Did you ever think growing up that you wanted to be banker? I didn’t. I never once gave thought that I wanted to be a banker, that is until a few weeks ago. I was listening to a Mars Hill, Grand Rapids, podcast about the new vision the church was taking to help the poor in Grand Rapids, greater Michigan and the World. One of the ways they talked about helping was by setting aside money for micro-loans. Micro-loans are small loans ($40 - $500) with no interest given out to people in impoverished regions all over the globe to help them build their business and get them out of extreme poverty. I was floored by the idea.

The guy behind the idea Muhammad Yunus created the Grameen Bank in 1976 to make loans to poor Bangladeshis and the idea has slowly caught on and more and more people are getting involved around the world. Yunus is the only Economist to ever win the Noble Peace Prize for his work with micro-economics (micro-loans) and author of Banker to the Poor.

I have been pounding my head against the wall in anticipation till I could make my first donation to a group making micro-loans ever since that day. Well, today I became a banker (maybe better said an investor in a bank) with World Vision’s Microenterprise Development. They have 457,918 clients in 47 countries totaling $237,710,941 in loans with a 98% repayment rate and 66% of their clients are women.

There are many great organizations that are making micro-loans out there, please take some time and research the whole idea of micro-loans and see if this is one way you could help end extreme poverty. Every person counts, every contribution makes an impact so find some way to wage battle against extreme poverty.

Thoughts?

[tags]micro-loans, Muhammad Yunus, World Vision, poverty[/tags]

I’ve been thinking a lot about vision and vision casting the last couple of weeks. A lot of people talk about protecting your vision, standing strong on your vision and not letting others move your vision, or how some people might not be good fits in your church because they can’t or won’t get behind your vision. But no one talks about how they developed their vision. I know that prayer is a huge part of it and looking out to your community plays a part but what else? How do you develop clear visions to cast? Help me out and share your opinions and ideas. How did God give you your vision? What resources or books helped? Or am I missing the whole point?

[tags]vision, vision casting[/tags]

I don’t know if you know about the Resurgence website or not so I thought I would share this resource with you. The Acts 29 Network if I’m right in conjunction with a few other groups and people have put together this website as a resource with articles on theology and leadership, a few blogs, podcasts and videocasts. I watched Tim Keller today talk about Doing Justice and the church’s role in accomplishing it and I guess I overlooked it precursor on the Gospel , great stuff. Now I may not personally agree with everything on their site but I still think it is a great resource out there for church leaders. Check it out some time and relish it as a great site to learn, be encouraged and inspired.

[tags]Resurgence, Tim Keller, leadership, theology[/tags]

That is to the Buzz Conference at National Community Church in DC this summer. I got my registration done this afternoon before early bird is up and I get my free copy of Confessions of a Pastor by Greg Groeschel.

I think this will be one of the best conferences I have ever been to. I also can’t wait till June cause I get to see Sean, my brother who lives like 12 blocks from Union Station and Ebenezer’s Coffee House (which I’m still trying to get him to drop in and check out). Anyways if your going leave a comment and we’ll hook while were there.

[tags]buzz conference 2007, national community church, creative conference[/tags]

I’ve got to get some focus. I’ve been letting myself get distracted from the tasks at hand and just finding busyness as I work alone now as the only full time staff at our church. Since starting at CCDS I’m seeing there are a lot of areas that need work but are they all worth keeping alive or should we stop doing it and find something new that could be more effective? Should we simplify what we do? Are we help students or for that matter church members produce meaningful fruit? Is there any life transformation going on in their lives on account of what we are doing? I’ve been looking at some new way that we can connect with and have conversations with students that I’ve never done before. I saw a student ministry staff on their website offer a specific time each week that was virtual office hours. That could be IM, MyspaceIM, text messaging or something of the likes. I’m working to get the paperwork filled out so I can get onto the High School and Middle School campus’ in the area and also looking for where they hang out in DeLand.

I took some of my youth sponsors to the Youth Pastor’s Summit the end of last week and heard some really great speakers and had a fun time hanging out and talking with them. I’m planning on posting some of the notes I took while there later this week. On Thursday we heard James Ryle, Greg Stier, Georga Barna and then on Friday I got to hear Thom Rainer. So I’ll be posting some notes and thoughts on those later after I spend some more time working my way through it all.

My youth sponsors team is getting together tomorrow night to talk through what we heard and some questions I want us to process as a team. We have a really out going, not afraid to talk bunch so I’m sure I’ll hear a bunch I want to hear and hopefully some stuff I don’t.

I was reading around the blogoshpere tonight and found that Mark Gibson, the lead singer for Sundry back in the day, is now the worship guy at Stonepoint Christian Church in Newnan, GA. I couldn’t believe what I was reading when their lead guy Scott was referring to their new worship leader (I was reading an older post) and he referred to a band the guy was in and I click on the story and sure enough it was Mark, how crazy is that. It is at least to me.

[tags]George Barna, Thom Rainer, Text Messaging, DeLand[/tags]

This is a great clip of Bono winning the NAACP Chairman’s Award. He nails it on the head. Its a must watch not just because its Bono but its a powerful message we need to hear over and over again.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDueMj7RlsU 425 350]

[tags]Bono, One Campaign, NAACP, Aids, Africa[/tags]