For this year’s Giving Tuesday, we’re celebrating the amazing people that make up our Rabbit Room membership. In this post, you’ll learn the stories of a few of those members—Jud Neer, Joe Thomas, Kori Morgan, Rachel Donahue, Melanie Waldman, and several more. Plus, if you’re interested in joining the membership and would like to make as big an impact as possible, we have a special opportunity for you today only. Read on to learn more.
Special Giving Tuesday Opportunity
Thanks to a generous donor, when you sign up to become a Rabbit Room member today, your entire first year of membership donations will be doubled in advance. That means that your initial monthly $25 donation will have a $325 impact, or a $600 impact for a yearly donation. This will be for up to 132 new members, for a total potential of $40k matched!
If you’d like to learn more about what membership means to the Rabbit Room, you can read about it here.
If you’d like to join us in stewarding this work and community, on a day when your gift will have a huge impact, sign up to become a member today at RabbitRoom.com/member.
We’re beyond grateful for these people who resonate with the Rabbit Room’s mission and have taken up the walk with us. Thank you for being with us in membership!
Video: Meet our Members
Kori
“I’m Kori Frazier Morgan and I first learned about the Rabbit Room from being a part of The Habit with Jonathan Rogers. During his classes throughout 2020, I saw firsthand the fellowship and encouragement that mark Rabbit Room members. After having an amazing experience at Hutchmoot, I quickly decided to join.
I think membership is about learning how our art intersects with our faith and understanding that relationship better. Everyone seeks not only the good of each other’s creativity, but the good of them as people. Because I found the Rabbit Room during the pandemic, this community has been instrumental in helping me see what it means to be a writer at this unusual point in time
Also, my favorite author is Flannery O’Connor. The photo above was taken last summer, when I had the chance to visit her home in Milledgeville, Georgia, and of course, meet the peacocks.”
Joe
“Hi! I am Joe and I am originally from India and now reside in the beautiful city of Allen, TX.
As someone from a country with such limited Christian resources, I truly enjoy this immersive experience that the Rabbit Room has created through art, books, music, concerts, Hutchmoot, and so on that is grounded in Christian perspective.
I am still trying to find my own art, but I really wish there was a Rabbit Room-like community in every country on earth so Godly men and women could nurture their arts and crafts and grow in maturity for Christ’s calling in our earthly journey.”
Melanie
“I’ve heard Pete and Andrew repeatedly mention the idea that beauty ‘pushes back the darkness.’ I didn’t really understand it at first, and I even fought with myself about it because I thought there were so many other ways I could serve or give. But I think I am finally getting it. As believers, we can and should bring light to the far reaches of the world—and as artists, we are called to push back the darkness through our art.”
Hannah
“Hi! I am Hannah, and I am a part of the Rabbit Room Membership. I am a born-and-raised Georgian living about an hour south of Atlanta. A proud nerd, I spent the early part of the pandemic learning to do cool tricks with my lightsaber. This picture of me, wild with joy at meeting BB8, encapsulates my nerdiness perfectly.
I was introduced to the Rabbit Room by a friend during one of the most difficult seasons of my life. She played Andrew Peterson’s ‘The Rain Keeps Falling,’ and I knew I had to learn more. The Rabbit Room’s books, music, podcasts, blogs, and Hutchmoot session recordings saw me through that difficult season of my life. I became a Rabbit Room Member because I wanted to give back to the community whose content had done so much for me. The Rabbit Room community is a haven for so many people, and being a member means that I get to be a part of the welcome that was offered to me so many years ago.”
Rachel
“Lately I’ve been introducing my teen son to the delights and peculiarities of Dr. Who, so when the call went out for testimonials of what Rabbit Room membership means to us, the first words that sprang to mind were, ‘It’s bigger on the inside.’ However, I had to quickly abandon that train of thought. It’s not at all an accurate representation of the Rabbit Room community. But then I had to ask myself—why?
The answer lies in a concept that Mick and I encountered in cross-cultural training years ago—the idea of bounded sets vs. centered sets.
A bounded set is a group that is defined by common traits. Things (or people) that share those common traits are inside the circle, while things (or people) that do not share those traits are outside the circle. The group is defined by the boundary of the circle.
A centered set, however, is a group that is centered on a common focal point, and the group is defined by movement toward that center from a variety of other position points on the map.
To say ‘it’s bigger on the inside’ would imply that there is both an inside and an outside and that there is some boundary that can be crossed to go from being an ‘outsider’ to an ‘insider.’ It’s bounded-set thinking. But the Rabbit Room community doesn’t function that way. The Rabbit Room is a centered set, and the focus is namely this: ‘The Rabbit Room cultivates and curates stories, music, and art to nourish Christ-centered communities for the life of the world.’
Because the center of the Rabbit Room is Jesus, creativity, and community, there is no inside or outside to membership. There are simply people who have been here a while, people who have been here even longer, and lonely travelers who have just stumbled upon a jovial caravan that’s headed their direction. Membership is not stepping over a boundary from ‘outside’ to ‘inside’—membership is, rather, a linking of arms and falling in step with people who are moving the same direction.
If you’re new to the Rabbit Room, just hang around a while. Listen, read, and get a taste of the goodness that is to be found here. The words and music and art and community will shape you in wonderful ways. But don’t think for a second that being new excuses you from getting involved. Be ready for someone to hand you a broom—or a ladle—or a pen—because the work that’s going on here is yours, too.
If you’re going our way, link arms and fall in step with us. Someone just might break out into song.”
