Stereogum posts a fascinating interview with Reverend Thomas Vito Aiuto-- pastor and planter of Resurrection Presbyterian Church and half of the duo, The Welcome Wagon. If you don't yet own Welcome To The Welcome Wagon, download it right now-- then read the interview while you listen.
Some of my highlights from the interview after the jump...
ON THE EUCHARIST: "A big part of my job is blessing and serving the Eucharist. The Christian faith is imminently tied up in food -- right there at the center of Christian worship is God giving his people bread and wine, it's the whole Gospel summed up in a simple action. Christianity is a religion of feasting with God and neighbor. That's what the Eucharist points to. I do not hear Confession in the same, formal way as some priests and pastors do, even some Presbyterian ones, but I often hear Confession as I talk with people about their spiritual lives. And of course my responsibility and joy is to repeatedly extend God's forgiveness in Christ to them."
ON WELCOMING SKEPTICS: "We hope that our community will be a place where people who are not believers, or who are struggling to understand the Christian faith, can come and ask honest, difficult questions and get honest answers. We also hope to be a place where it's OK not to be OK. A church is a spiritual hospital that works on the assumption that everyone is in need of God's healing grace."
ON THE CENTRALITY OF THE GOSPEL: "No doubt we believe that the death and resurrection of Jesus has all kinds of social and economic and political and spiritual implications. But it all begins with Jesus Christ. It begins and ends with believing that in an act of free grace, the death of Jesus on the cross, and the fact that God raised this man from the dead, is a gift to humanity that puts to death everything that separates us from the love of God, and gives us life, here and now, as well as eternally. Everything else flows out from that."
Isn't being a pastor, in some ways, like being an artist?
Posted by: RB at 02/11/09 1:42 PM | Reply
Is this why you wanted us to read?? Are you really RB? ;)
Posted by: Trey | February 12, 2009 at 08:45 AM
Love this album you recommended. The best thing I have listened to in ages. Thanks. David
Posted by: David Cooke | February 17, 2009 at 01:06 PM
This album has been my favorite so far in 09. Thanks for the link to the article.
Posted by: jason salamun | March 17, 2009 at 10:09 AM