Social media[1] have shown a constructive ability in creating phenomenon movements and mobilizing support. Last year was the Arab Spring, this year is Kony 2012. However, the mobilization and subsequent movements of the Arab Spring and Kony 2012 were and are deconstructive from the start. Or, in other words, these two campaigns –however organized – are not actually building anything. General goal of Arab Spring: Force rulers from power. General goal of Kony 2012: Capture Joseph Kony. These movements work because it is very easy and attractive to be in opposition of the “bad guy”. What is harder is creating the same level of excitement and devotion over who replaces said bad guys. Furthermore, even establishing interest in substantive and meaningful critiques of entire political, economic, or cultural systems has been relegated to the more wonkish activists among us and proven to be elusive within the social media realm. Thus, a restating and rephrasing of my original inquiry: Can social media succeed at addressing broken systems and institutions? Can social media build rather than tear down?

I believe that, by design, social media are not meant to be substantive. Status updates, tweets, and many YouTube videos are meant to pack as much appeal as possible; not information or solutions. Granted, information and solutions may be contained within such appeals but, they are in no way the aim. Consequently, substantive responses to human suffering –whether they be disaster, war, abuse, famine or drought - must be coordinated, lead and executed the old fashioned way: through organizations. Systems and institutions are necessities in redressing broken systems and institutions. Alone, individuals can do nothing in the way of productive redressing. This doesn’t, however, mean that individuals should do nothing.

In moments of crisis individuals do, in fact, do something. Altruism is evident and often enlivened by challenges like the 2011 Triple Disaster in Japan and 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. To better understand the role of social media in times of disaster, it is worthwhile to briefly examine the difference in the severity of each disaster and subsequent monetary responses. The Indian Ocean Tsunami is on record as being the deadliest in history, claiming the lives of over 300,000 in Southeast Asia.[2] Last year’s earthquake/tsunami in Japan claimed less than 20,000 lives but ended up being the most costly natural disaster in history at $210 billion.[3] Thus, the stark difference in scale of the two disasters represents a similar difference in the international response to each. Private donations equaled somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 billion after the 2004 tsunami.[4] Private donations towards the 2011 tsunami came in at around $5 billion.[5] This delta in giving merits a broader discussion on the perceived worth of a “developed” country life versus an “underdeveloped” country one but, for the purposes of this entry we are more concerned about the dates. When the 2004 tsunami struck the day after Christmas, Facebook was less than a year old. YouTube wouldn’t launch until a couple months later in 2005 and Twitter was still nearly two years away. Did the highly documented 2011 tsunami in Japan cause individuals to give more generously even though the loss of life was dramatically less than the 2004 tsunami? Did social media better facilitate these giving acts? Or, did the depiction of infrastructure destruction and nuclear crisis in Japan generate more sympathy than that of destroyed villages in Southeast Asia?

There are obviously many answers to these complex questions – questions that I would be interested in seeing included in a survey to donors. But, one has to wonder what role social media would have played if its use was as ominous then as it is now. Asking how social media reels in financial support for causes and nonprofits pricked my curiosity on a more operational level. I found that in a Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark (NSNB) survey of over 11,000 non-profits, fewer than half received more than $10,000 per year from Facebook, and only 0.4% reported raising $100,000 or more.[6] Implicit within these results are the outliers that actually do make good use of social media but, it is revealing that in general, social media is not the premier conduit for giving. If this is true, and there is a link between the generous response to the 2011 Triple Disaster and social media, then it may be logical to conclude that social media is most effective at raking in contributions going towards one-time events or extraordinary circumstances like disasters.

One-time responses to one-time events. Before I became a missionary to Japan, it was explained to me by more seasoned veterans of missions that one-time gifts should not be the goal. Rather, ongoing and committed giving where donors believe they are partnering with you is the coveted brand of support. If social media has excelled and been effective in garnering donations in response to disasters, is it possible for social media to evolve into a sustainable source of funds that address structural and systematic problems and not just crises?

