01Sep, 2010

Yesterday morning I spoke at Belmont University in Nashville, kicking off a fascinating, campus-wide experiment.

Belmont is handing out cash to their students.

In denominations of five, ten and twenty bucks, hundreds of students will be handed packets containing cash and asked to “do something” with the money. The idea is they can’t spend it on themselves, and they have to use it to tell a great story. Each student will consider what to do with the money for a few days, I am sure, and then launch into a creative endeavor to make something great happen with the dollars they have been given. If you want to follow along, you can read some of their stories here.

I get to be part of this campaign as an experiment to have fun with the concepts in A Million Miles. The idea of an inciting incident involves passing through a doorway of no return. With a twenty-dollar bill in hand, and knowing they can’t spend it on themselves, students will start making things happen, bringing stories into the world that would never have taken place if it weren’t for them, and for the inciting incident of being handed a packet containing the inciting incident of a great story.

What creative thing would you do if somebody handed you a twenty and you knew you had a to create a great story with the money?

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After receiving and reading through more than 500 entries to the Living a Better Story Blog Contest, we’ve chosen our winner. And believe me, this was no easy task. There is no story greater than one human being attempting to live a meaningful life. We read painful and beautiful stories about marriages falling apart and getting back together, children being taken from the world too early, stories of noble ambitions to build orphanages and start schools. We passed around your stories like favorite baseball cards, each of us wanting plenty of you to win. In fact, even as I boarded a plane yesterday, well after we should have chosen our winner, we couldn’t decide. I finally left it in the hands of my faithful and prayerful assistant Tara, who told me when I landed in Chicago that she was having “panic attacks.” The final decision was very difficult, and included a secondary round of questions for about a dozen final contestants. In the end, we chose the contestant we felt the seminar would help the most. Again, it was tough. But the winner is Lori Ventola of Denver, Colorado. Lori wants to start a mobile after-school program helping children of [...]

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My friend Anne Jackson‘s second book, Permission to Speak Freely – Essays and Art on Fear, Confession and Grace releases today. I’ve asked her to share one of the essays from her book with you. Anne decided to share seven essays on seven different blogs, this being the first. To read the rest of the essays, check out the links at the end. Anne is also giving away a copy of her book to two commenters, chosen at random, on Friday. So check out the question at the end and leave a comment to be entered to win. You can pick up a copy of the book here. Essay #1 – The First Brick We all remember the first time we had our faith in someone betrayed. The moment when innocence began morphing into skepticism. Mine happened on a playground in the fourth grade. I found myself dusting the gritty hot sand off my hands and knees as my best friends stood laughing at me. Leigh and Amy. Daughters of deacons at the church where my dad was the pastor. As a welcoming gift a few weeks earlier, they offered me the middle part of a three-piece heart necklace. You know the kind. The type that reads “Best Friends Forever” when the [...]

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Here’s a secret I learned long ago. It’s a big one and it’ll propel you into a future of greatness…. STOP TAKING SOCIAL CUES FROM YOUR PEERS. Instead of taking social cues from people your age, take cues from people ten and twenty years older than you. Are you looking for a church that has a lot of people who are your age so you can hang out? That’s fine, but try looking for one where most of the people have families and perhaps a little grey hair. Why? Because the sooner you can relate to their priorities, the sooner you’ll be ready for the next stage of life. I’m in my late thirties but I’m more interested in hanging out with people who are retired. What’s it teaching me? It’s teaching me what matters later in life is friendships, family and love. In matters of faith, what matters to them is not theological debate, but closeness with Jesus and unity with believers. //

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A recent article in the New York Times asks the question why so many people in their 20′s are taking so long to grow up. In the article, Robin Henig proposes: “It’s happening all over, in all sorts of families, not just young people moving back home but also young people taking longer to reach adulthood overall. It’s a development that predates the current economic doldrums, and no one knows yet what the impact will be — on the prospects of the young men and women; on the parents on whom so many of them depend; on society, built on the expectation of an orderly progression in which kids finish school, grow up, start careers, make a family and eventually retire to live on pensions supported by the next crop of kids who finish school, grow up, start careers, make a family and on and on. The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course, as young people remain un tethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach for America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life.” [...]

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