Every month I get the privilege of helping someone around the world, whom I have never met, work their way out of poverty and this month I get to help Habil Orujov from Azerbaijan and a group of women from Paraguay. This month I get to help out two people because a previous loan from several months ago was repaid! A total of 5 of the loans I have given out have been repaid now and each and every time I get so excited to know that they have succeeded and that they are one step closer to better providing for their families.

I stumbled across Kiva in late 2006 and eventually made my first loan. Nineteen loans later and I can’t get enough of it! I started out sponsoring a child through Compassion International and after my child left the program I began looking around for a different way to make a difference. My favorite part about Kiva as opposed to Compassion is that the $25 a month that I give to it can keep on working. Once your loan is repaid, you can turn right back around and re-loan that $25, meaning instead of just helping out one person for one month (Compassion) you can help multiple families at multiple times. I have had 5 loans re-paid, and those $25 loans have already been turned around to help out 5 more families. Talk about stretching a dollar!

Check out Kiva, and if you’re looking for something to get involved in look carefully at Kiva. It’s a great organization!

Victor LeBeau, a retailing analyst who helped shape our economy after WWII said:

Our enormously productive economy…demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption…. We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.

(ht: the story of stuff)

This quote certainly shed an enormous amount of light on this video by Radiohead “All I Need”

There are a ton of spiritual and moral implications surrounding this, and although I’m not sure exactly how it all fleshes out it is certainly something I am thinking though and questioning on a bigger scale.

(All of this thought was sparked by the Radiohead video and furthered by watching the video with Annie Leonard The Story of Stuff)

Community Christian Church is up to something big… really big. In fact, something that’s fairly unheard of in a mega-church. On April 19-20, the offering collected that morning will be given away—all of it. For the past couple of months we’ve been talking about this and making preparations for a huge response from people as we’ve given them the option to join one of four teams: the Uganda Team, the Philippines Team, the East Aurora Team, and the NewThing Team.

The Ugandan Team will be using the money pledged to them to start a reproducing church in an impoverished village in Uganda that will eradicate poverty, and reproduce themselves into another village and so forth. The Philippines Team is set to do something very similar in partnership with Frontline Ministries in the Philippines. The East Aurora Team is set to do the exact same thing in East Aurora, which maintains the the highest population of Latinos outside of East L.A. It’s a highly impoverished area, and the dream is to work in partnership with Community 4:12. The NewThing Team is set to launch multiple reproducing churches around the country and throughout the world in partnership with a vast array of church planting organizations.

This is going to be an amazing experience, all with “reproducing” as the key element running through them all.

I had the opportunity this past weekend to speak at the NewThing vision dinner and share a little about my experience here at Community as well as share what we’ll be doing in San Francisco. It was one of the most exciting experiences of my life, where for the first time I was able to communicate to over 100 people, in a public setting, the dreams and visions behind The San Francisco Project. All of a sudden, this thing is getting more and more real with every passing day!

I’ll update you on the offering totals for this in a couple of weeks when the final tally is in!

It’s Kiva Day! On the 15th of every month I have the privilege of investing a small sum of money into an entrepreneur from a third world country that is working hard to make their life better. Ever since my Compassion kid Annand left the program (after nearly 5 years of sponsorship) I turned my sights to this great organization (Kiva) and the world of micro-finance. Instead of investing a small sum into a child, I have decided to invest a small sum into a family. Today is Kiva Day!

I chose to invest this month into Rose Kazibure from Tanzania. She is a single mother with two children and 2 young nieces that she takes care of as well. Rose wants to use this small loan to increase her poultry business. Basically, she gets additional protein from the eggs for feeding her family, and sells the eggs at market as well. I’m excited for Rose and what can be done in her life through this small loan.

