WHO WE ARE
MARK
A motivational speaker, Mark became a C5 quadriplegic in a lifeguarding accident when he was 24. As an avid outdoorsman (before and since his paralysis) Mark innovates to remain engaged with nature in his beloved Ozarks: on trails, in hunting stands, and on the water with a fishing pole. He founded Ozark Wheelchair Adventures to provide immersive outdoor experiences for people in wheelchairs. Mark has also serves on numerous boards for hospitals and disability empowerment nonprofits. He’s endlessly inspired by Joseph (Genesis 37, 39–45) who did not stop moving forward in his calling, no matter what had been taken from him and regardless of how long he waited. Mark’s message: you can keep going with what you have, where you are. God’s not holding out on you.
Mark has shared his story of living with a spinal cord injury throughout the CoxHealth and Mercy hospital systems and in high schools, universities, and churches in Missouri and Wisconsin. He has released two autobiographical videos shot in two of his favorite places to be on the water: the many lakes of the Ozarks and in Green Bay and Lake Michigan off the coasts of Door County, Wisconsin.
RENéE
Renée is a writer, minister, and theology professor who believes in a theology of tension—a worldview where truth is found in the opposites which make up our existence: humanity and divinity, able-bodied and disabled, awaiting a heavenly kingdom that’s already arrived but not yet fully here. Grown in Montana, educated in Missouri, and having ministered in Eastern Europe, Renée knows God brought her back to the Ozarks to meet Mark, to study much, to write more, and to explore disability and ability from the perspective of holy tension. She and Mark fell in love over their shared understanding of this both-and theology, their unstinting devotion to Jesus, and their mutual love of nature. If she’s not holed up writing, she’s probably on a trail or lake somewhere with Mark.
Her master’s thesis outlined a framework for a “theology of tension,” modeled after the Christian understanding of the Jesus: He’s fully human and fully divine, understood only by embracing the mystery that these natures are held together in one Person through a holy tension. This was the best way people could express it at a church council in 451 AD, and no one has figured it out yet. That’s because some truths just are: they’re messy and contradictory and true, just like life. She believes it’s humanity’s task to embrace the space between what we know and how we live. Her writings have appeared in WorldView magazine, Influence magazine online, the International Journal of Pentecostal Missiology, and Thrive Conference devotionals.
No one falls neatly into the man-made categories of “able” and “disabled.” Each of us are somewhere in the middle. And everyone who’s “able” is truly only temporarily able-bodied. So what do you live for? The seasons of ability, or something greater? We invite you to step into a larger life: one that embraces every season, every inconsistency. Live with greater purpose.
Renée Grantham
