Tod Bolsinger

More Good Things at Cause Depot

So, I sent my brother some paper made out of Elephant Poop for his birthday.  I enjoyed getting a laugh while doing some good.  Thanks to Jim Toole at CAUSEdepot, I may be able to give more "good" presents for Christmas, too.

At CAUSEdepot's Faith and Globalization blog, you can read some posts by two pastors, an MBA who traveled in China, a seminarian who has been to Africa three times in the past four years and a motorcycle-loving Marine who is headed back to Iraq for a second deployment.

Besides making available some "good" goods, there is also a lot of good conversation. 

It's so nice...

...when a "hero" in the faith is the real deal:  A genuine, gracious person who is everything in person that we hope they would be. 

Having met a few Christian leaders in my day, I have had enough disappointments to be wary when I am going to meet someone in person whom I have only met previously through writings.  But these past few days reminded me of another time when I met one of my spiritual heroes and was so very pleasantly NOT disappointed.

Nineteen years ago this month, I had an opportunity to meet Henri Nouwen. Nouwen was at the time, the most influential writer for my journey of faith.  I have read virtually everything that he has written and his vulnerability, humility and spirituality was the tool that God used to inspire me to seek a deeper well of spirituality.  So many of his ideas became wisdom that I have lived by.  And meeting him was so very sweet.  My friend Mark and I met him at Daybreak in Toronto.  He gave us a tour of the facility, he showed us a huge copy of Rembrandt's The Prodigal Son and spoke of its meaning to him.  He led a small worship service and served me communion (the only time as an ex-catholic that I have ever partaken of the Eucharist in a Catholic mass since becoming a protestant in college), he took us to lunch, he bought us pizza and beer and wine and we talked for hours.  Then he gave us books.  As many of his books as we didn't have.  He was attentive, kindly, sweet and prophetic all at the same time.

While my interaction with him was less personal, for the past few days I have been at Laity Lodge attending a retreat with about 50 other folks that was taught by Bishop N. T. Wright.  Readers of this blog know of my high regard and deep appreciation for Bishop Tom.  Now, having met him, my respect and regard is all the more.  He is a brilliant man, a passionate teacher, a deeply committed, prayerful pastor who has only inspired me all the more to continue to study the Scriptures while listening to the deep hurts of the world.  His scholarship is clearly in service to the church for the sake of the mission of Christ to the world. 

He was generous with his time, he signed our books and engaged in meals and conversations and answered questions with all who would wanted.  He joined in worship, he attended the morning devotional and the late night worship and music service. His wife, Maggie, was charming and caring and funny.

While I have many memories of my time years ago with Fr. Henri and have a number reflections and lessons from Bishop Tom, that I will certainly continue to glean and pass on through this blog in the days to come, I am sitting here today keenly self-conscious about how grateful (and I guess, relieved) I am that both of my "heroes" (and many others along the way through the years) have NOT disappointed me.

I am more aware than ever of the profundity and high wire act of incarnation that is at the heart of the Christian faith. And how very painful and disillusioning it can be when a Christian leader disappoints.   

God's most risky strategy of using human beings as partners in the work of redemption and restoration has been so famously fraught with failure, but as G. K. Chesterton reminds us, every misstep by a Christian only affirms both the veracity of the Scriptural teaching of original sin and the truth that all human beings are fallen and in need of redemption.  The Spirit of God offers us new birth and new life, but we do feel the effects and groaning of incompleteness and brokenness until Christ is fully formed in us. 

The theologian who communicates academic arrogance, the leader who comes across like a most worldly power-monger, the pastor who can't live out the faith he or she so passionately proclaims all leave a mark. We are more disappointed than most of us want to admit when our models and mentors don't measure up or seem more human than we need them to be. Recent biographies of Nouwen point out his battles with depression and his struggle with sexuality.  I am sure that Bishop Tom has his share of oh-so-human attributes, too. I am not so naive as to need my spiritual heroes to be perfect and I pray that the small band of people who read or hear my words don't need me to be either.   

Christian faith is not  simply a matter of a holy book, doctrines and lessons to learn, but about people living out these texts and incarnating the story so that it becomes a real and vibrant encounter of the presence of God through a human instrument.   

And it is so nice when it actually works out that way...

Happy me

I am here, seeing my friend, and listening to this guy, about stuff like this:

"The Kingdom is about asking: What would it look like if God was running the show?"

Which is going to help me  a lot with my answer to the 5 Kinds of Christians post that I put up before Thanksgiving.

