INTERVIEW | John Lynch, Bill Thrall, and Bruce McNicol
By editor on Feb 15, 2010 in Featured, Interviews
Gentlemen, describe yourselves to our visitors.
We three co-authors of Bo’s Café grew up in three different regions of the USA with vastly divergent backgrounds. But, eventually, all three of us stumbled into the same trap. We got tricked into the snare that says, “If you are ever going to keep from getting hurt in this life, and if you you’re ever going to reach your dreams, you’ve got to protect yourself, because no one else will or can.” This is a crock of con.
By the time John was 25 years old, he was an acid-dropping, wandering-hippie, selling his plasma for dope, and living alone in an idyllic southern California beach town. In high-school, he had been an all-state high school baseball pitcher and student body president, even securing the homecoming queen as his girl. But, the wheels came off in college and in his embarrassment John thought he had to protect himself by leaving for another state and then lying to all his friends back home that he had become a stand-up comedian. In reality, John might have done standup comedy once or twice, with humor only a mother could love.
Bill grew up a very bright son of two alcoholic parents, abandoned to an orphanage for part of his Wisconsin childhood years. Anyone who has a similar story implicitly knows the insecurity and the weird coping mechanisms that such early experiences nurture. By the time Bill reached high school he was already a card shark, making money all weekend long for the local mafia. Spooky, when you realize that a decade later Bill held the title of first Assistant Auditor General for the state of Arizona.
Bruce became the over-achieving middle child from a high-octane, performance-driven home in the Northwest where early on he figured out that he had to live up to the family name, at all costs. Problem was, he kept coming in third, out of three siblings, in academics, sports, music, and other areas—a classic formula for custom-made masks.
Imagine the lies we told ourselves, let alone other people! Lies picked up when we’re young can stay with us for a lifetime. Our common lie was that we had to buck up, shape up, move up—and most importantly, that we had to make all this happen on our own. This is a recipe for toxic hiddenness, self-deception, and power-driven manipulation. So, at Bo’s Café, you’ll recognize a familiar face (or mask) in the main character, Steven.
Toss one more ingredient into our story, and you’ll catch a whiff of the spice that flavors Bo’s Café. Ever since we were young, each of the three of us had something nagging that said, “There’s more to me, to the reason I’ve been put on this earth, and I don’t know what it is. I know I have talents. I know I have stuff to offer. But I keep shooting myself in the foot. From the earliest time I can remember I thought I was here to do something a whole lot more significant than what it seems I’m doing right now. It just seemed life would be more fulfilling than it is right now.” We kept scratching for that “something nagging” in us, but we did so in some of the most destructive and strangest ways. So does Steven. So do a lot people we meet.
How do you find time to connect with God?
Connecting with God is a lot like connecting with our wives. It’s John & Stacey, Bill & Grace, Bruce & Janet. We love being with our brides, learning from them and discovering life with them. So we make time to connect. And, we do this imperfectly. We also live for the unplanned joys of life together. All three of us can hardly wait to get home from work each day or from the speaking trips we take. This same relational energy holds true with the sweet love of the Trinity for us. We cannot get over the fact that on our worst day, Jesus is absolutely crazy about us! He never leaves. He never goes away. He is Christ-in-us, all the time. Too amazing! Totally incredible! So, you’ll not be surprised to learn that some of our best times connecting with God are in the wood-crafting shop, in the garden, on the golf course, on our mountain running trails, at the beach, and when we’re with others.
Do you have a favorite bible verse and or quote you wish to share?
We have bundles of favorite verses, and probably our most loved book of the Bible is Romans, but here are three of our favorite verses:
John: Galatians 2.20
Bill: Colossians 2.6
Bruce: John 15.9
Who are your favorite authors? Favorite books?
John: Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning. The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis.
Bill: The Making of a Leader by Bobby Clinton. The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Bruce: A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken. The Call by Os Guinness.
Tell us about your journey to publication.
We had already typeset Bo’s Café for self-publishing when Paul Young, author of The Shack, and Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings, editors and publishers of The Shack, invited us to consider using Bo’s Café as a companion book to The Shack. We threw away the typeset manuscript and joined Windblown so that many more thousands might discover the power of living in environments of grace and relationships of trust.
Tell us about your current book, Bo’s Cafe.
