My hunger for meaning and connection eventually led me to what ended up being the better part of a decade immersed in Christian community in various contexts around the world. As I plumbed the depths of what, to me as an American, were previously undiscovered magnitudes of the power of Christian community, I became so enamored with the high regard for hospitality and community in the Global South and East, that I ended up marrying into that context. My wife and I then spent the next decade cultivating that forgotten art of hospitality at the farm and retreat center we managed.

However, it was over the course of that decade that I awakened to the widespread trauma and brokenness in both myself and the world—including those closest to me. And those afflictions were only compounded by institutions and individuals characterized by postures of criticism, condemnation, and alienation. To complicate matters even further, it was growing increasingly difficult for me to reconcile my understanding of Jesus and the first century synagogues and churches with the expression of the modern Western Church and culture. It was thus that I was thrust into the fires of internal and external chaos.

But it was that season of chaos that led me into a desert wilderness of prayerful discovery that I initially thought might last a few months. However, those few months became a full-time three year sabbatical in which I felt like Jacob on the wrestling mats with God. But it was on those mats that I was introduced to God's heart on what I can only describe as an infinitely deeper level. Much like Solomon, I was sobered with the realization that so much of my life had simply been a vain exercise in chasing after the wind. It dawned on me, too, that Jesus invited his disciples as well as the Apostle Paul on their own three year journeys with him on the wrestling mats of the unknown. And much like them, I found my courage and confidence not in the cultivation of my own knowledge or insights or spirituality—but in the Spirit's filling of my weak and empty body completely spent on the mats of spiritual wrestling.

Needless to say, those three years of prayerful discovery revolutionized my life. But they also instilled in me a great burden to see the ancient Eastern cultural values reignited here in the West—especially in consideration of the historical context of Jesus’ Eastern life and ministry in the first century.

But it wasn't just a matter of transforming my values. My identity had to be transformed. I eventually experienced healing through a path and on a scale that I previously had no framework for considering, much less comprehending.

I now have a passion for guiding others through the same providential and often painfully hard-fought victories and discoveries I made over the course of not just those three years, but over the course of a lifetime. I am thrilled to be able to offer the synthesis and distillation of every relationship, book, podcast, course, culture, sabbatical (rest), triumph, failure, pain, trauma, revelation, and mercy I’ve ever experienced as a bridge to reconnecting to God and to one another through the forgotten paradigms of the Beth Ab and the rabbi-talmid (disciple) relationship—and most importantly—to provide a platform for others to do the same.

Now, like Paul, "I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me..." (Acts 20:24). And my prayer is that each and every person I serve will be an even greater catalyst than myself for the kind of hope, healing, and community that this world so desperately needs.

Because of Jesus—with you and for you,

Aaron Little

M.Div., Columbia International University
B.A., Samford University
Credentialed, Ignite Discipleship Network
Alumnus of L'Abri Switzerland & Perspectives USA