One More from Chesterton

Here dies another day
During which I have had eyes, ears, hands
And the great world around me;
And with tomorrow begins another.
Why am I allowed two?

Chesterton on Living Thanksgiving

"Nothing taken for granted; everything received with gratitude; everything passed on with grace."

"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink."

"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

G. K. Chesterton

Happy Thanksgiving.

"Faith Yes, Church Maybe"

An article on the CT online site for Leadership Journal reports the findings after "more than 1,000 self-identified Christians 18 years of age and older were surveyed on their religious beliefs and practices."
The study reveals the wide diversity of self-identity amongst Christians brokenly down into 5 pretty evenly distributed groups which they labeled as "5 Kinds of Christians" (which seemed to me like a nice play on and slight critique of McClaren's idea of "A New Kind of Christian").   

While I would like to, in future posts, offer some responses and reflections about the diversity of Christians in our culture,  I will start with offering up CT's own synopsis of "three critical issues" that emerged:

• The local church is no longer considered the only outlet for spiritual growth.
• Churches must develop relational- and community-oriented outreach.
• Lay people have to be better equipped to be God's ambassadors.

There is no surprise in here for me.  Indeed, I see this as an opportunity for the church.  Even more, I just finished teaching a course for Fuller Theological Seminary called Contemporary Challenges and Evangelism and these issues emerged from our discussions with NON-Christians, too.

In the final segment of the class I posed this question to the future ministers seeking their Master's degrees to be better equipped to lead in churches:  How should we  respond to a world that says: "God is interesting, but the church is  irrelevant"? 

According to the study, the answer of at least 3/5ths of Christians today, is "But, of course. That is the way we Christians feel, too." 

So, what do we make of that? 

But before I offer up my own thoughts, I figured I would let this sit here to see what it stimulates in your own mind.

My Morning Cup of Coffee Could Change the World

Last post I introduced you to CauseDepot, a website dedicated to "bringing global awareness to everyday living."  Today, as I was drinking my morning coffee I was thinking about how (as soon as my first shipment of Firecracker Espresso Blend arrives) my daily ritual could start making just a bit of difference for good in the world.  The folks at Just Coffee are a coop that works in partnership with people like the  National Presbyterian Church of Mexico to address some of the root  causes of  migration to the United States from the Mexican side. 

But CauseDepot is more than just an online store. Revs. Jim and Pati Toole mean it to also be an ongoing conversation about a changing world and the impact that can be made through everyday decisions.

From the CAUSEdepot website:

What if we as consumers started to buy everyday products through the internet from non-profit organizations or cause-related enterprises that sell products to sustain their causes? We would actually start recycling our consumer power!
This is what we are calling the CAUSEdepot.

The CAUSEdepot was created by ordained pastors, Jim and Pati Toole. Our family is a fairly normal family of four. However, like many we feel an urgency to be more active in global poverty issues. We have decided to start the CAUSEdepot. It is an e-retail store, conversation, and portal to innovative ideas. It is a small way for us to enter into innovation surrounding global issues. Our desire is to showcase stories and encourage ideas of innovation and enterprise that can benefit cause-related organizations. Sixty percent of our profit will go back to other effective organizations.

You can contact us at:
[email protected]

Pastor with a Cause

Jim Toole's looks can be deceiving.  Behind the calm (often described as "Jedi-like") exterior lurks the heart of an entrepreneur who wants to change the world.  Watch him hold a cup of coffee (usually made from beans he roasted himself after having them shipped from his favorite fair-trade co-op) and listen to the 41 year old pastor say, "I am often asked when I am going to write a book.  I'm not. I'm going to come up with the next idea like 'child sponsorship', the next idea to change the way Christians can be part of changing the world."

And this is his first shot at it. Jim and Pati Toole are colleagues and partners of mine at San Clemente Presbyterian Church.  Using their own money, the incredible business savvy Jim inherited from his successful father, and a passion for mission that he and Pati (an Associate Pastor of Global Mission Partnerships) have cultivated through travel, reading and a theological education, (you should hear the stories of their "romantic" honeymoon in the jungles of the Rainforest), the  Tooles have launched CauseDepot.org , a one-stop online repository of stories, videos, blogs and a store all dedicated to exploring the intersection of Christian faith and globalization (and to think some other pastors do triathlons in their spare time!)

CauseDepot's purpose statement is "bringing global awareness through everyday living."

