Press release:
Montreat College will host its annual “Crossroads: Faith and Culture Project” on October 26-30. The week-long event will feature a wide spectrum of cultural events. This year’s speakers include Ken Heffner, director of Calvin College’s popular Festival of Faith and Music, and John J. Thompson, author of Jesus, Bread, and Chocolate: Crafting a Handmade Faith in a Mass-Market World. This year’s Crossroads performers include popular Asheville-based indie rock band Floating Action and local synth-pop act The Jellyrox. The full Crossroads schedule is available at www.montreat.edu/crossroads.
Crossroads: The Faith and Culture Project was designed by Montreat College to help students and the local community develop their ability to experience, engage, and learn from culture within the context of a Christ-centered worldview. The college acknowledges the centrality of the arts to the human experience, as both an expression of the human condition and a revelation of God’s character, and believes that the experience of the arts collectively–music, film, literature, theatre, and visual art–is an essential part of a full Christian life and education.
The year’s keynote speaker Ken Heffner is the Director of Student Activities at Calvin College and is the Director of Calvin’s popular Festival of Faith and Music, which has featured acts such as Sufjan Stevens, Emmylou Harris, Dave Matthews, Neko Case, Gungor, Andrew Bird, The Civil Wars, and tUnE-yArDs, as well as speakers Cornel West, Chuck Klosterman, Makoto Fujimura, Daniel White Hodge, Lauren Winner, James Mumford, and David Dark.
Featured speaker John J. Thompson is a 25-year music industry veteran, author, songwriter, artist, producer, and teacher who currently serves as Creative Director at Capitol CMG Publishing and leads a small ministry out of his Nashville home. His abiding passions for authentic, spiritually alive art, transformative community, innovative business practices, artisanal living, and home-roasted coffee are explored in his book Jesus, Bread, and Chocolate: Crafting a Hand Made Faith in a Mass Market World (Zondervan/Harper Collins, 2015).
Floating Action is one of Asheville, North Carolina’s most popular and critically-acclaimed bands, having shared the stage with acts like Band of Horses and My Morning Jacket. In addition to his work with Floating Action, lead singer and songwriter Seth Kauffman (an alumnus of Montreat College) has recorded with popular acts such as Lana Del Rey, The Black Keys, and Ray LaMontagne. Floating Action’s latest album is Body Questions (New West, 2014).
Hailing from the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina, The Jellyrox is a one man synth-pop act fronted by producer/songwriter Matt Langston, former lead singer of pop-punk band Eleventyseven and current music business professor at Montreat College.
The full Crossroads schedule of events is available at www.montreat.edu/crossroads. All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.
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