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I Speak For The Shirts

June 8, 2012 in Action, Faith/Hope/Love with 0 Comments

I created some t-shirts last Friday on a website called CustomInk. I’m not trying to offer a blanket endorsement for their business, but they did a great job. I had fun creating a couple designs, and it was super easy to do. I absolutely needed the shirts within one week, so I placed my order via phone and had to pay a little extra to ensure on-time delivery. Nothing fancy about that.

But their service was great. I had proofs in my inbox waiting for approval in less than 12 hours. I had the t-shirts in my hand in less than 5 days, including a weekend. Everything was great. I even got a follow up email asking for feedback on their service. Every step of the way, the company communicated with me, as if they actually cared about how I felt about their service.

The final contact came from a gal named Elizabeth whose job title was “T-Shirt Ambassador.” As in, “I represent these shirts. I speak for them. When you talk to me, think of these awesome and comfortable shirts.” Well thank you, Elizabeth the T-Shirt Ambassador. I got your shirts and they are spectacular. I feel like I want to be friends with you and make shirts forever. This is clearly a company who understands that every single interaction represents their brand and their overall success. Bravo.

“Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”  - 2 Corinthians 5:20

Christian, you are an ambassador for Christ. Your whole life should be an appeal to fall in love with and be reconciled to God. You do not merely represent a brand of church or a happy set of beliefs, you speak for Him. The Risen Savior. The King of Kings. You represent HIM with your whole life.

The Bible – the very Word of God – gives you that title: Ambassador for Christ. What if you signed every email with that title? What if you lived like you signed every email with that title?

When people see you, do they should know without a doubt who you stand for?

Do you represent Christ with your life, or do you just wear a catchy t-shirt?

 

When The Wood Is Wet

May 21, 2012 in Action with 0 Comments

Just because a thing is hard doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.

Outdoorsmen

Admittedly, I am not really what  you would call an “outdoorsman.” I don’t “go fishing.” I don’t “build a tree stand and then get up at three in the morning to sit in that tree stand so I can maybe shoot an elk.” That is not to say that I can’t or that I won’t do such things.* I actually spent between 2-10 weeks of every summer since I was 8-years-old at boys’ wilderness camp up in the Adirondack Mountains.** I learned and enjoyed all kids of outdoorsy skills. I spent weeks at a time hiking the High Peaks or canoeing the Allagash River. It’s just that those kinds of things never became lifelong hobbies for me as they do for so many.

All that is to say that I was not totally out of my element when I went on a short vacation with my family to the mountains of Northern Georgia earlier this week. We rented a cabin with my brother-in-law, who incidentally does fish, and his family, and we enjoyed the peacefulness of a riverside retreat for a few days.

It was rainy or overcast for much of our time there, but Mr. Sun made an appearance on Wednesday and allowed us to spend most of the day basking in his warmth along the river. Because this was the first night where it wasn’t raining outside, we decided to finally attempt to build a fire for the requisite S’more roasting. Continue Reading…

Why Wait? (part 2 of 2)

April 5, 2012 in Action, Faith/Hope/Love, Personal with 1 Comment

Last week, I wrote a post about patience and the fact that God works even in the waiting. If you missed that one, you can read it here. Today I want to follow up a little bit more…

I am a dreamer, notsomuch a planner. I tend to be a spur-of-the-moment, don’t-have-to-have-everything-worked-out-in-advance kind of guy. I love dreaming up possibilities for the future and talking about things that could be, so whenever I start actually taking steps towards turning these dreams into reality my focus is usually on my image of what the endgame actually looks like. And I can dream pretty big, so my idea of a preferred future is usually pretty awesome.

