We are interested in creating opporunities for becoming more like Jesus through our relationships -- with God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), with others, and with those who are in need.
Saints and sinners. Transgressors and offenders. The broken, sundered, bankrupt, and violated. The ruined and crushed. The incomplete and discontinuous. The forgotten and ignored. The defeated and stuttering scamps. Believers, disciples, and seekers. The unconventional and unclassified. The "least of these" that Jesus spoke about, and knew, and loved, and touched.
Derek Webb, U2, Bruce Springsteen, Twila Paris, Rich Mullins, Bruce Cockburn, Pedro the Lion, Caedmon's Call, Warren Zevon, Jackson Browne, Over the Rhine, Joseph Arthur, Peter Himmelman, Bob Dylan, The Sad Accordions, Buddy Miller, Brian Houston, Johnny Cash, Sufjan Stevens, Gram Parsons, The Beatles, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Vic Chesnutt, The Kinks, M. Ward, The Hold Steady, and that's just what's in the stereo this week.
Dead Man Walking, Magnolia, Garden State, 13 Conversations About One Thing, The Shawshank Redemption, Places In The Heart, It's A Wonderful Life, Little Miss Sunshine, Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, High Fidelity, Almost Famous, and those are just the ones we agree on.
The Bible is a major favorite, a true and living Word. Favorite authors include: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, Malcom Muggeridge, William Willimon, Stanley Hauerwas, Jim Wallis, Richard Foster, N.T. Wright, Robert Webber, G.K. Chesterton, Donald Miller, Henri Nouwen, Anne Lamott, Fyodor Dostoevsky, David James Duncan, John Howard Yoder, Flannery O'Connor, Marilynne Robinson, Walker Percy, Thomas Merton, Steve Stockman, David Dark, Brennan Manning, Dorothy Day, Leo Tolstoy, Lesslie Newbigen, Andre Dubus, Rob Bell, Blaise Pascal, and Wendell Berry.
Jesus and those who follow him...the original 12, Mary, Martha, Mary, Paul, Barnabas, Timothy, Stephen, the heroes of faith from Hebrews 11 (including Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua and more), many of the artists and writers listed above as well as Theresa of Avila, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, John Paul II, Soren Kierkegaard, Mother Theresa, and hordes of others that we have stood on the shoulders of and seen Jesus in.