Published: June 19, 2009 09:22 am      

Award winning Filmmaker to visit Pella

Combining great story telling with wit, wisdom and comedy, author Jonathan Richard Cring has been dubbed a delightful mingling of Mark Twain, the Apostle Paul and Steven Spielberg. 

He is the winner of the Best Screenplay at the Top Ten Films in America for the movie, Bernee, and writes a daily blog at www.jonathots.com with national readership in the tens of thousands.

Spending his weekdays working from the film industry in writing and musical composition, on Fridays, Mr. Cring climbs in a car or hops a jet and heads off with his business partner, Janet Clazzy, the conductor of the Sumner Pops Orchestra and movie scorer, to tour the country, sharing a creative explosion at…churches.

That’s right.  Churches. 

“Maybe having ancient memories of my mother forcing me to go to Sunday school, I somehow feel like a bird in the wintertime, needing to return to warmer places for my fellowship and interaction,” says Cring from his headquarters and home in Hendersonville, Tennessee.  “Creative people often leave the spiritual side behind when they achieve success and abandon the church to critics instead of encouraging folks who envision life in a better way.”

The pair perform five shows a weekend of music, monologue and singing to audiences who often show up not knowing quite what to expect and always leave refreshed—as one lady put it, “feeling and looking ten years younger.”

“Energy is spiritual, and when you dare to make spiritual things practical and practical things spiritual, you settle into a state that is enough to tickle every part of you.  I learned a long time ago, if people agree with you they call it blessing and if they don’t, they say you are controversial.  So I guess I’d call what I do ‘blessiversial’—just enough of each to keep us both awake,” Mr. Cring concludes.

Appearing under the banner of Spirited, Jonathan and Janet will be in Pella at the Pella United Methodist Church 1414 University on Tuesday June 23 at 7 p.m. For more information call 641-628-8771.