If you’ve read this far, I applaud your efforts. In fact, let me know if you’ve made it this far because I consider this a somewhat more substantive discussion that, ironically, leveraged social media for readership. My status post and tweet may have been short but it brought you to this entry. Maybe social media can lead to more substantive discussion and action after all…

In a U.S. presidential election year, Kony 2012 just may generate more buzz amongst youth than any other campaigns this year. I was made aware of the latest campaign from the fad-factory that is Invisible Children just like most of us were: through social media. In the span of 24 hours, the Kony 2012 video has gone viral and advocates and experts on Uganda, of all places, have suddenly emerged. I say this in the most complimentary of terms as I stand on the periphery of coolness and watch with curiosity how three guys have made people like Kony and places like Kampala relevant to a generation with an a la carte of options to advocate, volunteer, and raise awareness for. While there are certainly flaws in the organization’s ideology and policy stance with regard to the region, I am more interested in how they have become masters at mobilization. This raises questions like, Why do people that cannot find Uganda on a map, know what language they speak, or have any sense of the region’s history involve themselves in the messy business of advocating military intervention to find a lunatic in the bush? How does Invisible Children do it!?

Well, to begin, it doesn’t hurt to have raised over $7 million annually since 2007. Much has been made of Invisible Children’s rating on Charity Navigator. However, I find something much more compelling on this site. Invisible Children is categorized as an “International, Single Country Support Organization” by Charity Navigator. Within this category, there are 32 organizations with annual revenue in the range of $3.5 to $13.5 million. Within these parameters, only one of other organization is doing work in Africa.[1] The uniqueness of what Invisible Children exists as and what it has accomplished cannot be overstated. So the question remains, how do they do it?!

 Founded by young filmmakers who know the right strings to pluck our heart with, Invisible Children is a production. Trendy merch, videos, and events all cause a potential advocate to be drawn in immediately. By the time the actual cause is revealed, we have probably already been won over by the Hollywood production. But are the youth of this generation really that shallow? I think not. Here are a few other reasons I suspect Invisible Children has won the PR campaign:

• Child soldiers is a “new” cause to embrace – things such as poverty, hunger etc. have been overexposed.

• Distance provides safety – vast majority of Invisible Children activists will never do any work on behalf of the cause other than advocacy and awareness.

• Emulation of founders – not all organizations are so richly tied to the story of its founders as Invisible Children is and young people want to be like them.

• Something greater than ourselves – Invisible Children presents youth with an opportunity to easily involve themselves in a cause with as much effort as they choose.

This is not an exhaustive list and I’m sure myself and others could add to it but it gets to the heart of four critical ideas: 1) Hipster compassion; 2) Online Activism; 3) Cloaked idolization; 4) Velcro Commitment. Each of these ideas merit their own extrapolation but I will save that for a later post.

There must be a distinction between chatter and charity. Chatter consists of facebook posts, tweets, and other small-scale awareness efforts. Charity consists of financial and physical contribution. Charity is derived from the Latin word caritas, meaning “dearness” or “high value”.  Thus, we don’t practice charity when we raise awareness, we attempt to spread truth and knowledge. Chatter and charity working together creates a volunteer. And, while Invisible Children has certainly set the standard in marketing causes to youth and creating chatter, I’m not convinced that this charity has cultivated true charity amongst participants. In other words, it appears that Invisible Children creates the chatter and then satisfies the consumer with more videos to watch, bracelets to buy and events to attend. To be sure, there is nothing inherently wrong this but this pattern of creating chatter and satisfying the consumer is deceptive. I suspect that if Invisible Children ceased to exist tomorrow, there may be core believers of the organization to carry the torch. But what would happen when there are no more youtube videos to post? Would we still make a push to have Kony apprehended? Furthermore, would we still care about bringing justice to those in Uganda without a community of support in the form of Invisible Children?

