Jesus years

I thoroughly enjoyed Inside Bob Dylan's Jesus Years: Busy Being Born . . . Again!, an honest, poorly produced documentary. It features interviews with Bob's pastor, Bible study leader, backing singer, keyboardist, music critics, producer, and Jews for Jesus representative. It was a real joy to hear from humble, goodhumoured, intelligent, Gospel-loving Christian brothers and sisters. One thing that particularly struck me was the wisdom and graciousness with which the pastors of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church treated their famous convert:

At the Vineyard our approach was to encourage Bob to grow himself, grow himself in the Lord, to not... run off and become an Evangelist or... but to really let the Lord work in his life. Because the message is that God loves you, God loves Bob, God loves me, God wants to work in our lives, and what he does to us is even more important than what he does through us. That was one of the problems I think that Bob faced, was that there were a lot of people who wanted to use him and push him up to the front, put him on TV, put him on the stage and get him to say something. The people we knew, that we were close with were just saying, 'Bob, continue just to stay focused on God and the Scriptures and stay in fellowship with other Christians and grow as a person'. (Pastor Bill Dwyer)