Introductions

Wow! So let me just take a second to gush about the fact that we have a blog - Woo hoooo!! Our rag tag little group of friends is suddenly getting serious... serious enough to start writing thoughts that could be read by potentially the whole world. Frightening, really.
I have this terrible fear, however, of writing anything significant considering that later on I am bound to find said writing naive and flawed. Therefore I'm going to cheat for this first post and instead of answering that looming question about the church, I will introduce our group to the world (although I suspect that this readership may be limited to my mother).

Some background: We consider ourselves somewhere between a bible study and a church - more of a community, really, struggling together to find out who God is and how we fit into His plan. We have agreed that Christ called us into deep relationship as a primary part of His Kingdom work, and so we meet together to have meals and share our lives. We are admittedly young and idealistic, probably overly optimistic about some things and flatly wrong about others, but that's all part of the journey and the hope is that as we admit errors and mend theologies and change ideals we will remain family. So here we are -

Ariana- the practical and competent recently engaged (ya!) big sister figure of our group. She attempts to keep our unruly guys in line (emphasis on attempts). Ariana is a loyal friend and sensible thinker, always fun and outgoing. She adds the warmth necessary to keep us feeling like a family.

Jen is Ariana's lil sister who recently moved here from Oregon and has quickly become a part of the group. She possesses the organizational skills many of us lack ( props to you for the blog!). We also thoroughly enjoy the insights - Jen is not one to let us get away with sloppy theology.

Justin acts as the pondering element to our group, often sitting for an entire meeting without saying a single word, only to shock us all at the end with a detailed monologue about all of the intricacies and subtleties of the topics discussed. He can be compared to the Uh-Huh character in the movie Little Rascals. He also serves the important function of making us examine boundaries, as his bizarre T-Shirts often teeter in between hilarious and downright scandalous.

Tim is our groups manly man - the hunting, fishing, meatatarian type. He pretends to be a simpleton but has taught us all a lesson in forgiveness and humility. We also admire his gentleness and patience in all his dealings with his two lovely daughters, Isabelle and Lexi.

Alex is the deep thinker/mystic/poet of our group. His grasp of scripture and ability to articulate difficult topics adds a great deal, as well is his consistent wisdom in skillfully handling relationships with humility and understanding.

Emilie is a fairly recent joiner and still I think somewhat confused by our ramblings. She lends that all important traditional conservative edge to our discussions and has a lovely sweet quality which I admire greatly.

Jese is my husband and so I'll try hard not to be too syrupy in my description. I will say that he is a visionary, passionate, articulate and charismatic personality. He has a passion for theology and a fearlessness about pursing his ideals. His is always thinking forward, and keeps us from stagnation and lollygagging.

Lori and Jason drop in now and then to lend their inordinate wisdom and experience to us young bucks. We greatly appreciate their perspectives and brilliant ideas, as well as their adorable newborn Zoralee.

Well that's a brief look at who we are ( from my perspective). So that ends this first blog... until next time
-Nikki