To conclude, I admire Invisible Children. I am still coming to terms with the marketing of causes though. Do movements need consumers to be effective? It is an excellent theoretical and practical question – one I hope to explore further. After all, it has been said true charity is the desire to be useful to others without the thought of recompense.

Complimentary Post: Why Do You Volunteer?

Have you ever read The Giver by Lois Lowry? If yes, then you were probably a product of the American public school system at some point in the 1990s. If not, then go get a copy at your local library. The Book it! stickers and Pizza Hut personal pan pizzas may no longer exist as rewards and you probably can’t buy it through Scholastic book fairs but it is readable in one sitting. I’m a sucker for all forms of artistic utopia and even dystopia irrespective of trite story lines and analogous themes. Think of The Giver as a PG version of George Orwell’s 1984 – which happens to be one of my favorite novels. Jonas, the protagonist, is selected to be the new “Receiver” of a society where individuals have no knowledge or exercise of love or pain. Daily movements, jobs, interactions and information are all tightly controlled. The Elders of the society recognize the importance of understanding the outside world and past generations by placing the memories of humankind upon one individual: the Receiver. He provides wisdom and advice to those with no knowledge of war, love, freedom, or suffering as he draws upon memories the elders have no knowledge of. The current Receiver begins to train Jonas for the role by transmitting to him all of his memories by placing his hand on his back. Remember, it is a children’s novel! While the official title given by the society is The Receiver, Jonas begins to call him The Giver. The Receiver thus becomes The Giver of memories to Jonas. To spoil the story for you, the pain and suffering that is revealed to Jonas through the giving of humanity’s memories becomes overwhelming. His new awareness of the world around him causes him to inspect his own community. He decides that he would rather reside in a society with freedom and the potential of pain and suffering than be in isolation and safety. His awareness leads to action - going AWOL. His action leads to advocating – sharing his knowledge with other members of the community. However, when he was just a member of society and before his awareness, he was just ignorant. Before his action, he was just informed. And before his advocacy, he was just intrepid.

A good deal can be gleaned from Jonas’ experience. In the face of need, we all give. Some of us give money. Some of us give time. Some of us give sympathy. Some of us give apathy. And an ever small portion of us give of our entire selves. I believe that if ignorance is bliss then awareness is binding. Ignorance generates a good amount of attention while awareness for some reason generates little action. Enveloped by information, there is very little that happens in the world that we do not have the ability to learn about. Thus, many of us are quite informed of the nefarious actions and conditions of humanity. An American unaware of the existence of poverty or HIV/AIDS would be shocking. An American aware of these ills and not taking action? That would be status quo.

My coworker came in this week visibly shaken. It has been difficult to anticipate her state of emotions these past few months as she has been working her way through an unfortunate divorce. However, this morning the culprit was different. She explained that as she sat down on the Metro, she felt the man next to hear reach back. At first she thought he was simply reaching for his wallet. She quickly realized that the man was groping her. Embarrassed, she immediately stood up in shock and the perpetrator walked to another part of the train. A male passenger had witnessed the whole thing and said to her, “that was really awkward, I’m sorry”. She stared in even more disbelief that the passenger had not done or said anything. As she relayed the story to me, I was shocked that the passenger hadn’t done anything either! He was aware of what was happening but chose not to take action. My coworker expected and needed action against the problem, not awareness that it was happening.

I like the saying that they won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

I pray and aspire to not stop at awareness and be like Jonas.

I screwed up recently. I didn’t do something that I clearly should have done. I blame Bruce Wilkinson and his book You Were Born for This: The Seven Keys to a Life of Predictable Miracles. Now, it should be known that I don’t normally partake in books with titles that could be mistaken for the latest Joel Osteen bestseller. However, as a Christian, as someone who believes in miracles, and as someone who would like to give and receive more miracles, I downloaded it. (Thank you DC Public Library and your partnership with Amazon) The book itself is a simple and short read - much like that of his (in)famous Prayer of Jabez. Wilkinson makes the case of asking God to use you to carry out small miracles on a daily basis. This sounded great to me so I gave it a try.

