Competitive Philanthropy vs. the Stealthy Right Hand

I have recently been amazed at the overwhelming support for the disaster stricken country of Haiti. The response seems to be more widespread and urgent than the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami which claimed the lives of around 200,000 victims. And as luck seems to have it, these catastrophes strike third world countries more often than not. It would appear that us fortunate “first-worlders” are starting to learn our lesson in generosity and compassion for the less fortunate. But as with anything, I think it goes a little deeper than that. I want to talk a little bit about what’s called “Competitive Philanthropy.”

Road-Remorse

This weekend I was asked by Danny Vincent from Dwelling Place (Zion Bible College in Haverhill, MA) to play guitar with them at a youth leader’s summit called “Pillars Conference.” After the Saturday morning session I had to head back to Agawam to get ready for our Saturday night service. On the way home while driving through Worcester on I-290, I accidentally took the slower of two ways to get to the Mass Pike because I was distracted while tweeting (#dangerousThingsIshouldntDo) a good line I had just heard in a Gary Go song (#lameThingsIshouldntDo). FYI, the “#” is called a Twitter “hashtag,” and I don’t really know what they do either.

Since I was slightly detoured, I found myself in somewhat unfamiliar territory. The only thing I could do was drive very slow while frantically looking for “I-90″ signs. When I finally found my access point to the Pike, I had to cut across four lanes and

Some Stupid Punk-Kid’s Shoulder

Last night a few other leaders and I took a pack of kids from our youth to go see Hillsong United’s “The I-Heart Film,” which was a one-time event, broadcast via satellite from Australia to North America. Since we have youth group every Wednesday night, we couldn’t take everyone (potentially 200 kids), so we made it optional for whoever wanted to come along. If you’re a follower of Christ and don’t know what this film is, first, emerge from the cave in which you dwell (take no offense, I’m kidding, sort of), then do a Google search with terms like “The I-Heart Revolution” or “we’re all in this together” and read up on this movement. Or just go to I-Heart.org and get involved.

I could talk all about the injustices and horrible atrocities that we were made privy to through this film, but I won’t. I could talk about how I have been given a kick in the butt to start reaching out to the people around me, but I won’t. I could talk about a lot of the things this film was mostly intended to get us talking and thinking

Sand Castles + Easter Eggs + Piñatas

Over the last few days I’ve had and/or heard some discussions with people concerning Halloween and how it fits in with the Christian life. We’ve all heard the claims over the years of its alleged “pagan roots,” but probably nine out of ten people that use this argument are simply just regurgitating it because they heard someone else say it… (which unfortunately is the foundation of many Christians’ viewpoint on such issues). And let’s be honest, it makes you sound really smart when you say something has “pagan roots.” It screams, “I read leatherbound books and have discovered the true evil that hides behind the commercial mask we have placed over this holiday/object/person/etc/etc…” I know full well that I’m not the first person to delve into this debate, but