Dan Brennan

In 2012, Dan celebrated his thirty-first anniversary with his wife, Sheila. He also celebrated ten years of friendship with Jennifer Ould, who is single.

In the early days of his friendship with Jennifer, Dan searched for books that addressed deep friendship between men and women. As his friendship with Jennifer grew, so did his interest in exploring what others had to say on this subject. It was a frustrating search. He wanted to move beyond the typical well-intentioned sound bites filled with fear. In this way, Dan developed an interest in exploring the range of healthy intimacy between men and women who were not married to each other and where a romantic trajectory was not an option. He simply could not find any full-length books dealing with the subject from an evangelical viewpoint.

Five years into their friendship, Dan decided to write Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions: Exploring the Mystery of Friendship Between Men & Women – a book on this very subject, explored from a contemporary evangelical perspective.

Dan spearheaded a movement that is quietly gaining momentum. In April 2012, he hosted the very first, ground-breaking Sacred Friendship Gathering. It was the first conference devoted to gather men and women together to hear each other’s stories on cross-gender friendship. Jim Henderson interviewed Dan, Jennifer, and his other close friend, Susanne Osborne.

In June of 2012 Dan and Jennifer celebrated their ten year friendship by taking a 12 day trip which included the two of them talking about their friendship before a crowd of engaged listeners at the Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina.

Dan is excited about this next Gathering which will again be held at the church that he, Sheila, Jennifer, and Susanne attend. Dan has developed a passion for seeing this special kind of love between men and women emerge in community. He believes men and women need each other. He agrees that spousal union is a significant and important union, but he goes on to declare that it is not the only union between men and women in Christ. He hopes to see others embrace a third way of love between men and women, experiencing the liberating joy and beauty of deep friendship.