After opening up my morning with some Bible reading and prayer, I asked that I could be a part of a small miracle for someone and headed off to work. I ride my bike to the Metro and have enjoyed the lack of extremely cold mornings until last Monday (December 12^th). Upon arriving at the Metro, I simply wanted to get to the platform as soon as possible. I hurriedly attempted to lock my bike and then felt something inside of me say, “Here comes your miracle”. I turned around and a lady asked me if I had one dollar or two. I told her I didn’t and went back to finishing up my chain and U lock. As she asked others around me, I approached her and asked if there was something specific she needed. She indicated a bus ticket. I said “sorry” again and went up to the platform. As I walked away, I felt the convicting voice say, “That was your miracle”. I tried to ignore that and the fact that I actually did have cash on me. It all became too much to go to work on so I decided to head back outside of the station and find her. As I came out of the Metro station, however, she was nowhere to be found. I had my chance to a part of a small miracle and I blew it because the opportunity interrupted and surprised me.

I used to be a lot more of an impulsive person. After five and a half years of marriage, becoming a father, living in a high context culture, and two degrees later, I’ve become somewhat more calculated in my decisions. While much wisdom is derived from methodical decision making practices (Proverbs 19:2), one can over think a decision or a response  like I did in the moment. Impulsive decisions shouldn’t be labeled as wholly detrimental. Rather, they should reveal the degree and speed to which you are able to discern opportunity to missed opportunity. My character just revealed the incorrect impulse. Mark Batterson said, “intellectual analysis usually results in spiritual paralysis.” Likewise, “responsible irresponsibility” has the potential to take over in moments like these. I was being responsible in desiring to get out of the cold keep myself healthy and get to work on time. Out of this sense of responsibility, I was irresponsible with my time and resources that God has given me.

I encourage you to look for a miracle in your life in this final week before Christmas. If you come across someone in need and ask God how He could allow such a thing, He may be asking you the same question.

Why do Christians participate in short-term mission trips? Is there need for such jaunts to urban environs and foreign lands? If so, is the need founded in God’s will? The missionary’s wanderlust? The mission destination’s material or spiritual weakness?

I initiated this blog with the intention of writing about subjects that are beyond me with an awareness and affinity for the intersection between the spiritual and social. I write to inspire and to challenge. If that falls short, I will accept interesting as an adjective. Hence the title of this personal repository: Extra Me. Latin for “beyond myself”, English for arrogant. I have and will continue to attempt the former rather than the latter by measuring entries against the second greatest commandment – to love your neighbor as yourself. Thus, earlier last month I questioned why individuals volunteer and now I will question why, as Christians, we volunteer on short-term mission trips. 

Barna Survey

Three years ago, the Barna Group published a study on the number of Americans and benefits to taking short-term mission trips. Significant findings:

§  9% of Americans have been on a short-term mission trip (11% of churchgoers)

§  77% of trips were international; 33% were domestic

§  75% of participants said a trip changed their life in some way

The fact that over ¾ of short-term mission trips are international is quite interesting. I’m not terribly surprised by the quantity of people taking these trips or the quality of their experiences though. However, it is telling to look at the quality of the personal experience closer with the following responses.

As a result of the trip I:

§  Became more aware of people’s struggles – 25%

§  Learned more about poverty, justice, or the world – 16%

§  Increased my compassion – 11%

§  Deepened my faith – 9%

§  Broadened my spiritual understanding – 9%

§  Boosted my financial generosity – 5%

These results stirred up some questions that I hope to answer through this series of entries. Instead of solely ruminating over my own experiences, I resolved to make the effort collaborative by gleaning experiences from friends and leaders around me who know the realities of mission trips. For the purpose of this blog, I define “short-term missions” as any ministry done while not living amongst those you are ministering to. What is the goal for mission trips? What is the preparation like? What activities are actually conducted?  I designed a ten question survey (thanks SurveyMonkey for the basic membership) that seeks to answer these questions.  As expected, the responses were varied and insightful albeit the scope was not scientific. Nonetheless, the experiences of over 200 mission trips provides a fairly authoritative glance into the success, shortcomings, and ideas of short-term missions.

