In the midst of all of the shopping drama and chaos (people being stampeded to death @ Wal-Mart…really), would you consider purchasing a toy (or 10) for a beautiful child in need @ 500toys.org.
We've raised funds for 500 uniforms and over 200 toys and need YOUR help to be able to provide toys this Christmas to all 500 students @ Bethune Elementary School here in inner city Atlanta.
It's safe, quick, and makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over! You can give and get more info (including a video of yours truly) @ 500toys.org or give below.
I know that you've probably been told it a gazillion times, but I want to wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving! It may sound silly, but I really value all of my blog readers and tell everyone just how close I feel to you.
Here is what you should do today. I'm going to do it.
Go overboard! Be mushy. Make it awkward! Look your loved ones in the eyes and tell them how special they are to you. Do it at the dinner table. Embarrass your family by stopping dinner and telling everyone how much they mean to you and how glad you are to have them in your life. Tell them something very specific you are thankful for that may surprise them. Folk just don't hear these things enough and I promise you it will make them feel good inside!
I’m not going to argue here that Jack Bauer is Jesus – although the show has made him out to be more of a Christ figure this season than any other. I love Jack. My wife loves Jack too. We’ve seen every hour of every season.
Before Mel Gibson blew it by making some dumb comments about Jewish folk, I used to want to be William Wallace.
Here’s my theory (and I am staking everything I have on this by launching The Courageous Church):
God has placed in me (and in you) a desire to take BOLD, COURAGEOUS actions for Him. It’s deep inside of you. These television heroes stir it up in you, but they didn’t place it there. God did. Some part of you wants to do what Jack did this past Sunday. When watching it, you imagine yourself being courageous and risking it all to do something righteous.
You want to be courageous, but life, much like what we see in the Matrix, has a way of causing you to choose a very ordinary path.
Clock in. Clock out. Fill out your report. Direct deposit. Clock in. Clock out. Fill out your report. Direct Deposit. Automatic bill pay. Clock in. Clock out. Fill out your report. Three day weekend.
But here’s the thing – being courageous is not some new fad on television. You could throw the Bible up in the air and point your finger at the page it lands on and I BET YOU find a courageous man or woman taking risks for the Lord. I won’t call roll, but I will suggest to you that no one exhibited more courage than Jesus.
Read the Gospels and see for yourself. Do you really think that God placed the excitement and courageous urge inside of you so that you could go out and buy the collector’s edition DVD of 24? I don’t.
Two questions:
1. If God really placed the courageous urge inside of us, why are most of us sitting on it?
2. What is one badass thing that you would like to do if #1 wasn’t in the way.
Ever had a baby before? It's tough. Every pregnancy we've had has had MAJOR scares, but everything has always turned out alright! That's one of the reasons my wife and I are so crazy about each other and so crazy about our kids. When you go through tough times, you can either allow to drive you apart or pull you together. We choose togetherness.
My wife has been wildly ill for
the past two days (severe pain all over, vomiting, etc.) and has now
been admitted to the hospital (Labor & Delivery) to determine what
is wrong. She's only 29 weeks, so we are praying against delivery at this point. Please pray with me for her health and the health of our baby girl – Savannah Grace.
Here are a few quirky facts to lighten the mood:
When we had EZ here several years ago, they didn't have wireless internet. Now they do. This makes me happy.
The security here in Labor & Delivery is enough to protect Barack Obama at a Klan Rally. :)
They now take the picture of every guest with a high tech digital camera and print it out on to a sticker.
Get this, the sticker has a heat sensitive patch on it that turns
red (from your body heat) after 8 hours. At this point, you have to
get a new sticker.
I am wearing my Chaplain ID from Emory Hospital with the hope that it gives me a little clout.
Wow! We just checked into our room. I'm going to have to take a picture (or a Flip video if my sick, pregnant wife will allow it). It's like the Bellagio. For real.
I'm so thankful (and proud) to be a regular guest on NPR. It helps to keep me informed of all of the latest current affairs and allows me to be an important voice at the table. Check me and the crew out today as we talk about Al Qaida, the Georgia Senate runoff race, and the roll The Roots will be playing on the new Jimmy Fallon Show.
Have you seen our new website – 500toys.org - we need YOUR help!
My wife is about 7 months pregnant and got sick as a dog last night!
She hasn't really been this sick since the summer. She is still really ill and we're hoping it's not a new phase in the pregnancy, but something that just lasts a day or two.
It's really all that I'm thinking about right now.
It's very hard for me to see her feel like this.
Our launch team had a very important meeting today @ 2pm that we canceled so that I could take care of my wife. I hated to do this, but I needed to be there and simply couldn't leave her alone.
