Be The NOW

Here we are again- the holiday season! I think I actually saw Thanksgiving decorations in stores starting in August, no joke. I love this part of the year because as families come together to share memories and stuff ourselves with the best food on the planet- they also have this sense of giving take over. During the holidays, our eyes are opened a little to hurting families, lonely people, and struggling hopes. We go out of our way to include people and show love, I just wish we could have “Holiday Eyes” year-round.

It’s interesting to see how people respond to servant-hood in our churches during the course of the year. For the most part, most churches around the country do a good job of helping people through the year, but I think we could do better. What if we could keep our “Holiday Eyes” even in April. What if we could see hurting people and go out of our way to include people on a weekly basis?

I would like to submit three easy ways you can see people who need love on a daily basis. (more…)

Last week students from all over the nation gave up eating out for one meal, and donated the money they would have spent on that mean, to One Meal, One Day.  A couple of high school students began this movement within their youth group and school.  They saw a need and found a way to help.  Since then, they have been encouraging students around the country to do the same.

A youth group of 85 middle and high school students in Wichita collected over $900 last Wednesday.  In Des Moines, Iowa, Lutheran Church of Hope’s middle school ministry collected just over $1100.

These girls have an even larger vision for OMOD.  Skipping one meal and donating that money one time is just the beginning.

“The OMOD movement is much bigger than a single act of sacrifice. It’s about empowering students to lead the church by raising awareness and funds to feed the hungry. And it’s about spiritual transformation—helping students to become more like Jesus as they discover his heart of compassion for the poor and commit themselves to be his hands and feet in service.”

Claire and Katie from Landon Cox on Vimeo.

How can you help raise the awareness of hunger in your community?  Are you currently a part of something?

Be the Now challenge: Give up one meal a week for an entire year, and donate the money you would have spent on those meals to One Meal, One Day so that someone without food will be able to eat.

Over the past month I have spent a lot of time researching organizations and people, in order to narrow down who to promote.  Now, I am by no means claiming to work for the organizations and people mentioned, so any “promotion” Be the Now does strictly is being done due to the fact that what these others are doing, runs parallel with the vision of Be the Now.

Now that there is a larger list of ideas, and help from others around me, I hope to be more present more consistently at the site.

This site will continue to need your help.  Being made aware of any people/organizations is always encouraged.  Any thoughts and feedback with what is being posted is most definitely welcomed.  And volunteers to write are wanted.

We want to hear from you.  Where are you helping?  How are you seeing God change lives?  How has helping others changed your life?

I know there are people out there doing big things, with the hope of Powerful Change.  Let’s hear about it!

Beyond helping others, I have been asked by many people the question of “why?”  Readers, friends and family members want to further understand why I’m writing for Be The Now, and what the drive behind it is.

I’m thrilled to be asked these questions; it not only allows me to be clear about the purpose, but it also helps me check my personal motives and drive behind Be The Now.

First and foremost, ideas presented come from a belief and following of Jesus Christ.  Here at Be The Now, Biblical values are the drive behind it.

James 1:22 – 25 says, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.”

If we, as believers, are supposed to do what It says (v.22), then we must answer the call to help others.  Continuing on in verse 27b, James reminds us to “look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

Meeting the needs of others is not for our own purposes – not so we feel good, not so we can get something, and not so we can check it off of our list.  Caring for the needy happens because we have been commanded to do it.  While living on the earth, our responsibility will constantly be to care for others, with having no hope of getting something in return.

When we are able to love people as Jesus Loves people, our desire to make a change grows, and our reason for helping others becomes completely selfless.

Our intent is to serve. Serve God. Serve the needy.

Thank you Nate for such a wonderful welcome!  I am VERY excited to now be a part of the Be The Now team (YOU, the reader, are included in that).  I am anxious to begin sharing different ideas that can help and encourage YOU to get involved and truly make a difference in the world!

My ultimate hope is that after reading our posts, YOU will get ideas, be encouraged and then RUN towards being involved in something greater!  The last thing I want is for us to write posts, but then not have anyone feel encouraged or see the importance of helping those in need.  Since my goal is to empower you, I would love to receive feedback, thoughts and even resources that may help Be The Now grow, so that we can be a useful tool for you.

With that said, I too am on the journey of figuring out where my niche is within the concept of “doing something greater.”  Writing for Be The Now is just one way I hope to challenge you, along with myself.  I believe that everyone, no matter status, should get involved in something that will indeed change the world – that change may take months, or even years – whatever “it” is, it doesn’t have to be a national known organization; as long as the goal is focused on positive change.  Change will occur in all different ways, just as we all will be drawn to a variety of areas to get involved in.

A challenge for those of you who want to do something, but are struggling to pin point WHAT or WHERE you want to help… make a list with categories of people (ie: troubled youth, the elderly, single moms, etc.).  Once you’ve thought of 10-15 or so, rate your top five – circle them.  This is an easy way to see if there is a specific people group that you’re drawn to, which then leads to the next step.  Begin researching your top picks to become aware of what options are available to get involved in, in your area.  The easiest place to do that is the internet.  Spend a large amount of time researching.  Its okay to not begin helping at this very moment – you don’t want to jump into something you will quickly abandon; you’ll end up back where you began.  Read through entire websites so you are able to get a clear grasp of what each place/organization focuses on and what their vision is.

I’ll leave you with that!  I will talk more about contacting people and asking questions at a later time.

Again, thank you Nate for the opportunity to run with Be The Now – I am thrilled to see where this journey takes readers and myself!