But how often has the “future” actually turned out like I dreamed up and prepared for? That happens about as often as I weave living room drapes from the hair of a unicorn’s mane.* And yet, between the dreaming and the fulfillment of a dream, amidst all the requisite waiting and planning and waiting that comes with moving forward, I too often find myself at a point of frustration. Inevitably, however, God steps in at some point in the process to remind me of the fact that His plans are so much greater than mine; that He can dream up a whole lot more than I can.**

'Patience' photo (c) 2011, Andrew Hart - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/So you know about this coffee house/teen center project that I have been working on for the past 18 months. Well, it has taken a whole lot longer to come to fruition than I ever imagined. By some original estimates, we are 12 or 14 months behind schedule. Honestly, there have been points during this process where the waiting has become almost unbearable, yet I have been powerless to make anything move faster. I already explained the perspective God gave me a couple weeks ago: the fact that He works even in the waiting. But there’s more. Continue Reading…

My Greatest Social Media Fear

March 10, 2012 in Action with 2 Comments

A Family Meeting

At Christmas time a couple years ago, my extended family took some time for a “family meeting” while we all together for a couple days. The topic of discussion was this: “Should our family as a whole have some kind of collective social media policy regarding the kinds of information we share about one another; and, if so, what should said policy be?” Or, as I referred to it: “Will Facebook slaughter our children?”

The idea arose because in a fairly large family, we span the entire spectrum of social media usage. Some of us* use, or at least engage in, everything out there (Facebook, Twitter, Path, Google+, Instagram, Oink, Foursquare, etc…). Others have not yet strayed beyond email. Most fall somewhere in between. By and large, the biggest concern my family members shared was privacy issues. There were concerns – perhaps very legitimate ones – about unwanted persons knowing too much about us – especially our kids. Fair enough.

My worry, however, is not really that I will accidentally share too much; rather, it is that we will become numb to information. Take, for example, the hyper-sexualiztion of our culture right now. A couple nights ago, my wife turned off the TV in disgust when a commercial came on trying to sell us a hamburger by showing a barely-clad lady rolling around on top of a car.** When sex sells everything – which it does these days – we become numb to it. Which is why commercials and every other kind of media seem to get more and more risqué.

Continue Reading…

Make Kony Famous

March 7, 2012 in Action, Faith/Hope/Love with 1 Comment

I first heard of Invisible Children a few years ago though a former student of mine. @AlexInvisible was a talented, passionate young man when he graduated high school, so I was not surprised when his internship with the organization turned into a full-fledged mission. I had the chance to catch up with Alex in San Diego a year ago and heard from his own mouth the excitement about what Invisible Children had managed to do in bringing to light the atrocious crimes against humanity committed by the LRA in the country of Uganda.

If you have a Facebook or Twitter account, no doubt you have seen the Kony 2012 video from Invisible Children pop up in your streams at least a dozen times in the last 24 hours. Honestly, I am amazed by what they are doing. I love that people passionate about justice are smart and resourceful and committed enough to utilize popular media streams and global social connectivity to effect change, from the grassroots level up to the highest level of government support. We saw this last week with the release of the Twenty Seven Million song and music video – the rallying cry of a movement that seeks to abolish modern slavery and human trafficking.

The Make Kony Famous movement is even more impressive and holistic and focused in their approach. I will leave the details up to the story tellers themselves, but suffice it to say that these guys know what they are doing, and they have truly created a movement that will change the world: not only does this wave have the potential to bring about justice in a specific case, but it will quite possibly create a radical shift in the way change is effected from here on out. Continue Reading…

27 Million First World Problems

February 28, 2012 in Action, Entertainment, Faith/Hope/Love, Music with 1 Comment

There is a big joke these days about “First World Problems.” (Just check your Facebook feed or search #firstworldproblems on Twitter). Let me entreat you with a couple examples:

Funny? Yes. But tragic because these really are the things that bother us? Very much yes.

How about this for a first world problem: Atlanta, GA is considered to be a major hub of human trafficking in the United States. Some 300,000 Americans – mostly underage girls – are at risk right now for being snatched up in the criminal sex trade. There are  thousands upon thousands of very real stories of very real girls in our own country who are forced to “service” up to 40 men a day. Some are rescued or escape; most do not. And those numbers only grow exponentially when you look outside of the U.S.