Key Result #1:   Over 90% said the trip’s goal was clear and achievable. 80% said the experience was impactful for themselves and those being ministered to

Overarching observation of survey results: When we take mission trips, we are preparing for and focusing heavily on evangelism while experiencing success in reaching predetermined goals and seeing the lives of participants and the population impacted. In future posts, I will attempt to make sense of all of the results. For now, I will attempt to raise some questions regarding the first finding.  

If I could rewrite the questions (and not have to pay membership to the site), I would have broken  the question, “How would you describe the clarity and achievability of the mission’s goal?” into two questions. The fact that over 90% of the mission trips had a clear and achievable goal makes me suspicious. I do not say this to diminish anyone’s experience. Rather, I wonder two things. First, do mission trips that focus primarily on evangelism proffer goals that are truly clear? Second, what is the metric by which we measure success?

I look back on two international mission trips that I have led: one to San Jose, Costa Rica and one to Auckland, New Zealand. Without getting into historical, cultural and economic factors of the two countries, I will say that the ministry experience was worlds apart. I can’t say there was any particular difference in the types of students I lead on these trips and in general both teams had a healthy passion to share Jesus. Both teams were equally prepared and both executed the mission’s activities to the best of their abilities. At the conclusion of the Costa Rica trip, there was a genuine sense of accomplishment. The team saw dozens if not hundreds accept Jesus and/or repent from their current lifestyle. However, at the end of the New Zealand trip, the team was unsure as to what extent God had used them as they encountered educated and skeptical resistance to the message of Jesus.

Despite the two dissonant experiences, I still attribute the more meaningful experience to New Zealand. While the Costa Rica team ministered to the Ticos through interpreters and dramas, the New Zealand team leveraged their own personal testimonies in listening to and loving the Kiwis. In terms of future implications, the NZ team’s birth of confidence was greater than the CR team’s witness of success. As a result, goals were met and success was present on both of these trips. I suspect that there will forever be a redeeming quality to mission trips irrespective of perceived or actual success. Appropriately enough, those that have partaken in such trips may respond in the positive no matter the outcome (Simply because we are being obedient to the Great Commission). Thus, it is complicated to state in the affirmative that mission trips offer clear goals with the ability to measure them. Goals and measurements of success have a tendency to shift on the mission field. But, is this necessarily a negative attribute of the experience? Maybe the better question to ask is, should mission trips that focus primarily on evangelism proffer goals that are clear? And, should we attempt to measure success?  

Part II: Key Result #2: Minister to the body or soul? (Coming Soon)

Why do people volunteer? If you’ve ever had the tasking to organize and mobilize individuals for action, you may have prodded yourself and others for an answer to such a cerebral question that on the surface would seem artless. But the question is just as pertinent for the rest of us who may be interested in volunteering our own time and resources. Do we volunteer out of love? Sense of purpose? Self-worth? Ability? Understanding? Desire to belong? Social pressure? Reciprocity? Need?

The proliferation of “causes” and nonprofits advancing them in the US (for better or worse) harvests an abundance of altruistic consumer-like options where one can easily choose from an a la carte of issues. Often, it is unimportant to an organization as to why we show up for say, mass mailings. However, why a volunteer follows word with deed and shows up is the most important nugget of information an organization can glean with regard to mobilization of volunteers. From the academic side of the fence, it has been posited that six main reasons or functions for volunteerism exist: One’s values; one’s curiosity; one’s career; one’s social pressure; one’s guilt; and one’s self-esteem. Why anyone does anything typically tends to be multi-motivational by nature but understanding why an individual is compelled to raise awareness of issue xyz by talking about, posting to Facebook, Tweeting, and ultimately giving of their time is a recipe that organizations protect – if they are successful – and pursue if they are not.

