Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Magical Night

I sat in the room filled with people, all with their own story, all hoping to make it a good one.  Each of us had come to get inspiration, direction, a new focus.  I left with $10 burning a proverbial hole in my pocket.

One of the speakers at the Storyline conference shared how he decided to create opportunities for his church members to live a better story.  Normally, churches ask for money.  The plate goes around and you put your offering in.  That's how it roles.  This guy Mack, decided to break $26,000 dollars into small denominations ($5, $10, $20) and hand it out to anyone who would take one. The catch was: this money is God's money; they were to pray and use it to tell a better story as good as they could come up with; and lastly, none of that money was to come back to the church.

They did the same thing at this conference I went to, and I, being a sucker for a challenge, took one of the envelopes.

I am also a procrastinator.  

About two months ago, right after the Storyline conference, with that $10 burning a hole in my pocket (and heart), I was invited along to a fund raising dinner for an organization called AOET.  I was keeping my eyes open for a good way to tell a better story with $10.  I found it that night while listening to the heart behind AOET.  (check out the impetus behind this org at http://www.aoet.org/?page_id=3).  A young, high school aged girl spoke about how she decided to try to raise enough money to build a house in a new village ($26,000).  I have never tried to raise money for anything, so how a then 15 year old just got it into her head to set that goal for herself and do it was inspiring to me.

As I sat there listening, I thought about Facebook; I know it's a shocker to most of you- I am not totally addicted to Facebook...yet.  Earlier that evening I had noticed that I had 540 friends.  Five HUNDRED and forty.  Suddenly the thought occurred to me, "How hard would it be to raise $26,000...540....26,000...540."  Then I started doing the math, that took more than a few minutes, I can tell you, and you know what I figured out?  Fifty bucks. Fifty bucks each is all it would take to raise the money to build a house.  What do you say?  Want to build a house with me?

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