So we had a little t-shirt design contest over at The Mentoring Project, and we are down to a handful of finalists. We thought we’d open it up to you, our faithful supporters, to ask what t-shirt you like best. Unfortunately, there are several great ones here, but we have to choose one. After you vote, you’ll get to see if you were in the majority. Thanks for your help! Click Here for PollOnline Survey Enterprise Feedback Management | Polls | Email Marketing | Crowdsourcing Software View MicroPoll
Have you ever met somebody who has been hurt, wrongfully hurt and is bitter about it? It’s difficult to have compassionr, even though they have a right and reason to be bitter. We may want justice for them, and may even have empathy, but there is something imperfect about the story. And yet I find bitterness is easy when I’ve been wronged. Vengeance is a normal reaction, it seems, a human reaction. What else are we supposed to to with our pain? Years ago I read a book called Country of my Skull, about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. The TRC was a commission put together by Nelson Mandella to hear cases of crimes against humanity committed under apartheid. Mandella asked Bishop Desmond Tutu to head up the commission. When asked what sort of people Tutu wanted to serve with him, he answered he wanted victims, people who knew firsthand the atrocities of apartheid, those whose lives had been ripped open, who’d lost families and loved ones. But what he said next would change my life forever. Tutu said he did not just want the victims who had stayed victims, but he wanted victims who had forgiven [...]
04Mar, 2010
It seems people are having a hard time uploading their movies to the contest site. I removed some duplicates, and now only one film is working. If your film is not working, please remove it and try again. And forgive me for housing the contest on a site that doesn’t seem to be doing what it was designed to do. If anybody out there works with Wildfire and can help, please let me know. I will keep you posted on how things develop. Don
Not long ago I was having a conversation with a friend who happened to be a Christian. My friend is a writer, and a very smart man. During the conversation, I noticed he kept explaining why he was right. I wanted to test him a bit, I suppose, so I asked him a hard question, essentially, seeing if he would be vulnerable and admit he was human and made mistakes. My friend looked uncomfortable and answered the question carefully, with just enough self-deprecation to get around looking self-righteous, but very quick to explain why he technically had never struggled with the issue at hand. After about an hour of this, I looked at my friend and told him he sounded like a tortured soul. I was being kind. Honestly, my friend sounded like a slave. And not a slave to God, a slave to public opinion, specifically, Christian public opinion. He had replaced Jesus with a jury of his peers, and he lived his life to make a case for that jury as to why he was a Godly man. To be fair, my friend is a very moral man. And to be even more fair, I am being judgmental, [...]
19Feb, 2010
Over 1000 of you are now supporting a mentor/mentee relationship through The Mentoring Project. I wanted you to see a quick video spotlighting yet another of these relationships. Your support means the world to us, but it REALLY means the world to the young men who are being provided positive male role models. This video spotlights Bil (intentionally spelled with one “l”) and Shawn. Thanks so much, Bil. You’re our hero. And Shawn’s hero too. Beneath the video, I’ll give you a quick update on The Mentoring Project and let you know how you can support if you haven’t already. What is The Mentoring Project? The Mentoring Project is a non-profit organization working to create hundreds of thousands of relationships just like the one between Bil and Shawn. We do this by partnering with churches to create a small, localized mentoring program. Churches either run the program independently, or utilize their men’s ministry or college ministry to run a mentoring branch. Right now, we are working with nine churches in Portland, Oregon. When we start a new program, we provide extensive mentor training that involves not just the mentors, but the entire church. The pastor preaches a sermon that launches [...]