Slavery and human trafficking are very much first world problems. Continue Reading…

The Tragic Plush Bus

February 17, 2012 in Action, Personal with 0 Comments

Last weekend I took my kids to Puzzle’s Fun Dome in Louisville. This is a typical kids’ play place like Chuck E Cheese’s, but with better pizza and a dorkier mascot.* All in all, the kids were having as much fun as could be expected: jumping in the bounce houses, eating too much pizza, and playing tag in the toddler area. After about an hour or so, my daughter inevitably wanted me to start shelling out cash so she could play in the ticket-arcade.

And there it stood: the Plush Bus. Perhaps you know the Plush Bus by a different name, like “The Claw Crane” or the “Arcade Merchandise” or the “Daddy Can I Please Play That Now.”  It really doesn’t matter – they are all the same. You put in 50 cents; you carefully steer a claw crane around a glass cage and line it up above the pink doggy that your daughter is begging for; you push a button and watch as the open claw drops into the pile of toys then hauls itself up, not closing its jaws until it has cleared the desirables by at least 2 inches. Then you repeat this process until you have no more money and your daughter is whimpering dejectedly as if she were one of the very animals caught inside the cruel game. Continue Reading…

Win of the Week: Episode 17

January 6, 2012 in Action, Win with 0 Comments

After taking a couple weeks off from blogging, I find myself overwhelmed with things I want to say. There are so many amazing things that I have seen happen in just the last few weeks – I almost don’t know where to start. So I’ll start simple. I had the opportunity this week to take a group of our college students to Atlanta for Passion 2012. Here is one little glimpse of what we got to be a part of:

Start Something That Matters

December 21, 2011 in Action, Book Reviews with 5 Comments

I had some pretty hip students back in the day who wore TOMS shoes before TOMS were cool. These days, it’s difficult to walk anywhere in public without seeing at least a few people sporting the stylish, Argentinian-inspired footwear.* Like many people, the first I really became aware of what TOMS was doing was the AT&T commercial that aired during the 2009 Master’s Tournament.

Chances are that if you are reading this blog it means that you have heard of TOMS.** And unless you really, really hate skinny shoes, you are probably impressed with their business model. At the time, it was a novel idea: build a for-profit business that is driven by a world-changing philanthropic vision. TOMS operates with a surprisingly simply model called “One for One.” For every pair of TOMS shoes sold, the company donates one pair of shoes to a child in need. From a sustainability standpoint, this does not seem like a workable plan; yet, for founder and “Chief Shoe-Giver” Blake Mycoskie, it turned into a million-dollar idea. Or, rather, a million-shoe idea.***

The success that Blake and TOMS saw was so rapid and so unique that, to the rest of us, it seemed to pop up overnight. The reality, however, is that Blake turned down some amazing and potentially lucrative business opportunities because he wanted to do something with his life that mattered. For a twenty-something guy who knew nothing about shoes, the challenge was daunting. But he saw the need, allowed himself to be troubled and inspired by the injustice, and believed that trying to make a difference at the risk of coming up short was infinitely more important than doing nothing at all. Continue Reading…

Radical and Unconditional

November 29, 2011 in Action, Faith/Hope/Love, Personal with 0 Comments

I have been actively engaged with People of the Second Chance since August of this year. As a blogger for the Never Beyond campaign, I have written 12 posts so far (out of 25) that are meant to challenge our concepts of grace, forgiveness, and love. I can say without a doubt that forcing myself to think deeply about these ideas is changing me. In a good way. At times the burden and commitment to blog for this entire series seems overwhelming, but it is transforming the way I think and act and live and pray. In a good way.

This week there is no new poster image. I chalk that up to a Thanksgiving miracle. Instead, take a look at this video from Joy Eggerichs of LoveAndRespectnow.com and POTSC. It’s what this whole thing is all about.

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