I’ve partnered with people from all around the world to not only help Rose, but 12 other families from Sierra Leone, Chad, Lebanon, Ghana, Honduras, and other countries. The great part about this organization is the money is invested into a person who pays it back meaning you can turn right back around and re-invest that money into someone else. I’m looking forward to the day that I can continually re-invest into tons of people on a daily basis as loans get re-paid and redistributed.

Check out Kiva if you haven’t already done so… it’s certainly working to make a difference in the lives of people that otherwise I’d never have any hope or chance of helping.

Poor Haitians resort to eating dirt in order to relieve their hunger pangs. Yes, that’s right you read it correctly. Due to the massive famine, and the horrible economic situation of this third world country Haitians have resorted to making cookies out of the yellow dirt in the ground in order to maintain their survival. I was absolutely floored when I read this article and greatly saddened… it probably didn’t help much that I saw this article situated right above the Haitian dirt cookie article in my RSS feeds declaring that Tom Cruise would be the first to buy a $72,500 motorcycle. Talk about the disparity of economics.

I’ve been slowly reading my way through McLaren’s latest book Everything Must Change and check out some of the following statistics:

• The United States spends $100 million per day to keep its [nuclear] weapons [of mass destruction] poised and ready for use in a preemptive strike
• The US Military budget is larger than the next 25 nations combined. (In other words, the strongest 25 countries in the world would have to switch from being US allies to US enemies in order for the US to be confronted by a greater force.
• In 2006 the budget showed that US military expenditures were 21 times larger than diplomacy and foreign aid combined.

These were rather startling statistics for me to take in, and honestly I never realized the amount of money that we spend to maintain this false feeling of security. Is it really necessary for us to spend so much? If we were to reallocate a percentage of those funds into development and diplomacy abroad and instead really, truly “go on the offensive” (to quote the republican party) and deal with the systemic roots of the issues of terrorism (economic disparity) what would we see as a result?In regards to our militaristic mindset and spending, McLaren states:

a mere 10 percent of the US military budget, if reinvested in foreign aid and development, could care for the basic needs of the entire world’s poor… one-half of 1 percent of the US military budget [if reinvested] would cut hunger in Africa in half by 2015.  

Isn’t there something askew here? If we were to reduce our military budget by 10% and reinvest in foreign aid and development, our military would still not only be the strongest in the world but we probably wouldn’t need them to go and fight in wars that were created by us, due to our foreign policies, against people we’ve sold our weapons to (53.4% of the worlds weapons were created and sold by the US).

Is it no wonder other countries (and terrorists) despise us and are trying to destroy us? Could it be that they see the destruction of America as the great economic equalizer? Could America’s destruction really bring about economic equality and leave the people in Haiti to leave their dirt cookies by the wayside and the regain the ability to eat real food?I’m not sure… but one thing that I see is that we spend way to much on defense, and not nearly enough on the offense. It’s time to be offensive as a country and destroy poverty in our midst… then we might actually see a bright horizon coming in the future not just for the US but for the world and we will finally move out of our true poverty as a country—a poverty of moral conviction for the least of these. 

*//update

Embezzlement Paper

today i had the opportunity to hang out with about 20 seniors from taylor university. they stopped by ccc as a part of a class to hang out with us, learn from us and ask a ton of great questions. it was certainly a privilege to sit with these students and answer their questions, talk with them and get to hear their heart and dreams for ministry in the future as they wrestled with what multi-site is all about and what a reproducing culture looks like.

at the start of the day we had the students write their name, hometown, and ideal job on a giant post-it note that lined the walls. something that really astounded me was the fact that almost every student wrote something down that dealt with social justice or changing the face of the world with their lives through their occupation. i would say that 85-90% of the students had this desire.

we are living in a completely different time now with a completely different set of values that some churches are just now beginning to realize… or in many cases churches are completely missing the boat. as these college students and the many others throughout the country enter the workforce and move to different cities looking for places to plug in and get connected with an organization or a church that shares their same values for social justice, unfortunately many will not look to the church because we’re just not there.

