By the way, you have two coats...

Great article from a friend at the Acts 29 Network site.

There is a strong sentiment in the Bible, in the teachings of Jesus, about our responsibility to the poor. Basically it goes like this: followers of Christ help the poor, weak and the needy. I am not going to defend this assertion here. Too many learned, educated people have made the argument before. More interesting to me are ways people sidestep this obligation.

Sometimes it is rooted in theology. God knows people are poor, He did it for a reason and He is working through that situation, so it's not our place to interfere. If you believe this, don't ever call me if your car breaks down. God knew you were going to break down; I'm not going to mess that up. Maybe God wants you to set up a church beside the interstate where you ended up. It will be a great missional opportunity for you to present the Gospel to other stranded motorists or hitchhikers. Any theological treatise that says we are supposed to leave the poor to their own devices dishonors Jesus.

You can read the rest of the article here

World Trade Center Movie Update

So I read here
that will donate 10 percent of its opening weekend box office receipts to a ground zero memorial and three other related charities.

This seems more in line with what the studio should have done in the first place. Perhaps there were waiting for the right timing...

Thoughts?

Living the "Irresistible Revolution"

Here's a great post I wanted to include regarding Shane Claiborne's book, The Irresistible Revolution

Very provoking post, and one I'd suggest we all reflect on...

From http://www.pub.nxs.net/buzz-trexler/btblog.htm

It was the evening of Day 2 of the Holston Annual Conference when I came back to my room after spending some time chatting about movies and BBQ with some of The Meadow folk. I decided there was nothing worth watching on the tube, so I picked up Shane Claiborne’s book, “Irresistible Revolution: living as an ordinary radical.” I could have stayed up all night reading it; in fact, I probably should have. It would have made being awake off and on more interesting.

The reason I was awake is that I started thinking, and that’s a dangerous thing for me. One big question began rolling around in the gray matter: “What happened to me? How did I go from experiencing Jesus to experiencing church?”

Don’t misunderstand me, Shane's “Revolution” didn’t bring up feelings up guilt as much as did images of the years after I first encountered the Savior -- images such as:

* Going with my wife and children to deliver food to The Projects and others in need through the FISH program.
* Taking in a homeless guy I met at a Christian coffee house in inner-city Knoxville.
* Challenging some Christians protesting “The Last Temptation of Christ” about how they could picket a movie, but ignore a guy not 50 yards away who was holding something like a “Will work for food” sign … and then getting him a motel room for the night.
* Explaining to my wife that I had to buy lunch that day rather than eat my bagged lunch because I had left it beside a man sleeping under an overpass near work in downtown Knoxville.

Somehow, I had moved from the days of wondering how the church could build Jesus Cathedrals and family life centers when Jesus never said to do that, to helping to lobby for one in my home church.

Somehow, I moved from being critical of those who are “playing church,” to actually playing church.

Somehow, I moved from being a Jesus freak to being a church freak.

When did that happen?

How did that happen?

More importantly, what am I going to do about it?

Bishop Swanson preached a wonderful "Holy Ghost rant," as one of my mentors called it, that paralells some of what Shane's getting at: We need to be about the main thing that Jesus said we should be about. Love. We need to particularly love the poor, the oppressed, the downhearted. We need to seek out those ragtag sheep ... particularly the one who wandered away.

The more we pastors stay in the holy huddle, the greater the tears of Jesus.

I hear the cry of revolution and repentance in my heart.

Will I answer the call?

Dare I answer it?

Dare I not?

Grace and peace ...

MobileVoter Launches TxtVoter

Keep this in mind before reading further:

80% of Americans own a cell phone

63% send text messages regularly

Here's an interesting story on voter registration through TXT Messaging...a concept I highly agree with and think is on the cusp of morphing into something so much larger.

How does it work you ask?

1. Txt registration.

Anybody can text the keyword "voter" to 75444 from their cell phone. Maybe they saw a billboard, heard a radio ad, or just spoke with a friend. From this point, we collect their relevant info via a short text-message conversation and then mail them a completed registration form. All they have to do is sign it, date it, and mail it. Easy as pie. And you don't even need a computer, so anybody with a cell phone can do it.
2. Txt Message Campaigns.

This is kinda' like the first way, except that we let people run their own campaigns. The coolest this is that *anybody* can do it (a band, a sorority, joe blow, whoever). They just sign up for their own keyword and then get their friends/peeps/audience/grandmother to text that keyword to our number: 75444. From there, it works just like above, with the added whizbang feature of allowing each campaign organization to view the progress of their registrants online.
3. Online registration.

This has been done before, but we want to register as many people as we can, so we're doing it again. People can fill out a registration form right on our site, print it out, and mail it. We'll be launching this capability very soon (less than a week).
Follow Up

Not only do we get the registration forms out, but we also follow up. If somebody started the process via their cell phone, then after we mail them a completed form, we'll actually know when they put it in the mail (we use a nifty thing from the United States Postal Service called Planet Coding to figure this out). So if somebody's lagging on sending in their form, we'll send 'em a friendly reminder. And further, we'll send 'em another reminder text message on election day which also will include their polling place. No excuses. Please visit the Mobile Voter site to find out more about youth registration, trends, and the latest in mobile tech.

Justin Farrell's Wedding

Well it's now official, my friend Justin has tied the knot. Best of luck to Ashley and him as they move to Princeton.

Personal Branding

What do you think of the recent surge in stories surrounding personal branding and when I say personal branding I don't mean like my friend Scott...

It seems to be a growing and rather lucrative business...

Feedback?

New York

Just got back from my recent trip to New York. Stayed at the Exchange Hotel which is always nice.

Much work accomplished, had the chance to do a little more exploring and met with a contact regarding the mobile arena and learn more about what he's doing.

If you have the opporutnity, you'll have to visit Lou's Cafe. It's a great little restaurant and shouldn't be missed.

Continued Fighting...

Children taking shelter in a classroom at a school in Beirut...when will it end?

World Trade Center Movie

Now it's movie about the World Trade Center...thoughts?