WELCOME!
I'm Rick Barger, a retired pastor, author and nonprofit founder. For more than thirty years my work has centered on spiritual formation, congregational vitality and leadership, and on one question that is likely a question you carry too: what does it actually look like to live as though the empty tomb is true?
This is where I work at that in the open. Writing on the re-storied life, resources for congregations and their leaders, and the story of a long friendship with Haiti. All of it points toward the same thing: a life lived joyfully, hopefully and thankfully.
Stay as long as you like. The table has been set, and there is room at it.
— Rick Barger
Isaiah’s prophetic vision has become a guiding north star.
The prophet Isaiah says, “On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of rich foods, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud over all peoples…”
Isaiah 25: 6–9
Prophet Isaiah’s words carry weight, not just for individuals, but for all of humanity. They’re a vision of what happens when the promises of God become our everyday reality. Our participation in God’s world is not that of passivity, but of active engagement – much like being at the table of a rich meal, knowing that our good God has come to dwell with all God’s people. More than an invitation to a feast, God’s invitation is to work for justice, peace and flourishing of all creation.
The mission of this website is simple: to help people, congregations and their leaders live joyfully, hopefully and thankfully, equipped with a new spirit that comes when one re-stories their life in light of Jesus’ empty tomb.
Human beings were created to flourish – not in the shallow sense of constant happiness or success, but in the deeper sense of becoming fully alive; grounded in love, marked by hope, awakened to grace, free to live honestly and courageously in a wounded world.
If you’re aching for a joyful, hopeful and thankful existence, a re-storied life is the path to flourishing, not just for you, but for the sake of the world.