Let's say you're an avid Beatles fan and someone comes to you wanting to get in on the action. They've not had much experience with the Fab Four and they've just heard "Tomorrow Never Knows" on some late night college radio show. They're hooked, and you're ready to bring a novice into the fold. Yet suddenly you realize the task in front of you is monumental.

You don't want to overwhelm them with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, or under-whelm them with the bubblegum of Please Please Me, nor frighten them outright with The White Album. It's best to start in the middle somewhere, perhaps with Revolver, Rubber Soul, or one of the greatest hits packages. And for heaven's sake don't let them watch Yellow Submarine or Magical Mystery Tour. That whole business with the Walrus. . .

Sometimes the best thing to do is make a mix tape (or nowadays, burn a CD). You know the person; you know their tastes, their nuances, their ticks and habits. You know they might shed a tear for In My Life, but be utterly bamboozled by Happiness Is A Warm Gun. You present them, pristine and shining, with their own personalized collection, and they enter the world, excited and energized, perhaps even ready in their own way to someday tackle more adventurous terrain-like the Plastic Ono Band, or Wings.

If the Gospels are the mix tapes of the Bible, then the Gospel of John is Rock'n'Roll Music, Volume One. It's as if God, knowing each person's experience with him would be different, gave us four different and distinct messages from four different and distinct disciples. Taking someone interested in the Bible and matters of faith gently by the arm, then leading them straight to Leviticus, Deuteronomy, or the genealogies without first introducing them to Jesus is pure folly-like listening to '50s quartet gospel music to get to Elvis.

At the HighWay Community, we've been working at our ministry, trying to strip away levels of anything ceremonious or adhesive that doesn't relate to Christ, his love, his truths, and his desires for our lives. This particular translation of the Bible (God's Word to the Nations) seems to fit our style in that its new, different, and forces us to think about faith and Christian spirituality in new ways. It's translated in a narrative, almost novelistic style, and John is a great place to start digging for truth.

At the beginning, we've got the ever confusing and fascinating "Word Up" soliloquy ("In the beginning the Word already existed, the Word was God, etc."). This is followed by the loveable hippie John the Baptist traipsing through the countryside like a runaway extra from Easy Rider, telling the sopping crowds about the one who would follow him who had existed since the beginning of time. Groovy.

Kind of like a B-sides collection, John includes many of Jesus' teaching that aren't included in the other Gospels, and the God's Word to the Nations translation gives us a fresh vantage point on the language of Christ, and a new angle from which to study his words. Jesus tells Peter simply, "You don' know now what I'm doing. You will understand later." Indeed.

Then there are the disciples. Ah, the loveable, simple disciples. After Jesus is offered food in chapter 4, and he presents the wonderful allegorical retort, "I have food to eat that you don't know about." You can almost picture the disciples' blank looks as they nudge each other asking, "Did someone bring him something to eat?" If you read in between the lines, I think you can hear Jesus crack a bit of a smile.

In chapter 13, John tells us as Jesus proposes to wash their feet that, "Jesus loved his own who were in the world, and he loved them to the end." This is so fitting and so central to the message of the Gospels, yet it's a concept that we've lost a bit as the church has grown over the last two thousand-plus years. Love seems simple and antiquated to us. Too low-concept, too bourgeois. We feel as if we need to dress up the word of God into theologies and interpretations that often leave our minds challenged, but leave our hearts dry.

At the HighWay Community, we're trying to get back to what "church" must have been like in the first century before hundreds of years of wars, tradition, and leisure suits distorted a very simple, human message. We don't claim to know exactly how to do that, but if you're at all interested you're welcome aboard to help us figure it out. The first "Christians" didn't know they were Christians. They were Jews partaking in something very obtuse and radical for their day. As a result, they were tight with one another; they met often, took meals together, studied together, and grew together. The radical nature of a life in Christ has never changed. But we have.

Yet Christ's message of love and hope is not altogether without a dark side. There are consequences to the abandonment of his teachings, and a severe penalty for the ignorance of his message. But the church has too long been the religious Gestapo; policing the actions of the world in a context the world simply doesn't understand and can't relate to. As the first-century church spread their message one on one, person to person, we strive to mirror that model, using our worship services as a collective time of celebration, and using our relationships as the windows to joy.

At the HighWay Community, we invite you in to have a look at what Christ has done, and maybe you can even teach us a few things along the way as well. We feel it's our duty to create an authentic, down-to-earth environment by which to become better people of God. We don't have all the answers, but we have some. We're just beggars like you, and maybe we can show you where to find a little bread.

In the first chapter of John, when Philip tells Nathaniel, "We have found the man whom Moses wrote about in his teachings and whom the prophets wrote about." After telling him that it's Jesus Christ, of Nazareth, Nathaniel responds, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"

The answer is a resounding yes, but similarly we have to ask ourselves, "Can anything good come from Palo Alto?" Or Sunnyvale, Mountain View, San Jose, or San Francisco for that matter? The answer lies somewhere in-between the Word of God and our ability to become what it recommends we become. That's where the HighWay Community may be able to help. We hope this book of John can get you closer to that end, whether you've known Christ for years, or are just beginning to check out this fellow who claimed he was God, and had a message of hope that seems to make more and more sense as the days go by. After all, didn't someone say once that all you need is love?

Truth, Authenticity, Community, and Hope.

Can anything good come from Palo Alto?

Come and see.