Last Saturday started normal and went sideways around lunchtime.. which is about par for the course around here.

Levi had been readin’ his Bible a lot lately. And let me just say, I’m proud of that. It’s a beautiful thing when a young boy starts askin’ eternal questions. But when Levi gets real quiet and real focused, it either means he’s bein’ led by the Spirit… or he’s lookin’ for a loophole.

This time, it was a little of both.

Brenda had been talkin’ to him all week about salvation and about what it means to really follow Jesus. He’d been soakin’ it up like a dry sponge. But Levi ain’t exactly the wait and ask questions type.

I was out back changin’ the oil in the mower when Bobbi Jo comes tearin’ through the yard like the house is on fire, hollerin’, “Daddy! Levi went full John the Baptist down in the creek!”

I didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t sound like something I oughta ignore.

I slipped my boots halfway on and jogged down toward the creek, Blue barkin’ the whole way like revival broke out without him. Sure enough, there’s Levi, standin’ knee-deep in the coldest water in Georgia, arms raised, lookin’ like he’s about to call down thunder.

He sees me and grins big. “Daddy, I did it! I baptized myself!”

I blinked a few times. “You what now?”

“I prayed, and repented.. then I dunked myself three times. Once of the Father, once for the Son, and once for the Holy Spirit!”

I stood there, mostly tryin’ to figure out if I should be proud or concerned. “Son,” I said, “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but baptism ain’t a solo sport.”

He thought for a second and said, “Well, Bobbi Jo was watchin’.”

I said, “Bobbi Jo also once told us her stuffed rabbit could see angels and cried for an hour when the vacuum ate her sock. We’re not usin’ her as a witness.”

Right about then, Brenda came walkin’ down the trail.. She had that Sunday school teacher tone.

“Levi Emmett Jackson, you’re not allowed to perform your own ordinances.”

“But Mama, I meant it!”

And you know what? I believe he did. But we got him dried off and drove straight over to Pastor Bo’s. Told him the whole story. Pastor Bo laughed so hard he had to sit down, then looked at Levi and said, “Well son, seems like the Lord’s workin’ on you. But let’s do it the right way next time, with the church, and preferably with warm water.”

Levi nodded. Then asked if he could still count the creek one, just in case.

Deciphering Emmett

Levi baptized himself in the creek, and Scripture never shows a believer doing such a thing. The ordinance is always administered by another, because the Lord placed baptism in the hands of His church.

In Matthew 28, Christ commissioned His disciples to make disciples and baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The assignment was given to the church, and from Pentecost forward, baptism has been carried out that way.

Levi’s heart was in the right place, but sincerity doesn’t give a believer authority over an ordinance Christ defined. The structure belongs to the One who instituted it, and the administering belongs to the people He commissioned.

Baptism also says something to those who see it. The believer confesses Christ before the watching church, and the church receives that confession and rejoices in it. Romans 6 teaches that the water represents a finished work and union with Christ in His death and resurrection. The old man is buried, and the new man is raised. That’s meant to be displayed before the church, not performed alone.

Writing has always been part of my life in some form or fashion. I’ve always enjoyed the process of writing, but never really fiction. Most of what I’ve written over the years has been tied to my work in radio. As I got into ministry, more of my writing shifted toward sermon preparation, but nothing in me ever really thought about creating fictional people who lived in a fictional world.

Until a few years ago.

A few years back, the ministry I work for, Fortis Institute, was getting ready for a rebrand. As part of that, we talked through a lot of new content ideas, and one idea that kept coming to me was from something I remembered from my previous radio job.

It was a daily radio feature called Earl Pitts: Uhmerikun. If you’ve lived in the South or listened to country radio, you might be familiar with it. Earl Pitts was created and voiced by Gary Burbank, and it was a bit about this fictional character who would talk about politics or whatever he wanted, really. It was comedy built around a conservative worldview.

The idea I kept coming back to was a character-based daily feature, but instead of focusing on politics, it would focus on theology. I wondered what it would look (or sound) like to have a character talk about theological truth in a plain, ordinary way that everyday people could understand.

