Archive: The Barefoot Storyteller

By Sara L. Anderson

The storyteller paces across the stage on bare feet in apparel appropriate for a Christmas-pageant shepherd or a modem Bedouin. A cherubic grin and mischievous twinkle in his eyes punctuate a significant part of his tale.

Earlier he had introduced himself to the contemporary crowd as “James the brother of Jesus” in Yiddish accents akin to those of Billy Crystal’s “uncle” in the new Diet Pepsi commercials.

“Can you imagine having a brother who never did anything wrong?” he asks his listeners. Like a time traveler adapting to a centuries-new environment James retells his Brother’s parables, incorporating enough 20th-century expressions to bring humor and understanding to modem audiences.

An approved evangelist in the Northwest Texas Conference since 1981, Putnam mixes drama, preaching and music in his unique ministry, making him a sort of UM Garrison Keillor. In the guise of James, Putnam tells the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son to help people know what God is like. The evangelist shows his audience that God is like a good, searching shepherd, and we “need a shepherd real bad.” He is like the woman diligently looking for a lost coin which rolled away through carelessness. He is like the loving father running down the road—coat flying in the breeze, sandals kicking up dust—to embrace a rebellious son (“Gag me with a camel, for sure”) who’s decided a good Jew shouldn’t be slopping hogs and wants to come home. He is Someone people can begin to relate to through the down-to-earth quality of the story.

In a typical, four-day meeting at a local church, Putnam, who is also the president of the National Association of United Methodist Evangelists (NAUME) will begin the Sunday morning session with a drama to break the ice. If the church doesn’t react well to James or Gideon or Moses or other character sketches, the evangelist shifts more toward preaching and music. Usually, he’ll offer two dramas in the course of a revival.

Often the music, much of it written by Putnam himself, and the storytelling touch nerves in people not usually reached by a sermon.

Several years ago Putnam returned to a church in Tulsa where he had held services two years previously. A man stood up to testify that, after hearing “James the brother of Jesus” tell the story of the prodigal, God delivered him from alcoholism. He hadn’t touched a drop in two years.

It is rare that an itinerant evangelist hears such stories, because he or she is not in a particular area long enough to note the results of his or her ministry in individual churches. Putnam, however, doesn’t find that frustrating. “I know there’s fruit because God promises that His Word won’t return void,” he says. “Some of it is fruit where I was there to put the last little bit of water on it. Someone had planted it years and years ago, it was coming to the place where it was mature, and I was there at the right time.” Putnam has not only seen people come to Christ and be renewed in their faith through his presentations, but he has also encouraged Sunday school teachers and pastors to instruct both children and adults through drama. Some have asked for transcripts of his character sketches to use in their churches.

Although Putnam has been an evangelist for nearly nine years, he started out as a local church pastor after graduating from Asbury Theological Seminary in 1978.

During his three years in the pastorate, he began receiving outside invitations to preach and perform his music. ” I stumbled into drama,” he says, mostly through using it as a tool in children’s summer camps after becoming hooked on theatrics in college. (“Someone said I had too much ham in me to be Jewish.”) Then a friend asked Putnam to a revival in his church, on one condition: “I won’t let you come unless you promise to do a drama.”

“I was stuck,” Putnam says, chuckling. “I did it with fear and trembling, but it was wonderfully well received. We discovered you don’t have to be a kid to enjoy drama.”

As for the music, he holds his bachelor’s degree in it and has been performing his own compositions since 1978. In the pastorate he began using music to lead into a sermon or incorporated it into the message as an illustration. “People are hungry for alive worship,” he says. “I carry a lot of electronic keyboards with me, and we use contemporary choruses and some upbeat rhythms in the old hymns—we see a positive response.”

Putnam has recorded six different albums on a national label, and his recordings have been played on more than 750 Christian radio stations, some cuts hitting the top 20 in some cities. His songs reflect deep human needs and tensions—a father having spent so much time pursuing success that he didn’t take time to play with his children (“I Regret”); a believer struggling to follow God (“All My Heart”); a person rejoicing in God’s forgiveness (“Yes”). Putman also wrote the theme song for the UM Section on Evangelism’s new campaign, Vision 2000.

How he has time to be creative is amazing, since a typical year’s schedule includes 35 major bookings (revivals, camp meetings and camps); 20 concerts or one-day events; retreats, conferences and UM annual conferences. He is completely booked for 1990, and the calendar for spring of ’91 is nearly filled as well.

While most of Putnam’s ministry has been located in Texas and surrounding states, invitations have come from points farther east and south. “There’s a great demand for this type of ministry,” says Putnam, who does a number of free concerts in prisons and for children’s homes.

NAUME ranks as a high priority for the Texas evangelist (see related story), and much of the rest of his time is consumed with fund raising, which Putnam says is probably the least-favorite part of his ministry.

“It takes a lot of money to keep an itinerant ministry going,” he says. “Offerings in churches only provide one third to one half of what we need. Most of the rest comes from people who have experienced the ministry and send monthly donations.” The ministry employs one part-time secretary. The rest of the work is taken care of by the Putnam family: wife, Felicia, and sons James, 17, Philip, 15 and Timothy, 12, who travel with Putnam 10 weeks out of the year. James will be traveling with his father more this year and will host the Bible Bowl for children in kindergarten through sixth grade.

Life for the Putnams is hectic, to say the least, which could lead to exhaustion and discouragement. But vision can be a source of energy. “What keeps me going is the sense of call, that this is where God has asked me to invest my life,” Putnam says with quiet enthusiasm. “I can’t stop.”

Sara L. Anderson is the associate editor of Good News.