this is going to be a major challenge for the church… and unfortunately i fear that we will once again be behind the curve reacting to the change in culture instead of leading the way on the forefront of cultural change. my hope and prayer is that through people like rick warren and his p.e.a.c.e. plan as well as other evangelical leaders, the church will catch the vision and ride on the front of the wave bringing hope into the world.

last week i spent a few days in san francisco braving the brutal 60 degree and sunny weather while shooting some footage for our promotional and fundraising videos for the san francisco project. we had a great time walking around the city, riding the muni, and joyriding on the trolley’s while taking in the sites and sounds, talking with people and eating at unique little restaurants.

this city is so beautiful and i can’t wait to get back to it, but opposite of it’s immense beauty is a sad and depressing darkside riddled with homelessness and despair. on two separate occasions i was riddled with sadness with the people we encountered. on the very first night as we were walking back to our hotel a homeless man walked up to my friend travis and asked for $5. he then began to make an offer that was quite obvious he’s made to a lot of people and of which a lot of people have taken him up on. he offered that for $5, travis could punch this man in the face as hard as he wanted 2 times. one in each eye if he so chose. the guys face was already terribly swollen and cut in various places. i stood there in absolute shock and was completely overwhelmed with grief, sorrow and love for this man. i had no idea what to say or how to respond and i stood there silent.

the next night as we were again walking down market street towards our hotel i noticed a young girl who couldn’t have been more than 16 sitting next to the staircase to the BART. she was holding a small cardboard sign that read homeless, hungry, please help. she was wearing nice looking pajama’s and a rather expensive looking coat as she wrapped herself in a mixture of blankets. she was on the verge of tears. i’m guessing that she was a recent runaway that couldn’t have been on the streets for longer than a week or two. my heart sank, yet i still didn’t know what to do.

the dark side of san francisco isn’t the homosexual issue like so many continue to ask me about. rather it is the rampant homeless and impoverished people of the city. walking down the street of chicago at night (depending on which street) you may see in upwards of 10 homeless people. in san francisco at night you can’t see any less than 30 in a given 2 block radius. what should the church’s response be to something that is so dire, so big, so seemingly impossible to tackle? i know there is no way that one church (let alone a brand new church plant) could ever tackle on its own the homeless issue in one city, but there has to be a way to make some sort of a difference right?

these are the questions that will plague me and haunt me every day as we prepare to go and as we journey together with our new christian community…

pink sings her song ‘dear mr. president’ live at wembley stadium…
(ht: smulo)

what are your thoughts on this? is it the height of hypocrisy—especially the line about ‘hard work’ coming from a celebrity? does it go too far or does it fall too short?

i was immediately reminded of the dixie chicks and their entire ordeal for saying they were ashamed that the president was from their home state of texas… is this video worse than that?

the comment section is yours…

i ran across this rather interesting and telling graphic… certainly something to ponder.

(ht: monte)

as i continue to explore the idea of what good news looks like to different people i was able to see first hand what it meant to francisco, the principal of an under-resourced elementary school in east aurora. today, tracy and i headed over to brady elementary school to lead a team of volunteers to clean-up, fix-up, and improve the outside of the building located in the center of a rather run-down neighborhood. there were probably about 80 different volunteers around the school re-painting the playground, cutting down dead limbs from trees, mulching around bushes and trees, planting flowers, picking up broken glass and other debris from the yard, laying railroad ties around the playground, building park benches, fixing fences, etc, etc, etc. in about 4 hours the entire outside of the building was transformed from looking gloomy and grim to looking beautiful.

francisco, the pricnipal, was in awe of all the people that had come out to make a difference. his face was beaming the entire time. i had the opportunity to talk to him on several occaisions to ask him about the front of the school (the area that my team was working to improve) and what it was that he would like to see, and each and every time his response was “you’ve already made it look amazing!” so, we pressed on, planting flowers, cleaning glass, planting grass seed and creating a couple of flowerbeds where there used to be trees.

