Road Trip Mixtapes: Vegas, Red Bull, and Faith on a Detour

By J. Churchill Morris

Road Trip Mixtapes is about success and failure, grief, heartache and the questions we face on the journey. It gives a compassionate and understanding voice to difficult situations and uses a self aware sense of humor to illustrate some provocative points.

These narrative essays are meant to raise questions and start conversations. It is by no means a book of answers, simply thoughts, reflections and some anecdotes about life, faith and the detours along the way.

"Road Trip Mixtapes will have you laugh out loud, shed a tear or two, question your actions and relationships, push a few buttons, and more! In the end, you'll feel a greater sense of connection to God, yourself, and others and perhaps a little more loved!"

Laura Duksta, New York Times bestselling author,

I Love You More & You Are a Gift to the World

Mixtapes is a poignant collection of stories of modern life, love, and faith. Morris writes with a warmth and familiarity that invites you right into a story in which youre happy to take part.

Anne Marie Miller, author, speaker, blogger,

Permission to Speak Freely & Mad Church Disease annemariemiller.com

Through his honest, free, and spirited writing, Morris takes us on a journey introducing us to real, beautiful, broken people. In a stream-of-consciousness prose, he describes a personal meandering finding its way, stumbling through redemption. With Mixtapes, Im reminded to gulp life and enjoy each moment.

Jamie George, author, Love Well

and lead pastor, Journey Church, Franklin, Tennessee

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781490812083

J. Churchill Morris

J. Churchill Morris is an Emmy nominated songwriter and producer. Originally from Boston, MA, Morris now resides in Nashville, TN where he works as writer, speaker and visual artist. J. is a partner at Journey Church in Franklin, TN and serves on the experiential design team.

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Copyright © 2013 J. Churchill Morris.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4908-1207-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-1206-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-1208-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013918653

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/09/2013

Table of Contents

Cosmic Santa Jesus—The Beginning

Alcohol and Energy Drinks—Finding God in a Little Pink Room

A Spoonful of Guilt and a Tall Glass of Shame

Best Friends and Broken Ankles

Face First Into the Powder

Campfire Honesty

Stars Like Sequins on a Jazz Singer in the 80s

A Little Less MTV

Painting Equations

Love According to Wikipedia

Slow Jams for Jesus

Death By Cover Charge and PBR

Mixtape 2: Candy Apple Chevy’s How Getting Kicked Out of Church Saved My Life

Healing on the Radio

Let’s Just Be Friend-Quaintances

An Angel on Ice Skates

Divine Magic Tricks

Day 40

Eye to Eye with a Bolt Action 22

Playing Chicken with a Tree

Penniless Philanthopy

Nice Legs and Jesus

Mixtape 3: A Book About a Book? Reimagining a 157 Page Disaster

Pun Littered Festival T-Shirts

New York’s 2,347th Favorite Dessert

Juice Almighty

You Give Love a Bad Name

Soundtrack to the Cosmic Narrative

The End

About the Author

About The Book

Special Thanks

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Cosmic Santa Jesus—The Beginning

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I’m sorry Mr. Morris, there has been a last minute change of plans.

Wait.

Let’s rewind.

In 2010 I was busy running my little advertising/design business in Nashville. I was also volunteering as a youth pastor at Conduit Church and sharing life with ex-convicts, homeless people, musicians, world travelers, missionaries and others in a community house we called 222.

Then, work dried up. I got evicted from my house, shut down by the city, and burned out on ministry. I wasn’t so much angry with God at that point as I was confused. Didn’t He owe me? Wasn’t I doing lots of good stuff for Him? Surely a blessing was right around the corner.

I ended up moving in with my friend John. A room opened up when his daughter moved to LA to go on tour with a Disney pop star. I got the room for almost nothing; which was still a little out of my price range at that point. Without John, I probably would have ended up living in my car (not that it would be the first time).

I’m not sure exactly where the idea came from for me to fast, but I decided that for the month of February, I would do a 21 day juice fast; 21 days of prayer and fasting to know the heart of God.

Looking back, I’m not so sure I was as interested in knowing the heart of God as I was with Him knowing my list of demands.

Job

Wife

House

Kids

Comfortably ever after.

So I started praying to the big cosmic Santa Jesus for my wish list.

Ten days in, I received a phone call from a recruiting agency. I was referred by a friend and they wanted to interview me. Two weeks later I had been through four interviews and was headed to the corporate office to meet the team.

I toured the facility of this big corporation. We walked past the cube farms to a center office; the one slated to be mine. We talked numbers, big numbers, six figure numbers that made the guy who was struggling to pay his dirt cheap rent feel like he’d finally amounted to something.

I had prayed, fasted and told God what I wanted and He was about to give it to me. It was an I dream of Jesus moment; one of those your wish is my command scenarios. God had seen all my hard work and dedication, and He was about to bless me.

I’m sorry, Mr. Morris, there has been a last minute change of plans. We’ve decided to hire someone else from within the company for the position. We’ll let you know if anything else opens up.

Nothing else ever opened up.

I had a lot of emotions in the following weeks; frustration and confusion mainly. I had done everything right, so why wasn’t it working? I found myself asking a lot of questions. If God wasn’t the cosmic Santa Jesus I thought He was, who was He?

God is love, faith is an adventure, The Bridegroom is coming back for his beloved, Jesus is my best friend, Heaven is the great after party in the sky; I had been taught all of these sentiments about faith that felt more like themes for a road trip mixtape than the portrait of a divine being.

The main question I was out to find the answer to was: Who is God and what does it mean to love Him and others?

My friend Lore’, who I call sister, encouraged me to blog my way through these questions. Frustrated, disappointed, and broke, but hopeful that God might be real, I began to dig through the stories and experiences that were the landmarks and road signs on the road trip of my life. What I realized is that for the better part of 30 years I’ve ultimately been asking if faith is more like an equation on a chalkboard or artwork on a canvas? These are the stories of my failures, detours, victories, and the miles in between.

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Alcohol and Energy Drinks—Finding God in a Little Pink Room

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Have you ever smelled something that took you to another place? Or maybe heard a sound that turned your brain into a time machine? Doctors call it involuntary recurrent memory, more commonly referred to in TV