At the faith and globalization blog (to which I will be a sometimes contributor), Jim will moderate a discussion on how globalization is both an opportunity and a challenge that takes some careful, prayerful consideration if we Christians want to truly make a difference for good in the world (think Thomas Friedman meets Thomas Merton). 

On the website you can learn about individuals and organizations that are trying to use the ingenuity of entrepreneurial thinking to bring fresh experiments of hope to the painful places in the world.  You can  see videos (like the Rwanda Bike Coffee Project) or read stories of individuals who are offfering small creative responses to needs in the world that could make a big difference (like Rosa Loves), or at the Ideas for Change: Entrepreneurs Against Poverty blog you can post your own brainstorming for combating poverty and injustice in the world (see the posts on Kiva or the young abolitionist Zach Hunter).

But perhaps most exciting is that Jim has created an online store that only features non-profit and cause-related goods.  His partners are small organizations, communities and ministries who are using their businesses to do good in hurting places in the world. Jim and Pati take a small markup from the products from the organizations to keep the site running and and then donating 60% of any profits to other causes near to their hearts. So, the indigenous organizations make a profit, and Jim and Pati generate resources so they can keep giving to even more causes.

I have already bought two pounds of coffee that will be sent to my door that will help fund two partnerships seeking to make a difference in their communities through coffee production (one in Africa, one in Mexico), as well as bought my brother a birthday gift that I KNOW he won't be getting from anyone else (but which I won't tell you because it will ruin the surprise if he reads this.)  But go browse for yourself.  This could be the only place you shop for Christmas.

Perhaps most exciting about this venture is that it is a venture.  Jim is not just sitting back and writing articles, but has personally jumped into the intersection of the challenge of poverty and the opportunity of globalization through technology by  offering this site as a forum for discovery AND doing something.

Jim and I have talked many times about the number of young business-savvy entrepreneurial minds that we have living in a place like south Orange County, California and the huge impact that all that intellectual capital could make for further the Kingdom of God if it was only inspired and focused. Jim is being the perfect pastor and "practicing what he preaches."   Through CauseDepot we can all hear the stories of entrepreneur around the world who are making a difference and in some small way, become one ourselves.

Doing Good? or Doing Well? Or?

It has been said that the first missionaries to Hawaii “came to do good and did very well, indeed.”  While the actual facts of that sarcastic comment are disputed, it points to the tension that often comes to fore when whenever things “evangelistic” try to intersect with things “entrepreneurial”.

But maybe all that is changing.

A few months ago I was invited to a lecture by Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century.  Friedman’s perspective of a world that is now so technologically interconnected that it is has the great potential to become more and more leveled intellectually and economically has caused some anxious responses.  How will we Americans with our high costs of living compete in a world where cheaper and better intellectual help is just a mouse click away?  When American tax returns can be completed via computer by American educated and trained Indians in Bombay who can live very comfortably on wages that are 1/3 an American CPA, college graduates see their standard of living slipping away faster than you can say “call center”. 

And technology is advancing so rapidly that in many places it is already rearranging the landscape in most unexpected ways.

When I was in the Philippines two summers ago to speak at a pastor’s conference, every one of the pastors there were far more text-comfortable than I was.  Their shaky “landline” phone system had already been for all intents and purposes scuttled for cell technology.

But even more shocking was going to Malawi, Africa and discovering that in this city that was so poor that Jeffrey Sachs made it the centerpiece of his book on fighting poverty, we were still able to find an obscure “firewire” cord that we needed to make a last minute video production of our mission trip. (And this was three years ago!)

When I was in Costa Rica last year at language school, I took a picture of a farmer, riding his horse down the middle of the street on the way to market—talking on a cell phone.

If Friedman is right, the world is only going to get more connected—and more competitive by the day. But what dawned on me as I sat listening to Thomas Friedman there is also a great opportunity for those of us who want to embrace it to live more connected and more COMPASSIONATE by the day.  But is going to demand that we continually rethink the lines of what is called “business” and what is deemed “mission” and we need more and more innovative thinking for doing good from those who in the past would only worried about doing well.  In a flat world doing good and doing well need not be opposite polls on a continuum but places where creativity, compassion, and sustainable lifestyles can intersect. Indeed, Friedman’s passion is about inspiring “CEOs with soul.”

In the 80’s era film, Working Girl, Melanie Griffith is an aspiring business women who tries to hook up with fast-track exec Harrison Ford with the line, “I have a brain for business and a bod for sin.”   The heroes of tomorrow will be those with a brain for business and a heart for justice.

And tomorrow, I'll introduce you to a website that just may help us figure this out.