chris curry's profile

I am a tarheel born and raised. I grew up travelling a lot, going back and forth to Atlanta to visit my Father, so I have a thing for airports, love the smell of jet engines and diesel fuel. Every now and then I have to leave for some distant place. I love the water. Boats, salt water, the wind, sailors, harbor towns. I left Ireland after 8 years of ministry in Dublin, bought a boat and planned to cross the Atlantic, but was cut short by a storm. The following year was one of dying to that dream and losing my boat, but it led me here. The mountains have helped me move on, and I am slowly falling in love with this place and the challenges of community vs. wandering. My church, Grace Community is home and the Young Adults ministry I'm involved with is an incredible group of people, so it's a good season. One of the things that drew me to settle here is the diversity of people mixing in this region. Asheville and Hendersonville are only twenty minutes apart but in some ways they might as well be two different countries. The sound of those two world views mixing and colliding between Hendersonville and Asheville makes this a unique place. I am drawn to it, and wonder if it has something to show us about God's vision for the the new, polarized, and often fragmented world that is emerging in the West.

Faces and portraits. Relationships. Seeing people come to life and creating places where that process can happen. Theology that brings culture, history and humanity together in a way that weak people like me find power to be ourselves. Grace and romance through literature/writing/preaching that goes after the imagination and the will. Hugo/Dostoevsky/Tolkien/Lewis/Schaeffer/Keller/Luther/Hemingway. I love most sports, mountain biking and sailing especially. Bowhunting, skiing, surf fishing. I'm interested in culture, especially Western civ, and I'm drawn to the debates concerning postmodernism and the gospel, and how it relates to France. I am fascinated by France and want to live on a boat there again someday. I'm interested in the Arab world, especially Morrocco but also other gateway countries into the Islamic world. I am generally interested in anything exploratory. Someday maybe: ski/eat/bike across Italy/cross the Sahara/play soccer at base camp Everest/mountain bike Moab/fish and sail the Carribean/circumnavigate.