Of course a few people didn't get the message and still showed up. That really sucks. I apologized profusely.
Thinking of hosting the meeting here tomorrow night.
Been looking today for a free (or nearly free) group text messaging service. Because I have a Blackberry and check my email 10 times a day, I assume that everyone else does the same. They don't.
I am considering bartering my services for the services of an accountant for our church in place of traditional payment. This is the time that we live in!
Planned on writing a lot more, but I need to fix my wife something bland to eat with the hopes that it'll stay down.
We did 500 school uniforms in less than 3 weeks, now we have 10 days to get 429 more TOYS to hit our goal! To help us get there we have a new and improved website, a new video, and a laser focused message @:
Check us out! If your still nostalgic about 500uniforms.org – it still works too:)
Would you consider pasting this link on your blog or your Facebook, Twitter, MySpace accounts? Would you also consider sending emails to friends and family and making your best donation when you can? Toys are just $15 and come directly from the cute wish lists created by the beautiful kids of Bethune Elementary School. We can't get there without YOU
Over the past 3 weeks, we have been busting our butts and looking under every rock for donors interested in giving to our inner city Christmas initiative @ 500uniforms.org. As of today we've raised $13,458 – which is 67% of what we need to purchase every child at Bethune Elementary School a brand new uniform and a toy off of their cute wish lists.
Every day I get very intelligent, well-qualified people urging me to make an appeal to the many rich celebrities here in Atlanta. Don't get me wrong, I love a rich celebrity as much as the next person and think that it would be very cool to have a rapper or athlete or business executive write us a check for the remaining $6,542 that we need, but for this program, I prefer having a BUNCH of small donations. Let me tell you why.
While we've had 2-3 donations over $1,000 and have had about 15 people give between $100-$750, we've had dozens and dozensof people give anywhere from $1-$40. It took all of these people to get us where we are today. One big, fat check wouldn't have allowed us to have all of these benefits:
We have 100's of people praying for us because they gave, wanted to give, or know someone that did.
We have 100's of people spreading the word about the good work that we're doing in the inner city of Atlanta.
We have people all across the country and across the world (that don't know any rich celebs) studying what we're doing and feeling like they could do it too.
Raising this money requires AN ENTIRE TEAM EFFORT. If Young Jeezy wrote us a check for what we needed it would deny our team an opportunity to share this experience with one another.
Down the road when we need to raise $25,000,000, we won't do it just like this. We will need big checks, little checks, million dollar donations and rolls of pennies – until then, I am enjoying seeing everyone come together to make this happen!
If you haven't given yet, please consider giving today @ 500uniforms.org! Your mustard seed helps!
Do you like pipe organ music? I was told that the nice woman playing in the background is actually very gifted. Anyways, this is a THANK YOU video that I filmed on my FlipCamera this morning when I learned that class was canceled. We are about to launch a new website for our toy campaign, but decided not to use this video since my battery ran out at the very end!
We've knocked out 500 brand new uniforms (you should see the smile on my face) for the beautiful kids of Bethune, but now we need to purchase about 425 more toys ($15 a piece) to hit our final goal! You can give here today. It's quick, safe, and easy and will bless a child that would otherwise have little to nothing this Christmas!
In less than 3 weeks, women, men, families, churches, and businesses from all around the country (and the world) came together and purchased every single student of Bethune Elementary School a brand new school uniform @ 500uniforms.org!
Welcome to all of my new friends from Streaming Faith! My prayer is that the rest of this week be a focused, productive one for you. I’d love to have you read and see all about my miracle story if you have a few minutes. Before you click away to the next bit of news, though, I need your help.
Let’s Be Real!
You
and I both already know that the true meaningof the Christmas holiday has been hijacked and replaced with credit cards and consumerism.You don’t need another lesson on the reason
for the season, but maybe you do need an opportunity to learn about some
beautiful children right here in downtown Atlanta that really NEED YOUR HELP!
Bethune Elementary School has an amazing staff and a
wonderful student body made up of some of the poorest, brightest children you
have never heard of.These kids are amazing.Over 98% of the Bethune
students live at or below the national poverty level and the overwhelming
majority of these babies live in homes and apartments that are so dilapidated
and unstable that you would be surprised that people are still allowed to live
that way in 2008.This isn’t play
poverty – this is the real deal!
And the blessing is that you have an opportunity TODAY to be
a bright spot in the lives of these children. This Christmas, we want every single child (about 500 students) in this
school to have a NEW SCHOOL UNIFORM and a FUN TOY to call their own.If YOU don’t help, many of these kids simply won’t receive anything at all this Christmas, but we believe that God is going
to use you to be a blessing to these beautiful children.
