In Let Your Life Speak, author Parker Palmer discusses the need for us to find our true vocation or selfhood in which we will then find our path to authentic service in the world. He goes on to say that "true vocation joins self and service" and shares Frederick Buechner's definition of vocation as "the place where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need." Through this text, Palmer reminds us that there is no selfhood outside of relationship and that it is up to us to discover the community of our lives. Thus we are all a part of the "network of communal relations in which we are called to live responsively, accountably, and joyfully with beings of every sort." Consequently, the words of Parker Palmer speak to the essence of The Live Connect.

The Live Connect was developed by two sisters who in the discovery of their true vocations found a way to connect their gifts to greater community needs. Growing up in a small town, Karina Liles and Jalaya Liles Dunn learned the importance of community and service for the good of others at an early age. As they grew older they realized that the individual requests of help and the ongoing needs of communities continued to increase. They decided something had to be done in a way that connected people to the resources, insight, compassion, and relationships needed to address the needs that impacted them and their neighbors.

Karina and Jalaya knew that their plan had to be natural and organic or people would not utilize it. It could not come as a pre packaged program used to drastically change a community. It had to gradually coexist with the efforts of the community. The sisters then tapped into their vocations and formal training in technology development and community development to create The Live Connect. Within The Live Connect, technology meets community with the assumption that the connection of the two will create a live energy. Realizing the growing number of people in urban and rural areas relying on technology for communicating via email or social network websites, the sisters knew that The Live Connect could go further with communication for ordinary communities with extraordinary potential. They decided to build a community that connected people online via various technology tools for live offline action, hence their motto "Connecting with a Purpose."

The operating values of The Live Connect are community, connection, capacity, and accountability. Through the operating values of The Live Connect the following are offered:

  • membership in a community-wide online network,
  • professional website development,
  • leadership development and outreach trainings,
  • organizational and business technology consultation,
  • online meeting space,
  • safe space for children and youth to communicate and organize,
  • endless information, and
  • much more.