place to place to evade the authorities. Mark uses art & conversation, rather than dice, but the vibe is the same: if this is not what heaven is like, it will do until we get there.

For me, much of the emerging church phenomenon fits a bus terminal metaphor - a passing point where all types of people wait for their next connection, finding safety & solace from fellow travellers. Some times the bus terminal is noisy & chaotic, other times it is as quiet as a convent. In my experience of this phenomenon, Mark mans the Traveller's Aid table, with his lovable grin & hipster hat or hair do. The table is usually a card table that Mark found discarded some where on Valencia, there are scraps of food from meals in progress, music and art scattered all about.

Images Mark wrote Soul Graffiti from his experiences at that rickety old table. It is brimming with stories of people who float in and out of life. It's rare that someone can capture their essence in a book - even more rare when at the end of 272 pages, you find that you've fallen deeper in love with that person, more in love with the you you've re-discovered, even more in love with God & Jesus and (even) church.

Soul Graffiti is a gentle book, one that I was sad to finish. Mark Scandrette is a gentle presence in my life & thousands of other folks - I can't wait for next walk we have & the next chapters he writes.

Emergent folks often talk about following Jesus or living in the way of Jesus, but rarely is this phrase followed by story after story of a life in process of Christo-transformation. If you want to hear some of these stories and be challenged by them then go get Mark Scandrette's new book `Soul Graffiti.' The book is organized into four parts that follow the initial teaching of Jesus in gospel of Mark and the though Scandrette does occasionally give direct theological reflection, the book itself is story driven and oh so compelling. When you get done you will either be fired up that someone in the First World is actually identifiably Christian, which gives you hope for yourself or be irritated that you read a book that ended up challenging you to the core. Or both. Scandrette is a luring story-teller which enables his family and community in San Fran to untame Jesus and the gospel for the reader. He mentions taking the risk of being offended by Jesus and his teachings and his stories reveal to us just how offended we need to get, but also how rewarding a life on the way of Jesus can be. If you want to be encouraged, challenged, and have a stack of super sweet stories to bring up next time some one asks what following Jesus looks like the get it, read it, and do it.

It seems that thousands of people in America and around the world are thirsting for a more integrated, authentic, and community-oriented way of Christian living. Mark and his community are a real-world example of how this can be done in the west today. In Soul Graffiti, Mark poetically shares a reimagination of the Christian life, and invites the reader to engage with these visions via practical steps for experimentation in their own context. Accessible and highly recommended.

Mark Scandrette's first solo effort is really something-- lyrical, ethereal, and visceral. It is a compelling call to a life lived after Jesus written by a real person with a real family living in the real world. As arresting and engaging and upending as Dallas Willard's "Divine Conspiracy", but made practical, and set to music.

This book made me hungry, and not just metaphorically. Its look at real-life spirituality made me grateful for my body, my appetites, and for the good world in which I live. I wasn't hungry for fancy things, either-- a piece of chocolate, a bowl of cereal, an egg, a turkey sandwich, or a good beer (since Mark is such an oenophile, and I'm such a contrarian). It is a rare book on Christian spirituality that doesn't make a person feel guilty for their physicality, but Mark has found a way to affirm and expand our humanity, all at once. Remarkable.

Of some books, it is said, "I couldn't put it down," but of this one I want to add, "I didn't want to keep reading." On the one hand, I wanted to move quickly; to take in its beauty all at once. On the other hand, I wanted to slow down and accept the gentle invitation to live into this life. And on the third hand, with its call to a new kind of life so compelling and clear, I found myself not wanting to change. And yet, I can't seem to get the tune out of my head.

Mark Scandrette's Soul Graffiti is a beautiful and startling encounter with a gritty, poetic and adventurous way of life patterned after Jesus. The stories are woven together to create a provocative manifesto proclaiming the power of love. What sets Soul Graffiti apart is the practical dimension. Mark uses his unique talents as a storyteller to draw us into real life experiments in following Jesus in the details of life. As he illustrates this way of life he manages to be both raw and elegant at the same time. This book is full of ideas for pressing forward on the journey...walking in new ways, developing new habits, finding new rhythms. You will encounter an inspiring and dangerous faith full of risk taking and love.

who should read this book? nobody. nobody should need to. we should all be cooking grand meals for our friends and discussing the implications of one thing or another, only to wake up the next morning and engage in some frighteningly intimate and dangerous acts of humanity and justice. then to dance, then to weep, then to walk, then to sit on the front porch and wait for the next story to come by and see if it is a story for us to listen to, or a story we are to make come true.

but we don't really do those things, do we. i think maybe this book shows a way, a glimpse, of courage, hope, of light. they are in there, in the stories and in the life mark is reaching for. it's not a textbook, everything mark does and writes about is so deeply contextual that it is immediately obvious that living even 2 miles from mark would result in a radically different set of stories. but it is more like a poem, which is true when it is written, and true in a different way as it is read.

One of the things that I find intoxicating about good filmmakers, like the Cohen brothers who made among other films Fargo, is their ability to climb inside of a certain cultural context and then speak from that place with authenticity and meaning. This is exactly what I love about Mark Scandrette's work Soul Graffiti. As a person who grew up in church in Minnesota and has spent the last decade in the Mission District of San Francisco, he provides a practical and prophetic look at life and faith in one of America's most progressive cities. His work is a perfect collision of his grounded upper-middle America upbringing and the sometimes wheels off life on the streets of San Francisco. He interprets life and faith as a street-wise pastor struggling with people in their search for more. He brings passion, hope and a new language to those of us who sometimes fall a word or two short in our ability to put words to our experiences. As Donald Miller and Blue Like Jazz was to the average Baptist youth grouped southerner, Soul Graffiti is to everyone else . . . .only better.