before i go on...

so before i move forward in my blogging history, i thought necessary to share my thoughts on a comment to my priorities post from last week. here's the comment... oh, and thanks leif for sharing your thoughts.

Thought-provoking "snippette".

I'm curious what you meant at the end when you said, "i guess someone somewhere isn't retelling the proper message."

I have an sneaking suspicion that many people for a very long time have failed to retell the proper message.

I also think you can do a lot more with your actions than you can with your checkbook... especially if you're in college.

good stuff.

lemme answer your question, when i wrote, "i guess someone somewhere isn't retelling the proper message"... i was thinking about the someones that preach the "me first, then the kingdom come" message. i unfortnately can claim at one time or another i foolishly bought and sold this as the proper message. for which i am now ashamed. it's a cheap and easy message to buy and sell. the idea of cheap grace, which d. bonhoeffer writes about in his book the cost of discipleship. ...oh, and yes, your "sneaking suspicion" is rather true.

i also wanted to address what leif wrote at the end of his commment. i can (and so can anyone else) do much more with my actions than my checkbook... even if i'm not in college.

lemme give some ideas...

mission year
genesis expeditions
amor ministries
center for student missions


check 'em out. i'm sure if any of these organizations seem beyond your borders right now (which may be a good thing for one to explore why) there are plenty in your neighborhood for you to get active with.

alright that's 'nuff for now.

peace my friends, and play nice

priorities

a couple of years ago i was talking with a young man about the profession i tend to be lumped and lump myself into. during this conversatiion, i gleaned a piece of wisdom that has traveled with my since. he said, "you can tell where a person's priorities are by looking at that person's check book." wow. that can be haunting.

read this snipette below... and tell me how haunting the above statement is now.

A 2001 Barna Research Group poll commissioned by World Vision revealed that evangelical Christians are significantly less likely than are non-Christians to give money for AIDS education and prevention programs worldwide. Only 3 percent of evangelicals say they plan to help with AIDS internationally, compared with 8 percent of non-Christians and 8 percent of self-described born-again Christians. Evangelicals were also the least likely to support children orphaned by AIDS.

what's wrong with this picture??? this is ugly.

i guess someone somewhere isn't retelling the proper message.

one campaign

so a couple of years ago, a couple of people with lot's of money and a little time, and a big dream started a campaign called the jubilee campaign. this was based on an old testament decree, that actually never was celebrated. every 50 years all debts were forgiven and all debt driven slaves where released free from their debt and able to return to their familys'. the jubilee campaign never really took off here in the u.s.; however the people behind the idea didn't give up.

the ideas for the jubilee campaign was transformed into the drop the debt campaign here in the states (you may have heard of it in this form). this was fairly successful, both clinton and dub (g. w. bush) were captured by this campaign and actually took some great steps towards forgiving the debt of most of the african nations that owe money to the world bank and the u.s.

again this idea morphed into the d.a.t.a. organization (debt aids trade africa) which still carries all the same ideals basically as the previous campaigns (all still exist, you can visit their web-sites here-www.jubileeusa.org or www.data.org)

now, before us we have a campaign with the same dream, a little different, tweaked in some ways to get the message across. it's called the one campaign. check it out, www.one.org or travel over to this site www.sun.com/one/video-60-mov-hi.html it's more than worth the one minute you spent reading this.

ok, i'm done... for now