I thought the idea had potential, so I wrote out the concept and put together a few sample scripts. Then I sat down to record them, and that’s where my problems started.

I have a decent enough radio voice, but character voicing is a different animal altogether. I figured that out pretty quick. No matter how many times I tried, every version sounded forced. I knew the writing had something to it, but the delivery just wasn’t working. It sounded like me trying to be somebody else, and not in a good way. Eventually, I gave up on it and moved on.

About a year later, I was digging around on my home computer looking for some tax documents for my wife, and I came across those old scripts. I opened them up mostly out of curiosity, and as soon as I started reading, it hit me. This wasn’t a daily radio feature. It was an entire world.

That afternoon, I sat down and started trying to figure out who this man was, and that’s where Emmett Jackson was born. His wife, Brenda, came with him. So did their children, Levi and Bobbi Jo, and their blue tick hound, Blue.

Over the next few weeks, the pieces started falling into place. I know there’s a lot of language writers use for that sort of thing, like character development and worldbuilding, but I don’t really understand much of that. All I know is telling stories through the voice of Emmett Jackson comes easy to me.

So who is Emmett Jackson?

Well, the basic idea is that Emmett is a man living with his family in a fictional Southern town, and he tells stories from his own life. They’re normal stories about his job, family, church, marriage, and the kind of situations all of us find ourselves in sooner or later. Some of them are funny, and some of them are a little uncomfortable. Most of them are the kind of things we would probably recognize in our own lives.

But under all of the stories is theology.

Emmett’s not focused on the theology, which is part of the point. Most of us are not walking around thinking about the theology of our lives either. But it’s there, whether we recognize it or not.

That’s the purpose behind this whole concept. I want to highlight the theology that shows up in everyday life.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love theology, but I don’t believe it’s exclusive to pastors or seminary students. But that’s what the large majority of us have been trained to believe.

That’s just not true. Theology shows up in the way we treat our wives and children. It shows up when we’re upset or disappointed, when we’re dealing with money, or when we’re confronted with our own sin. It’s everywhere.

That’s the reason behind Emmett Jackson.

The stories you’re going to read here are fictional, but the truth under them is real. My hope is that they help you see theology a little more clearly, not as something academic, but as something that’s already showing up in the life you’re living.

Well, if you’re readin’ this, I reckon somebody told ya, “You gotta meet this fella,” or you just stumbled across it lookin’ for somethin’ worth your time.

Either way, hello.. Name’s Emmett Jackson.

I ain’t famous or anything. I drive a school bus in the mornings and cut hair in the afternoons. Been livin’ in the same county my whole life, and truth be told, I don’t have much ambition to leave it. We got everything a person needs right here.. a grocery store that still sells rag bologna, a Baptist church with one good pew and two broke air vents, and folks who’ll bring you banana pudding even when you didn’t ask for it.

I’m married to Brenda. She’s a school teacher, and the smartest person I know. Got a tone in her voice that can stop a child, or a grown man dead in his tracks. She’s the glue that holds this whole thing together, even if I don’t always tell her like I should.

We got two young’uns, Levi and Bobbi Jo.

Levi’s eleven, and has the energy of a raccoon in a fireworks stand. He’s got a good heart, buried under a layer of poor decisions and pocket lint. Bobbi Jo is younger but acts older. She runs the house and knows it.

We also got a blue tick hound named Blue. Not real creative on the name, I know. But he answers to it, and that’s more than I can say for half the folks I went to high school with.

We go to that Baptist church I was talkin’ about. Our pastor, Pastor Bo, preaches the truth and sweats through every dress shirt he owns. He’s a good man, I trust him, and that’s sayin’ somethin’ these days.

I don’t have a degree in nothin’. But I’ve seen a lot. Sat through funerals, held babies, lost my temper, asked for forgiveness, and changed more mower blades than I care to count.

So if you’re goin’ to stick around, you’ll hear some stories. Some are funny, and some are dumb. But they’re mine, and they come from tryin’ to follow Jesus the best way I know how.

Pull up a chair. I’ll put the coffee on.