Joe Manafo

RIP

“…may angels lead you in.” Jimmy Eat World

Understanding The Dream

When “X” was started it was with an innocent passion to see people discover Jesus again for the very first time. Whether a new person to the faith or an over-churched person wanting rest and a place to become.

The Dream

To have a safe place where people can, in their own time and way, explore a biblical faith.
To connect with a community of accepting people who will love them all the way through the journey towards maturity.

To have a place where broken people can heal and, in their healing, discover a new purpose for life.
To celebrate recovery, not endure it.
To discover that suffering can be a place of growth and powerful transformation.

For people who have found health, to move beyond this and engage in serving and capture a sense of their own significance through walking with others towards a Christ-centered faith.

To have a community of people recklessly invested in touching the next generation with God’s love; where children are valued, and Jr. High students can be loved through their formative questions of adolescence.

Where Sr. High students are related to in a way that connects them with their calling and destiny in God.
A place where college students and young adults could ask the hard questions of faith and not be villanized for being “Out of step” with the convention.
A faith community that engages the culture and relates well to the challenges of a post-modern world.
Where people can be real and accepted all at the same time.

A place where being real and alive is valued above proper and appropriate.
Where a messy spirituality is more than just ok but seen as really authentic.
A place to

“G E T R E A L.”

Where the arts are celebrated for what they are and not simply used as propaganda.
Where art, in it’s highest form, can be appreciated, loved and integrated with a Christian world view.

A place where people can dance, sing, paint, sculpt, draw, sketch, author, compose, decorate, write, act, create, innovate and share who they are through their expression of God in their heart. Without the tyranny of the critic and cynic whining in their ear.

A place where jazz, classical, contemporary, rock and even country can be heard.
Where modern dance, ballet, jazz and liturgical expressions can be seen and enjoyed.

A place where artists gather….
Where poets read echoes of the heart, dancers can fly, singers can move air to our ears, and artists can paint their inner most secrets for casual folk to see.

“X”:
More a journey than a location.
More about people and love than problems and rules.
More about passion and real than ought to’s and bi-laws
More about faith and fun than figures and facts
More relationship than religion.

Filed by Joe at June 23rd, 2007 under soundtrack of life