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Some of the Roadshows were HOT, and by that I don't mean "cool." I mean they were hot, like sweaty, humid, disgustingly hot. Of course, there were lots of comments about how the heat made it feel like a real, old-timey revival, and lots of jokes about us wearing three-piece wool frock suits. The funeral fans from Wesley Seminary came in handy.

Honestly, the worst part wasn't even the massive amounts of sweat dripping off of the revivalists. The worst part was putting the wet frock suit back on after the 2008 monologue. There's nothing like donning a soaking wet shirt.

So, here are my top five hottest stops on the Roadshow:

5. New Orleans (weak A/C in a third floor loft)

4. Oakland (no A/C in a gym/worship center)

3. Minneapolis (no A/C in Solomon's Porch)

2. Dallas (broken A/C in an old church)

And, the hottest show of all....

1. Atlanta!

The Atlanta Roadshow stop took place at the B-Complex, a collection of old warehouses now owned by a collective of artists. Our performance was in the main warehouse, with broken out windows and plastic sheeting loosely hanging from the walls. The whole scene made me whisper-shout, "Derelicte!" (Some incredible photos of that show, by Daley Hake, can be seen here.) The weather that night was hot and sultry, just like you'd expect in Atlanta in late July. The revivalists were hot, the crowd was hot, but, the beer was cold!

And, finally, one of the top quotes of the whole tour came from Troy Bronsink, head the Atlanta revival committee. After the show he said to me, "When I booked this venue in April I thought, How hot can it be in Atlanta at the end of July?"

At every Roadshow stop, people not only were revived, but they also entered a drawing to win gifts from some of our sponsors. Well, here are the winners!

The Story: Erich Miller, Tim Ratzlaff

TNIV Leatherbound: Helen Barrett, Ben Ash

TNIV Study Bible: Chris Salzman, Burke Wallace

The Bible Experience New Testament (CD): Suzanne Schmidt, Nicki Peebles, Rhonda Dueck

The Bible Experience Entire Bible (CD): John Zenkewich, Victor Dingus, Amanda Preston

The Bible Experience Entire Bible (mp3): Glen Lauber, Michael Wonz, Colleen Barrows

iPod Nanos: Sue Bates, Bryan Gower, David Breedlove

There really is something about facial hair. Since I got home on Tuesday, I took Tanner (8) to see the latest Narnia movie as a reward for having read the book. I noticed that, among the Telmarines and Sons of Adam, all of the bad guys had facial hair, and all of the good guys were clean shaven (dwarves, minotaurs, and centaurs, of course, are another story).

That got me to thinking about the ebbs and flows of facial hair in history. The earliest depictions of Jesus on the Italian peninsula showed him cleanly shaven. As time progressed, he's been shown much more often to have a beard.

As I've written before, facial hair was nearly ubiquitous on men in 1908. Thus, Mark, Doug, and I grew some funky beards so that we could channel our fictitious great-grandfathers.

Well, last Monday night, after our closing show in Indianapolis, Doug and I were shorn (Mark kept his beard long enough to get back to San Francisco so that his family could see it). And, of course, we filmed it:

Doug and I are back in Minneapolis, after closing the Roadshow on Monday in Indy. There's lots to say in recap, but today it's all about unloading the trailer and paying bills. More soon...

So, believe it or not, we'd rather not drive our whole 40' RV with trailer into Manhattan on Friday. We're looking for somewhere safe to drop the RV and borrow or rent a truck with which we can pull the trailer into NYC. Somewhere between Edison and Newark would be best. Please drop a comment with any ideas.

The week between legs was spent in New Orleans with my sons Taylor and Ruben. We toured the town, took a road trip to Mississippi and rented wave runners in Biloxi. We ate the fine and fatty foods of New...

We've been to a lot of cities so far, and it's funny how many people in these cities claim that they are: - The buckle of the Bible belt - The least churched city in America - The city with...

I've written a post over at another Beliefnet blog, God's Politics, about the tour and what we've learned about 1908. Read it HERE....

Church Basement Roadshow...

Update - We have a location for the Show Sunday July 20 - Copperfield Church, 8350 Hwy 6 N. Houston. Thanks J.T. for taking us in. After the first 12 shows, which went great, we have learned a few things...

When we were planning this tour I expected that we would have a bit of time each day to hang out in neighborhoods and taste the local specialty cuisine--like Stumptown Coffee in Portland. Instead we often arrive just in time...

Tour Dates Available in the Right Column....

Allow me to disabuse you of the notion, should you be so temped, to think that being on a 32-city tour is in any way glamorous. First it's amazing how much energy goes into set up and take down of...

In the memorandum that we sent out to hosts for the Church Basement Roadshow, we delicately requested a healthy meal before the show (i.e. No pizza). The organizers of our first three shows interpreted "healthy" in exactly the same fashion...

While chatting with Mickey Maudlin after our show in San Francisco on Thursday, he happened to mention that Harper One had flown N.T. Wright over for the day to appear on The Colbert Report. Well, the adrenaline rush of the...

(See right sidebar for info and tour dates) Three forty-year-old guys in an RV all summer, pretending to be revival preachers from a century ago. Sounds unlikely? Well, it is. And just about every night, sometime during the show, I...

Click here for Info and Tour Dates We received this nice note from one of our opening weekend hosts: A quick note to say how thankful we are that you rolled through our town. The Spirits fires been a blown'...

View Tour Schedule HERE - Come and Join us. The Rollin' Gospel Revival officially began Friday night, June 13 at Risen Church in Santa Monica California. We launched the show with two rehearsals under our belts and great wonderment in...

The revivalist from the midwest are heading to the land of plenty today. Scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles this afternoon. With sleep lowest on the priority list and hope at the top the two, The Professor and Big Brother,...