this was good news to francisco. this was an explosion of beauty, the gospel in action.

a young girl named janessa came from 2-blocks away carrying all of the tools she could muster from her garage to pitch in and help. several children and even a couple of aduls from the surrounding houses even came out to lend a hand… and many sat out on their porches watching this crew of white people in a mainly hispanic neighborhood come out and work.

this was good news to the community. this was the church expressing love to a community in real and tangible ways. this was an explosion of beauty, the good news in action.

the amazing thing about this is that brady wasn’t the only place that this explosion of beauty took place. two other schools at the exact same time (waldo and bardwell) were descended upon! over 300 people from CCC came out this morning as well as teams from Starbucks and Home Depot to help change the look of a school and give hope to a community.

unfortunately i don’t have any “before” pictures, but the first 3 pictures are of the front of the building that my team worked on. we planted a ton of flowers around the flagpole and school sign, built 2 “flowerbeds, mulched everything possible, laid new grass seed, and picked up a ton of beer bottles, broken glass and garbage from everywhere!

the last picture is of the newly painted playground—which looks absolutely amazing! there were about 40 different volunteers working on the playground. (if you click on the pics you’ll get a full sized view.)

an explosion of beauty, the gospel in action.

The United Nations has calculated that for $35-40 billion per year, basic social services could be provided to all the poorest people on the planet. This includes both primary schooling and basic health care and nutrition.

this quote has stuck with me since i first read it in a report over 2 years ago, and it doesn’t seem like such an insurmountable amount to take care of the poorest of the poor and help them get out of their impoverished state… but for some reason our global village cannot seem to come together on this worldwide epidemic that takes the lives of countless men, women and children each and every year whle leaving many others widowed or orphaned in its wake.

but what can be done?

if the global village took this challenge seriously, this could be something that is taken care of in very short order and extreme poverty could literally be wiped out never to be seen again. the only requirement is that each government around the world take a slice of this $40 billion challenge each and every year into their budget to be distributed to the UN to deal with this epidemic. all it requires is unity in our global village… honestly, if you look at the problem, it’s not money that is the issue, it’s unity.

the united states could very easily give $17 billion to the challenge by discontinuing NASA ($17 billion is the budget for 2007 rising to $19 billion by 2012). if you could tell me what we have accomplished by going into space that has made the world a better place to live then maybe we can find a more worthless amount of money spent by our government to save people’s lives. $17 billion is nearly 50% of the entire amount needed… how much could the UK give, or France, or Germany, or China, or Russia, or Japan? If the US gave $10 billion, then those other countries would only need to find $5 billion in their budgets to tackle this problem… money is not the issue, unity is.

it’s sad that our bickering between nations is causing the death of countless people each and every day (or 1 person every 3 seconds). if we could only look past our differences to come together and tackle this challenge, then maybe we could see just how ridiculous we have been. i’m tired of wars over oil and power. i’m tired of national tensions rising between countries over nuclear arms and missle defense systems. i’m tired of the culture of hatred we live in.

if only we could put down our weapons of war in favor of the towel of service…

i know that governement will never be the answer to this problem and so i wonder… where is and has the church been in all of this? imagine if the church could overcome the problem of unity and completely come together as the bride of Christ to tackle this challenge… imagine what would be said of the Kingdom and of Jesus because they took Jesus’ words at face value and began to do something on a grand scale. yet once again we know that money is not the problem, unity is.

//*update: or we could just stop the war and in 3 months have enough money for the year to stop poverty: war costing $12billion/month

Slate magazine recently asked the question: kiva ranked as the highest microfinance funnelling organization of them all. Kiva ranked high in the categories of ‘user experience’; ‘trust’; and ‘effectiveness’ taking home the top honors. And I would completely agree with the authors assessment… my experience with kiva has been tremendous!

This is a good kiva and get started!)