Barbara Curtis, a former "acid-dropping hippie chick," now urges Christians to find common ground with people from "the other side."

I had the privilege of profiling Barbara for Today's Christian magazine, in an article titled, "Credible Christianity" (Jan/Feb. 2007).

While the article doesn't mention it, Barbara is the mother of 12 children, four of whom have Down syndrome (three of her children with Down syndrome were adopted).

Barbara is an incredible woman who voices a strong challenge to Christians: Get off your duff and forge relationships with people in your community who think differently than you do. She's the author of a neat book, Reaching the Left from the Right: Talking About Social Issues With People Who Don't Think Like You.

She also writes a popular blog for moms called Mommy Life.

Here's what readers of Today's Christian are saying about the article:

"I used to be one of those people that decent people love to hate. It took wanting to please God to entice me to "clean up." I'm still not through cleaning up, and probably will never be. was taken to Christ by an ex-heroin user/prostitute (like myself). I pretty much scoffed at the "let me hold you and pray over you, and you shall by saved" type of Christians.

Please give Laura's words some thought and much action! I shudder to think that I may have died without knowing Christ. Let's go into the trenches and help some of these broken people."