Each school uniform will be well-designed and custom ordered for each individual child and every toy will be ordered based on the wish lists that we received from the students.
The cost of each complete uniform is $25.
The cost of each toy will be approximately $15.
Please go to our website @ 500uniforms.org to see a video of me, a lot more about what you can do to help these beautiful young children, and very safe, quick and easy ways for you to show a child here in downtown Atlanta that they are loved
all around the world! While we hope that each of you will purchase at
least one item, if you are able, you can purchase far more than one
uniform or one new toy!
They said we couldn’t do it, but we’re doing it! It was an absolutely outrageous
commitment to say that we could buy brand new uniforms and a brand new
toy for all 500 students of Bethune Elementary School, but we’re
halfway there! We’ve raised funds for over 425 uniforms and have just
75 uniforms to go!
100% of your donation will go toward the purchase of these
items.
You can go to our website @ 500uniforms.org to learn more or give immediately below!
Here is a comical, futile attempt I made trying to ask you for help with our inner city Christmas initiative, 500uniforms.org right before bath time with my little man EZ!
Just three weeks ago several (intelligent, well-qualified, experienced) people told me that I was setting myself up for failure when I announced that our church, which doesn't even open until January 11th, 2009, was going to host a big bash at an inner city elementary school where we provided every child a toy and new school uniform. After all…
The goal is too big.
We are too small.
Economic times are too tough.
The mountain is too high.
All of these things were true and are still true, but our vision requires God to intervene. If your vision is so small that you know you can easily do it, IT'S NOT BIG ENOUGH!
We haven't hit our goal yet, but we're already halfway there and have raised enough money for 417 brand new school uniforms!Have you counted God out of your vision? If so, go back to the drawing board and re-imagine what you (AND GOD) can do together!
Believe it or not, I don't say much of what comes through my mind. I have a pretty good filter, but every now and then, something sneaks through and gets me in trouble. Yesterday, after we crossed the $10,000 mark (about halfway) for our inner city Christmas initiative @ 500uniforms.org, I said this online
"YEAH!!!! We just crossed $10,000 @ 500uniforms.org -If someone donates the remaining $10,956 I will run butthole naked down Peachtree!!!"
Don't get me wrong, I wasn't under the impression that what I was saying was classy, but I was just so doggone amped that I got a little carried away. Of course, all of my equally inappropriate church planting comrades thought it was hilarious and congratulated me on saying the smartest thing they had heard in a very long time.
However, here were some of the unintended responses:
-My wife said she was embarrassed. (Never a good thing)
-A gay man wrote me and practically encouraged me to go ahead and run down Peachtree naked whether someone gave us the money or not.
-A friend said my email was caught by the porn filter of his job.
-My denominational supervisor wrote me to point out of my poor choice of words.
-A mentor said it was a very un-Obama thing of me to say (that probably hurt the most) :)
-And a few more people expressed that it was pretty crass.
As I discussed the philosophical, ethical, and moral implications of saying butthole naked with people from all around the world, the final conclusion was…
If I had not added the word 'hole' to butt, it would have been OK. So, my newly revised, well-thought out statement is,
"YEAH!!!! We just crossed $10,000 @ 500uniforms.org -If someone donates the remaining $10,956 I will run butt naked down Peachtree!!!"
In the meantime, please click on one of the links in this message and make a very quick, safe donation to an awesome cause!
I am so doggone pumped about how our inner city Christmas project is moving along!
When I pledged to donate brand school uniforms and toys to 500 students of Bethune Elementary school here in downtown Atlanta, I knew our likelihood of success was very small!
So what?!
If your plans don't require faith, why do you even need [...]
We are making major progress with our inner city Christmas initiative here in downtown Atlanta, but we still need YOUR help TODAY! Here are some things you could do:
Make a donation of ANY size @ www.500uniforms.org – we have already raised funds for over 265 uniforms, but have a mountain to still climb!
Post a link [...]
Hello! I'm Shaun King - a 30 year old husband, father, pastor, and grad student (in that order) in downtown Atlanta.
I am the Lead Pastor of The Courageous Church- a brand new, diverse, exciting church in the heart of downtown Atlanta! Before I put on my SuperSuit and go live out my call in the city, I fix my five kids a bowl of cereal, change diapers, pack lunches, and give my wife a kiss.
This blog is all about the tight rope that I walk between Courage & Corn Pops!
I’m not going to argue here that Jack Bauer is Jesus – although the show has made him out to be more of a Christ figure this season than any other. I love Jack. My wife loves Jack too. We’ve seen every hour of every season.