Current, presidential candidate John Huntsman wants to make sure you remember that the state of Utah was ranked number one in job creation during his time as governor of the state. But did you know that Utah has the highest volunteer rate of any state as well? Furthermore, Provo, UT boasts the nation’s highest volunteer rate of any mid-sized city. It comes, as no coincidence that Utah is the global hub of the Mormon Church and Provo is the home of Brigham Young University and the largest Mormon Missionary Training Center. Reasons for Utah as a state and Provo as a city, maintaining high volunteer rates probably have as much to do with the academic reasons above as they do with my non-academic reasons.  But it is not a stretch to imagine Provo and other parts of Utah with much lower volunteerism should the Mormon Church suddenly relocate. The Church has provided the opportunity and framework for volunteering. Subsequently, the church has selfdom, legitimacy, meaning, and even authority amongst adherent. If such a network is already in place, why go and reinvent the wheel? The vast majority of individuals looking to volunteer are going to bridge their desire with action by partnering with established operations. I call this the Provo Effect.

The Provo Effect illuminates the reality that many of us volunteer by operating within an established framework or organization. Nearly 2/3 of volunteer activity in Utah is religious in nature largely because these are the opportunities made available and what is expected of an adherent. The scalability of the Provo Effect extends beyond the Mormon Church. Successful nonprofits are able to corner a market – or a bazaar to use a less capitalistic sounding term. In truth though, nonprofits are more similar than dissimilar to corporations. Both emphasize branding. Both compete for market (or bazaar) share. Both produce – whether it is information or tangible objects – with the belief of a return on investment. And, there is a spectrum of operating models amongst nonprofits that have varying theories on competition and collaboration. However, to keep operating, all nonprofits must seek two resources: hard capital and human capital. In other words, money and minions.

The Provo Effect is especially pronounced amongst today’s youth[1] interested in civic and social engagement. A fairly established set of “industry leaders” operate for and against a litany of issues while employing trendy and creative branding and sometimes leveraging celebrity endorsements. Ideally, all of this done while maintaining organizational selfdom, legitimacy, meaning and authority – all characteristics of the Provo Effect. After all, if we are going to be a part of something greater than ourselves, shouldn’t it truly be “greater”? The reality of the matter is that we, as aspiring world changers, are not always attracted to the un-established or un-hip movements. Why are youth not raising awareness and soliciting support to address childhood obesity? Addiction to video games? Underage consumption of alcohol? Could it be that these hit a little too close to home? Or in latter case, could it be that the issue has been “stolen” by our mothers (think MADD) and thus made un-couth?

To be clear, whenever individuals give of their time for others, the state of humankind is nudged forward. I am simply pondering a more effective in choosing where and how to allocate our time. The Provo Effect shouldn’t be branded as wholly good or bad. It is simply an observation on the factors that influence one’s decision to volunteer. Any organization that is successful in mobilizing volunteers and executing objectives usually has most if not all of the Provo Effect characteristics: selfdom, legitimacy, meaning, and authority. When we survey the landscape of goodwill to see what opportunities are available we tend to choose, as I said above, an altruistic consumer-like method of thinking based on whatever reasons or functions serve as motivations. But what if the measurement we used to volunteer was based on need and not what opportunities are available? Such a measurement would most likely usher us in the direction of innovation and possibly even trailblazing. Messy issues like human slavery and child soldiers receive their due attention as a result of the evil that stems from this fiendishness. However, many volunteers that work on behalf of organizations that combat such behavior will normally never the see the face of the victim due to lack of skills and expanse of distance. Those of us that volunteer to fight against these occurrences do not have the untidy responsibility of reintegrating a sex trafficked victim back into society or removing the gun from a child’s hands. I suspect most of us wouldn’t if we had the chance and couldn’t if we did.

So why do we sign up for causes with the skill and distance delta? Whether it is to keep the messy issues at a safe distance is up to each of us to work out ourselves. It’s something that I’ve always wrestled with but believe the answer to will lead us to the answer of why we volunteer.

