The First Brush Strokes

The concept of this website is mostly taken from "Velvet Elvis." Instead of trying to explain a bunch of stuff I'll just let you read some from the intro of the book. And in case you didn't know a Velvet Elvis is a painting of Elvis on velvet. You can usually buy them on the side of the road from various aspiring artists. Now for the intro:

I think the best part of my Velvet Elvis is the lower left-hand corner, where the artist simply wrote a capital R and then a period.

R.

Because when you're this good, you don't even have to write your whole name.

What if, when he was done with this masterpiece, R. had announced there was no more need for anyone to paint, because he had just painted the ultimate painting? What if R. had held a press conference, unveiled his painting, and then called on all painters everywhere to put down their brushes, insisting that since he had painting the ultimate painting, there was simply no need for any of them to continue their work?

We would say that R. has lost his mind. We say this because we instinctively understand that art has to, in some way, keep going. Keep exploring, keep arranging, keep shaping and forming and bringing in new perspectives.

For thousands of years followers of Jesus, like artists, have understood that we have to keep going, exploring what it means to live in harmony with God and each other. The Christian faith tradition is filled with change and growth and transformation. Jesus took part in the process by calling people to rethink faith and the Bible and hope and love and everything else, and by inviting them into the endless process of working out how to live as God created us to live.

The challenge for Christians then is to live with great passion and conviction, remaining open and flexible, aware that this life is not the last painting.

This is what I want to do with this website. I don't want to teach. This website isn't a website for Bible Lessons. It is a place for discussion. Instead of coming here with answers I want to come here with questions. We can discuss them, wrestle with them, and come to some sort of conclusion for ourselves. We can all add our own brush strokes to the painting. We'll "keep exploring, keep arranging, keep shaping and forming and bringing in new perspectives."