 Jackie

I once wrote about passions. In short, not everyone’s passion for their specific ministry is the same. One may feel stronger about Worship than Missions, but understands both are essential for showing people Jesus. I still very strongly about it- in fact, I have some great news for you!

Several months ago, I started Be The Now. I believe it to be a great idea, a great vision, and a great resource- which is why I can’t lead this ship anymore. Even though I understand and believe what Be The Now stands for, my true and real passion is to help churches, ministries, and non-profits leverage pop culture, media, and technology to reach people for Christ. Getting Be The Now up and running, leveraging the best WordPress Theme available, and going where the people are (Social Media), is evidence of my passion. Now I need to hand it off to someone who can really run with what Nick Shoemaker and I have built.

Jackie Wild, writer, teacher, and people-reacher, is someone that I’ve been friends with for years. We’ve seen God work in the lives of each other, and I really believe there’s no one (at least not until she empowers someone else) that can and will lead BTN to become the great outreach tool it’s designed to be. Her heart for people astounds me, her desire for God encourages me, and she is now the ‘Big Cheese’ here at Be The Now!

I’ll still be around! I hope to still write about people reaching people and telling them about Jesus. I’m sure Nick will still write and scout for outreaches making a difference too.

I can’t tell you how excited I am to see Jackie in this role… will you welcome her with me? Jackie, it’s all yours!

I just read a post from one of my “must read” blogs by Tim Stevens. He wrote about a post from one of my other “must read” writers, Kem Meyer. His post was agreeing with her post named, Helping Humanity is in Style & Is Easier than Ever. She pushes; As a result of people having the web at their fingers and social networks in the palm of their hands they can join a cause on Facebook or Twitter and not actually do anything for those causes. In fact, it seems to be more noise we have to sort through.

I get that. In fact I’m running into that now a little with Be The Now. We have about 250 fans on our Facebook page, and about 60 followers on Twitter. Only a fraction of them have actually donated $10 to our campaign that will give 800 people fresh drinking water for 20 years. Kem quoted how she sees it:

“There’s a newish movement called ‘slactivism.’ Basically, it refers to doing good without having to do much at all. It’s inch-deep activism that doesn’t cost much money and takes even less effort.”

I’m not trying to call out Kem or Tim. I look up to both of them and enjoy their writings. Tim’s book helped put words to many of my feelings about pop culture & media in the Church and I’m going to see Kem later this month for a web & social media seminar– but I will push back a little bit. In a world where non-profits and churches don’t have a huge advertising budget, and with the free resources at our finger tips like Twitter and Facebook; doesn’t it all make sense? Shouldn’t we try our best to tell people about a cause they may be interested in? I mean, I’m not even a non-profit, I’m just a guy who started a blog to try and fill a need. I know you agree with me, and I certainly don’t want to limit my campaign to the web. I’ve been meeting with some people that I think can help us publicly spread the word through displays and commercials- but my initial marketing push was all things free.

It’s a good reminder to not let your servant-hood be limited to flippantly joining a group but not sacrificing any of your time, talent, or treasure. These thoughts were also a good push for me to get back to the business of trying to spread the word through other venues. I’ve made web banners and videos available to start the campaign, now I can… (i can’t believe I’m going to say this) “take it to the streets.” (Ok, that was a little lame.)

So what about you? Are you a Slactivist, or do you live a big life-story, impacting the need and changing the course of history? I hope when I’m described to people, they describe me as the latter.

Some people have contacted me about donating by check verses using a credit card. This is very easy to do in only 4 easy steps! Once you get to the campaign page, just….

You’ll receive an official tax receipt 3-4 weeks after your check is processed!

Thanks!!

I’ve been on quite a journey in my relationship with God and the Church. I remembered being cynical and disillusioned with how ministry worked and my assumption of what I believed to be important to the Church. I would sit in church, when I went, annoyed by the flakiness and lack of excellence in the services. On the outside, I was listening politely, but on the inside I was banging my head bloody against the pew in front of me.

I loved worship time. In fact, it seemed that for most of worship hadn’t been screwed up by man. I also loved the times my friends and I came to the church in the middle of the night and worshiped with the music set at its intended volume levels. It seemed like those were the times when God wasn’t deluted by man’s institution.

Then things changed.

In the deep quagmire of my disillusionment, God whispered something to me. As I was stewing on the Church’s failings, He said, “So what are you doing to be the change?” I was busted. I sat there for a minute, and came to the conclusion that the only thing I was doing was complaining. I was complaining without solutions, thus changing nothing.

What I began to learn through that experience is that “The Church” is God’s true love, and if I saw that they need help in being more relevant, better equipped, or more creative, its my job to help them. You can’t effect change with no solutions, that will only breed disillusionment. I don’t have all the answers, but I have some.

If you don’t supply solutions with your complaints, you will not effect change. See the need, effect quality and Biblical change, and get over yourself.

So I don’t mean to be rude, but “put up or shut up!”

Be the now.

I know there’s a lot of criticism out there about the “National Day of Prayer.” I know that we should be earnestly praying everyday and not just on a selected day. Today, as I prayed, and thought about the journey I’m taking with Be The Now, I just prayed that God would start to do in other’s hearts what He’s begun to do in mine. I’m not better than anyone, but I can see a change taking place in my life. I can look at things in a different perspective.

Anyway, take a few minutes today and ask God what his heart is for you and your life story- my bet is, He’ll show you!