Churches of Christ in Oklahoma assess damage, brace for another round of severe weather
Tornado sirens went off as I was getting this post together. I wrote the final paragraphs while waiting out a storm in the same place I was yesterday (see below). A massive tornado has been reported in Moore, Okla., south of Oklahoma City. We’re praying for the people there and will post updates.
If there is one thing this life has taught me, it’s that I must hold loosely to everything. Everything. I can’t put down roots anywhere; I will never find stability. I will never grow old in one house. I may someday have to evacuate with the clothes on my back. Or, I may just get robbed blind.
But it’s okay. Because it reminds me that I shouldn’t love this life too tightly anyway. This life is not all there is, and it’s definitely not worth fretting over.
“Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.” C. S. Lewis
What if Christians actually laid down their honor, their pride, their instincts to get defensive? What if we beat our swords into plowshares and answered every attack with love, with a still small voice that never wavered, but never raised?
It would mean that we are finally imitators of Jesus, and every last one of the accusations leveled against us—that we are hateful, hypocrites, selfish, narrow-minded and backward—would no longer be true.
The Way We Think About Charity Is All Wrong
Our generation does not want its epitaph to read, “We kept charity overhead low.” We want it to read that we changed the world, and that part of the way we did that was by changing the way we think about these things. So the next time you’re looking at a charity, don’t ask about the rate of their overhead. Ask about the scale of their dreams, their Apple-, Google-, Amazon-scale dreams, how they measure their progress toward those dreams, and what resources they need to make them come true regardless of what the overhead is. Who cares what the overhead is if these problems are actually getting solved? If we can have that kind of generosity, a generosity of thought, then the non-profit sector can play a massive role in changing the world for all those citizens most desperately in need of it to change. . . .
The Art of Good Openings and Closings
I’ve just returned from an amazing trip of facilitating workshops, discussions and master classes as well as a keynoting a conference on “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit” in Australia and New Zealand. It made me very happy to be teaching non-stop for almost two weeks. I’m always learning as I help others learn. Here’s a couple of reflections from my “trainer’s notebook.”
You get to choose your story. If the story you’ve chosen doesn’t get through, it’s up to you to fix that. Pick a story that reflects your work, sure, but also one that resonates with the receiver
What Guilt Does the U.S. Bear in Guatemala?
But little was said at the trial about U.S. involvement in Guatemala. A United Nations truth commission in 1999 said the United States bore much responsibility for advising, training, arming and financing the troops, even teaching torture, as part of the Reagan administration’s campaign against communism.
What guilt does the United States bear in Guatemalan atrocities?
Slaughter Was Part of Reagan’s Hard Line
Blaming the U.S. Is Easy Propaganda
We Enabled Genocide, but the Elite Committed It
Guatemala Suffered for U.S. Foreign Policy