Archives for the month of: June, 2009

One of my favorite questions these days comes from Charles Lee:

How can we become a better expression of God’s love to the world?

When I came across this story about Sub Pop Records giving away college scholarships, I was both encouraged and challenged.

Encouraged, because I love the indie/punk DIY spirit — with this scholarship, Sub Pop is helping to foster music, creativity and the arts in the lives of three young people from the Pacific Northwest. Punk, to me, is not about three-chords and an attitude; it’s thinking differently about and making a difference where you live.

I am also challenged to deeply consider what kind of church I hope to be a part of and to help pastor — one whose community is better off because we are here.  I’m not only talking about funding scholarships or other humanitarian efforts (although, if we’re honest, the church in general could probably do a whole lot more of that) but fostering a spirit of generosity and creativity that reflects the head-spinning generosity and creativity of our God.

We want to become a church who serves, loves, prays for and is a good neighbor to those around us. We want to give more than we take, to bless more than we are blessed, and to become a better expression of what the love of God in Christ actually looks like.

While there has been some robust discussion/debate on the benefits/drawbacks of twittering during church gatherings, along with some mainstream press, I find that this has not really been a relevant issue for our little community.  Only a couple of us use the Twitter and, out of that handful of people, I am probably the most actively engaged.  I must confess, I like gadgets (even if I can’t purchase them), but my interest in Twitter goes beyond fascination with shiny new toys.

This Time article, How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live, contains one insight in particular that I believe speaks volumes to those of us who believe church is a movement, not a monument; that it’s the people, not the buildings. End-user innovation in the Twitterverse is innovation:

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This insight has stuck with me since The Idea Camp in Irvine:

Open source is about making it happen for the kingdom, not about getting credit for it.

Charles Lee embodies this principle in so many ways.  One of the many movements he helps lead, JustOne, created an initiative called the Laundry Love Project as “regular opportunities to help people who are struggling financially by assisting them with doing their laundry. Relationships are built, and LLPs become small communities of common concern in which participants often find that they receive assistance and benefit with other areas of their lives.”

Our church community initiated and participated in our first LLP on Saturday, June 6th. I was so encouraged to hear about other communities around the country also hosting LLPs — check out this great photo of a standing-room only crowd in Arkansas and this site setup by a group in Red Oak, Texas.

San Diego, because of its temperate climate, has a large homeless population.  Many within our church have struggled with the idea of how to make a difference for members of the homeless community beyond giving a couple of dollars here & there when we see them panhandling at major intersections near church.

Laundry Love gave us a venue for listening to individual stories and establishing relationships while, at the same time, offering practical help.  Our church might not be very big in numbers, but we have a huge heart!  Most of our church members are not likely to strike up a Jesus-conversation with a stranger seated next to them on an airplane, but they are more than willing to get their hands dirty and serve like Jesus.  Laundry Love is a great fit for us, and we’re hoping this will be the first of many.  I’ve cross-posted the following from our church’s site:

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Mark Canesco has made his font, Quatro, available for free download here.  You’ll need to email him directly to get the link (despite the overwhelming number of requests he has received, Mark was very prompt in replying to my email). Check out some of the great logos he’s created over on his site.  [h/t: AisleOne]

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I think Twitter is causing my inability to write complete thoughts (speaking of which, you can still vote for my Twitter-inspired Threadles shirt!).  Well, at least, I’ll blame Twitter (Dear Twitter machine, thanks for being the fall guy… or should I say, fail guy? Terrible!)…

In any case, I’ve been enjoying Tumblr as a sort of photoblog repository for the miscellany and randomness I enjoy throughout the week.  I like the clean layout (especially after a few tweaks here and there) and the simplicity — my Tumblr is sort of a landing spot between a tweet and a fully-formed post that I would blog here.

Maybe one day, I’ll end up consolidating things.  It’s hard to predict my internet machine usage (these days, I hardly use the Facebook at all).  In case you’re interested, though, please check out headsparks.tumblr.com for pictures, videos and quotes that catch my eye.