Beyond our own journey’s, Bo’s Café is based on the secrecy and courage of real people with whom we co-authors have walked. One haunting question best captures the suspense behind their stories, “What if there was a place where the worst of me could be known, and I would discover in the telling of it that I would be loved more, not less?”
Steven, our main character, desperately needs an answer to this haunting question. He’s a fast-rising, 34 year old rainmaker, at a kicking-it Southern California company . . . and he’s losing it. Up to this point he’s been successful, satisfied, medicated, and isolated. In charge, in control, in command. But, when his life starts “backfiring like any old engine”, (ala www.thereviewbroads.com) Steven starts doing abnormal things to his beautiful wife, Lindsey, and everyone else within reach.
Enter loud Hawaiian-shirted, 1970 Buick Electra-driving, cigar-smoking, former-business-mogul, now-marina-boat-operator, Andy Monroe. Throw in Cynthia, Carlos, and Hank from the Marina del Rey boardwalk cafe, and the dance begins.
How did you come up with ideas for this book?
All of us long to be known . . . and we are afraid we will be. We three co-authors live in the awareness of this mysterious sensation—both a longing and a fearing to be known. Sometimes, we’ve let fear overwhelm us. This has created unwelcome drama, twisted conflicts, and tragic losses in our journeys. Conversely, listening to “the longing” has fostered intense trepidation, messy relationships, and unimaginable freedoms. Now that we’ve tasted astonishing authenticity, we’re never going back to the standard fare. Thus, Bo’s Café is more than a utopian idea. We three have been hanging out with one another and many others at our own “Bo’s Café” for over 20 years.
Jesus makes it all possible, and this is truly where Bo’s Café got its start. Most Christians don’t know that God has made us saints, who still sin, not sinners striving to become saints. This changes everything! If people knew about this treasure, churches everywhere would become safe places. Not soft places, but safe places, where we could be real, we could try out our faith, where we could fail and yet be loved, where we could get up again and walk into the dreams God planned for us before the world began. Bo’s Café is the picture of what this life is like. There is nothing like this messy freedom!
What influenced you to write this book?
We co-authored an earlier book titled TrueFaced, which helped people leave the shadowy corners of the Room of Good Intentions and stumble into an authentic Room of Grace. The most often asked question of the first 75,000 TrueFaced readers was, “Now that I’ve found this incredible Room of Grace, how do I live here?” Bo’s Café is our answer to that question. Bo’s Café is that Room of Grace.
Did you have a favorite character(s)? Who and why?
Our favorite character is Andy, because after his career crashed and he lost all hope, he learned from his friend Cynthia how to be a true man, a real man. Cynthia also taught him later how to discover when someone else in crisis finally awakens to the pain of not being able to control their lives the way they thought they could, and begins trusting someone else to speak into their lives. Our next two favorite characters are the 34 year old Steven and the 25 year old Meagan.
What’s next for you?
In the 16th century, there was a reformation of salvation by grace through faith that swept the world. Thank God! We all benefited for eternity. But, in the 21st century, people on every continent desperately need the rest of that reformation—the reformation of sanctification by grace through faith.
We can’t wait to take this revolutionary message to the next generation, 18-35 years old—with the help of many men and women in that age group, and others, who are discovering the indescribable freedom of environments of grace and relationships of trust.
Where can visitors find you online?
You can find our podcasts, blogs, stories, resources, at www.truefaced.com and www.boscafe.com. Here, you can also freely download our Bo’s Café discussion starters for your book club or small group.
Note from the authors:
As we’ve had opportunity to encourage thousands of people from all walks of life, we’ve observed that there are no together people, just those who dress better. So, as you read Bo’s Cafe, you may think of people in media, politics, sports, the professions and other disciplines. People who tried to tackle the tiger of “this longing and this fearing,” by themselves. Those who went with their fears and paid for their decision with high stakes “consequences”.
You may think of your family, your friends, your neighbors. Or you may even think of your own desire to find a safe place where the worst of you could be known and yet you would discover that you were loved more, not less. If this is you, we hope you’ll jump in the Electra and take off for Bo’s Café. The story of Steven and Lindsey Kerner and the folks at Bo’s Cafe is really not about celebrities. Bo’s Cafe could be about any of us. And, it has been about at least three of us.
Have a great ride!
John Lynch, Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol
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