Daune grew up among a family of entrepreneurs, artists, and gatherers in North Carolina. She owned her first business when she was six and created pen and ink drawings of the beach each day after school, and then went door-to-door selling them. Morning walks in the garden, markets, coffee, fresh flowers, books, a beautifully set table, delicious food, faith, family, travel, adventure, great company….these are a few of her favorite things.

Daune and her husband, Keith, are former professional ballet dancers. After spending many years performing professionally in companies nationwide she and Keith have found themselves nestled in a cottage in Eastern NC, where they love to gather people, dream, and launch adventures. After homeschooling their three children, they are new empty nesters.

She believes our homes are our most powerful place of ministry, and with a passion for home, gathering, creativity, and travel, Daune launched The Cottage Table Experience and hosts long table gatherings, live workshops on creative home + hospitality + gathering, and creative retreats abroad and in the U.S. While being very content with where she is, she is homesick for places she has never been, and believes wholeheartedly that we should seize the common occasions and make them great!

Christine Willard is a wife, mother, home educator, theologian, writer and teacher. The most important things in her life are faith and family. Christine’s faith inspired her to study theology in seminary, where she earned a master’s degree. Studying, biblical languages, she wrote, “A Theology of Womanhood” for her thesis. It was during her final year in seminary that she met her husband, Tim. He wasn’t in seminary. His band played at the cafe on campus. What can we say, she likes ‘em wild.

Chris’s family daily inspires her to learn and love. She shares a passion for writing along with her husband . You can explore her work at Club31Women, and her new Substack newsletter, Mend, where she sends weekly devotionals. Christine writes when she can, but her main focus rests on home-educating her daughters: Lyric, Brielle, and Zion. She also teaches writing for the local Classical Conversations co-op and loves how the mystery of faith can be expressed through the gift of writing.

Chris’s favorite experience as a family was the two years they spent living in Oxford, England while Tim researched for his PhD. It was a time of inspiration and growth—a time when God shifted their idea of what it looked like to live in this chaotic world of ours and showed them the joy of chasing beauty.

Christine lives with her family in Waxhaw, North Carolina with some woods and a melodramatic Goldendoodle named Cash. Most days you will find her escaping to the forest trail behind their house or to the front porch to read.

Timothy Willard is a writer, theologian, artist, creative consultant, and independent scholar. He has authored four books, including the critically acclaimed Veneer: Living Deeply in a Surface Society. His new book, The Beauty Chasers (Zondervan Reflective) released in 2022. 

With a passion to disciple the minds of the emerging generation in faith and culture and for helping people live like beauty matters, Timothy moved his family to Oxford, England, for two years, where he earned his Ph.D. at King’s College London and studied beauty in the works of C.S. Lewis under the supervision of Alister McGrath. 

Millions have read Timothy’s inspirational writing, which has been featured in Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, Patheos, Acculturated, The Huffington Post, FaithIt, Duke Divinity’s Faith & Leadership, Q Media: Essays, Catalyst Magazine, Outreach Magazine, Relevant Magazine, and The Edges Collective. 

Timothy has been a featured speaker at Q Ideas, Catalyst Conference, Allume Conference, OCCA, The Oxford Center for Christian Apologetics, and various churches, including Carmel Baptist in Charlotte, North Carolina, Embrace Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and St. Aldates Church: Oxford, England.

As a creative consultant and publishing collaborator (ghostwriter), Timothy has worked on thirty books with clients ranging from Chick-fil-A, Q Ideas, International Mission Board, Hobby Lobby, and Coca-Cola Consolidated to NYT bestselling authors, multi-platinum Grammy Award-winning artists, former NFL MVPs, to writers, pastors, home educators, and entrepreneurs. 

He lives in North Carolina with his wife and three daughters.Description goes here