Extra Me – Beyond Myself

[1] In this case, I will qualify “youth” as high school and college students.

What have I done to better another’s life? While recently reading through Stones Into Schools by Greg Mortenson, I could not resist the urge to ask myself this question…throughout the entire book. The man has assisted in the building of over 150 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan with the help of the non-profit he co-founded, Central Asia Institute. For anyone who has read Three Cups of Tea (Now required reading for officers going through the counterinsurgency program at the Pentagon), you know that Mortenson virtually stumbled upon this endeavor back in the 1990’s when he came upon a village that cared for him after losing his way coming down from K2. He told the village he would come back and build them a school. And he did.  Very few people would make such a promise, let alone actually execute it. Often times I feel that if I am unable to assist someone in need, in the moment, I am useless. In this narrative, we see just how useful one can be even delaying immediate philanthropic gratification.

While the book was a great read and incredibly insightful to the people and region, what I found most compelling was the Acknowledgements. Although inspiring to any aspiring philanthropist, it was effective in bringing one back to reality with regard to the sacrifice he and his family made. In an age where everyone is trying to figure out what to do with their lives and what their purpose is, it makes me question: What is more important, to be interesting or to be interested? 

I picked up a book last year that changed my whole paradigm on life. The scandalous title of The Hole in Our Gospel invited me to peek inside. Once I saw it was written by the President of World Vision, Richard Stearns, my hands were tied – I had to read it. As a Christian, the Hole in our Gospel  was fairly sobering but also fairly sickening. Of all the suffering described by a man who left the corporate board room of Milton Bradley to become World Vision’s President, one particular idea put forth continued to prick my conscience after I put the book down. Deemed the “Two percent of two percent” norm, Stearns describes how the average giving of American church members is just 2.58% of their income. On top of this, American churches as a whole, send only 2% of this 2.58% to overseas missions. Thus, those outside of America are only getting 2% of 2% or five ten-thousandths of our income! And oh by the way, American churchgoers’ income was $5.2 trillion in 2005.

Now, of course these numbers do not tell the whole story. Millions of dollars are not given to the church for this very reason. Some would prefer to just give to an NGO that specializes in the given cause. The term “church” is obviously ambiguous by default as many would argue whether or not certain Christian oriented sects or denominations belong. However, the spirit of what Stearns is getting at should not be explained away. If Christians were truly tithing and churches were spending less money on, what are sometimes, unnecessary building funds, the world may indeed be a better place. 

My first blog. How cute. I suppose I should feel some sort of triumph in putting flesh to plastic as I pound away on the keyboard. Instead, I almost feel contrite for believing I can add meaningful observations to the world in which we live. For it is the world in which we live that I feel coerced to build a vault that will house my questions, ponderings, amplifications and maybe even answers.  

Today, problems persist and peace eludes. The difference in 2011 is we have the ability to know about a specific need on the other side of world but more importantly, if we have a computer, it probably indicates we have the means to assist. I think of the homeless facebook advocate I just read about: Eric Sheptock. He has made the front page of the Washington Post and home page of CNN for his advocacy of the homeless in Washington, DC. It is people like Eric that frustrate and inspire me.  If he can do what he does with no home no car and no job, what can I do with all three and much more?  

The reality is we all do a lot..for ourselves. I would like to move beyond the point where I am constantly thinking about my own well being and to the point where I think enough that I am compelled to place other’s interests above mine. We can either seek gold or the golden rule.

Since living in Japan, I have increasingly thought about how I measure success. How can I beef up my resume? How will I use my graduate degree? What salary is too low? But every now and then another voice emerges in my brain and asks questions like who can I help today? How can I volunteer my resources? How can I love others better? These are the questions this blog will ask.

Ah yes, here it comes: the purpose of the blog. Very simply I want to amplify and understand how the golden rule of loving our neighbor is being carried out around the world. And maybe, just maybe, in the process the writer and readers of this blog will think and act beyond themselves.