The LifeSpace conversation rests on particular beliefs about who God is, why we were created and how we can love God and others well. This page provides a brief introduction to the concepts. You can learn more by reading the book (buy at www.amazon.com) or participating in learning sessions facilitated by Joni and Bob.

Nothing about God is small or limiting. God makes space for an ever-expanding sphere of unbounded delight. Our gaze lifts up and out into the fullness of God's perfections. We begin to breathe.

Being human is the highest calling in the created world, not a problem to be overcome. God created humanity to uniquely reflect the person of God and to enjoy God. To be fully human is our greatest hope. Tragically we abandon the divine purpose as we settle for self-absorbed navel-gazing.

Our chasing of lesser loves leaves us bereft and bankrupt. Jesus Christ offers the way back to God from the far places we wander. He straddles the human and the divine, the now and later, the here and there: he is both life and the way to life. In God's incarnation, we celebrate our embodied, earthly existence while leaning on the promise of eternal life.

There is more to this life than we will ever know. More room for growth. More space to be. More God to love. Transformation means living beyond yourself through a metamorphosis of being. The work of God's Spirit begins now and never ceases. Every breath we take comes as a gift.

Do you concede life in its excellent enlargedness to a trifling existence? Does the love of self act like a drain, dragging you and everyone around you down? Living right-side up, focused on loving God and others well, transforms the drain into a fountain: a refreshing, cool bath of living water.

Joy is both a gift and a discipline. The Spirit moves in mysterious, subtle ripples over the surface of reality. Are you watching? Are your eyes, ears, nose, skin, tongue - every molecule of your being - poised to respond to the display of God's splendor?

You cannot opt out of community with other human beings. Voices call us out of our navel-gazing and into relationship. Growth happens in messy, inelegant, lurching ways as we fling ourselves upon the people around us. Loving well means showing up and takes lollygagging to a high art form.

God bestows the grace of undeserved, unmerited favor upon humanity. Love is God's only motive. We act as conduits of that love, creating space for people to belong as they become. Grace flows through us and changes us as it moves out from us and into the lives of others. The fractures and fissures of life are where gracious love makes its home.

The gift of grace often comes wrapped as forgiveness. A new beginning dawns out of the carnage of human relationships. Being the "forgiven" humbles us as we acknowledge the need for another's favor. Forgiveness remains a gift from the Spirit of God. We learn it in fits and starts. Transformation happens as we come to love restoration above all else.

My life is at God's disposal...with gladness. We are fools for love as we lay down our lives for God's love of others. Following Jesus Christ, we give ourselves away, five minutes at a time, one commitment at a time, for the rest of our lives. Blood, sweat and tears pave the way. Joy beyond measure is the reward.

We stand in this present world as a peculiar people of hope in the midst of despair. We have one foot on earth and one in heaven. Our delight will necessarily be interwoven with yearning. We lean into possibility, believing that transformation happens, that circumstances change and that love prevails. We breath deeply as life moves from shades of grey to the colors of the rainbow.