Tonight is one of my favorite nights of the year in the life of our church. Tonight is Emerging Artists Night. We'll have great music, a slam poet, a short film by moi, and a special rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Chris Lindsey and Patrick Mead.
I'm excited to see how local churches continue to engage the arts in the future. It just might be one of the more important evangelism projects of the 21st century.
What makes tonight extra special? We have 32 homeless men, women, and children (our friends) living in our church building as part of a transitional program known as South Oakland Shelter. Tonight will be one of those nights where I can see, hear and feel the Way of Jesus as the best way to be human.
Please wait one moment . . .
About the Book (The Feast)
About Me
- Josh Graves
- Nashville, TN, United States
- I'm the best friend of Kara, father of Lucas, minister, author (The Feast), life-long Piston fan . . . I am the Preaching and Teaching Minister for the Otter Creek Church (Nashville) and I am working on a doctorate degree (second year) at Columbia Seminary studying the relationship of postmodernism and Christianity.
Some of Josh's Published Work (essays, books, articles, reviews)
Links
- Barbara Brown Taylor
- Brian D. McLaren
- Bronx Fellowship of Christ
- Chris Lindsey
- Columbia Seminary
- Donald Miller
- Doug Sanders
- Dry Bones--Denver
- Duke Chapel
- Focus: HOPE
- Greg Boyd
- Greg Stevenson
- Greg Taylor
- Jason Steckel
- Jesus Creed
- Jinja Mission Team
- John Mark Hicks
- John York
- Jonathan Storment
- Josh Ross
- Kara Graves (My wife and best friend)
- Kibo Group
- Larry James Urban Daily
- Lauren Winner
- Lee Camp
- Luke Norsworthy
- Mark and Lori Manry
- Mark Love (Missional Church)
- Mike Cope
- My Twitter Page
- New Wineskins Magazine
- Otter Creek Church
- Patrick Mead
- Randy Speck
- Rochester Church
- Rochester College
- Rubel Shelly
- Sean Palmer
- Stockman Family
- The One Campaign
- TOKENS (Lee Camp and the Arts)
- Wade Hodges
- Walter Surdacki
- Will Willimon
3 comments:
Sounds like a beautiful event...wish I could experience it but since I live in Texas I'm guessing I may not make it. The fact that there will be homeless folks there moves me. Not sure why, but I feel compelled to share this (must be the Holy Spirit). You may not even find this interesting but just a year ago I was toiling away at a rather gi-normous IT department for an equally gi-normous retailer as a systems analyst making way too much money and amassing way too many "things". I was moved to leave the company and become a handyman, yes, a handyman. For the past year I have done virtually every kind of repair (at a fraction of the income I use to make) mostly in very poor neighborhoods. And here is what I have discovered. I get to see Jesus more often than I ever did before. I saw him today in the form of a quickly aging black man riding a bicycle with a lawn mower in tow looking for a yard to mow to make a few bucks. I saw Jesus as a disabled young girl with a small baby in a filthy run-down house where I repaired her oven that had been out for months. I seldom if ever saw Jesus in my old line of work. I praise God daily now that he allows me such tangible inteaction with the "least of these". Excuse the lengthy post.
Josh, keep up the compassionate work!
Nawww, Chris and I aren't on the program. He never came in to practice and you -- whose idea this was to begin with if I remember correctly -- backed out! I'll just sit back and enjoy this one...
It was a great evening.
barecycles . . . you wrote, "I get to see Jesus more often than I ever did before." That's the secret of life in the margins. You see God in ways you don't in other places.
great thoughts. JG
Post a Comment