POSITION:
Senior Associate Pastor, charged with making disciples for Jesus Christ through Christian formation--encouraging life transformations through the work of the Holy Spirit as one receives and shares this wonderful thing called GRACE with other ragamuffins!

THEOLOGICAL VIEW:
Radical Centrist in the United Methodist Church!

CONTACT INFORMATION:

 Email:    jhalstead@westendumc.org

ragamuffinjulie@gmail.com

Phone:  615-983-8836

Address:
2200 West End Avenue
Nashville, TN 37203

PERSONAL INFORMATION 

Birthday:  October 20th

Favorite Activities:
Teaching, prodding, pulling people into closer relationship, from head to heart to hands, with Jesus Christ!

Interests:
Reading, traveling, listening to great music, theater, movies, puns and humor

Favorite Food:
Tex-Mex, rice and chicken dishes, a good medium-rare cut of steak, soups, home baked breads
….and M & Ms!

Favorite Music:
Very eclectic, from folk, bluegrass, easy rock, theologically sound Christian, western swing, parrothead to classical! Inotherwords, from Ryman to the Sanctuary to the Schermerhorn!

Favorite TV Shows:
Boston Legal and Law & Order:Criminal Intent

Favorite Movies:
It's A Wonderful Life, Harvey, Chocolat, The Milagro Beanfield War, The Narnia Chronicles, P.S. I Love You...way too many to list, and the eclectic list gets longer all the time!

Favorite Books:
You should see my library....anything by Brennan Manning, Fredrick Buechner, Anne Lamott, C.S. Lewis...and just like the rest of my life, very eclectic!

Favorite Scriptures:
John 3:17 ~Indeed God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Romans 8:38-39 ~ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Favorite Quotations:
I love everybody....And YOU'RE next!

From The Simpsons ...
Homer: "Wait, before you kill me, I have one question ... Is there one true religion?"
Crusty (from the afterlife): "It's a combination of Voodoo ... and Methodist."

LIFE....Changes EVERYTHING!

I'm cuter and thinner than I look.

Sometimes life is like an hour glass glued to a table.~young friend Adam Philley

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where anything is possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer..-President-elect Barack Obama.

This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed non-conformists. The saving of our world from pending doom will come not from the actions of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a dedicated minority.--MLK Jr.

Build a man a fire, and you'll keep him warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and you'll keep him warm for the rest of his life!

I only ask of God
He won't let me be indifferent to the suffering.
That the very dried up death doesn't find me empty
and without having given my everything.
~author unknown, but known in my heart...

Education:

• Oakton High School, Vienna, VA '73

• WVU, Morgantown, WV '76, BS Journalism
• Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX '95, M. Divinity, cum laude