I Need to Patent My Ideas

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Somewhere on this blog, I wrote about an idea I had for social justice.  I was lamenting the fact that it was hard to find places to volunteer at the random times I had free – most organizations needed help during the day when I was at work, or needed 3-4 nights a week in a city 5 hours away.  Which I also can’t do.  I was wishing there was a website that could help me find local needs that I could practically help out with.  Without spending weeks searching.

Leave it up to Google.  AllForGood.org is not as robust as I was thinking, but  it is a good start.  Change your location to your city, and then search for categories of things to help with – education, food, health, etc. See their locations on a Google Map.  Share with your friends. Pretty slick.

One idea I have: I would like to see a calendar added to it also, so that you can search by date as well as location and category.  But give it a whirl to see if there is something near you that you can help with.

UPDATE: I found the post that I originally wrote about this:

Social Action For the Common Person

Also, once I got signed up and started poking around, I did see that there is a fuction to look by some dates: “today”, “this week”, etc.  Just not a full calendar to click on upcoming days and times you are free.

Doing Something About the Mess: ReForm-Now.org

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One area of life that I seferely lack in is concern for the poor.  Well, the concern is there – the action isn’t.  So I have been looking for ways to fix that and get involved in changing the world and all that crazy big vision stuff.

I came across one site that seems to be a start in the right direction: ReFrom-Now.org.  You can read their mission statement to see why I finding this group interesting:

http://www.reform-now.org/Vision.aspx

It’s just a start, but I am interested to see where this group goes.  I love this statement from the vision page: “A reformer is an agent of social change, a person who will never be satisfied with a complacent status quo society that’s destined for destruction.” I am also taking an interest in kiva.org – Katie and I are looking in to profiles there to see who we want to support.

One thing that I have noticed in some Evangelical circles – an opposition to concepts like global warming.  I get that some of the evidence out there indicates that global warming might not be that real of a threat. Or that human acitvities might not be contributing to it.  To that I say – so what?  Even if smog doesn’t harm us or kill ozone or even come from human activities, pollution still irritates and annoys and I just don’t see how that is good stewardship of our planet.  So get over the bickering over details and let’s clean this place up!

In India, Poverty Inspires People to Action

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“In Redmond, you don’t see 7-year-olds begging on the street,” said Sean Blagsvedt (former Microsoft engineer).

This statement refers to the difference between the streets of India and the streets around Microsoft’s headquarters in the US. A growing trend in India is that wealthy workers are seeing the poverty around them and are being moved to do something with technology to help these people.

Mr. Blagsvedt idea was to build a social networking site for poor street workers looking for employment. It seems that the rich complain about not having enough people to hire, and the poor complain about not having enough jobs. the problem was that there was no connection between the two. Mr. Blagsvedt answer? Technology!

The biggest problem was the fact that the poor don’t have access to computers, and the rich don’t want to trust just anyone they find online. So, the design of Babajob.com was to pay the people with computer access to set up profiles for good workers that they have found. Fairly ingenious. You can see the whole article here.

If you have ever read the Bible, especially the New Testament, you might have been struck by the idea that we are supposed to do something about poverty. I’ve always wondered why so few of us do that. Heck – I’ve wondered why I have a hard time doing anything. I think some of it has to do with the attitudes of the most visible poor: the corner beggars. I’ve gone and talked to a few of them, even offered to help them apply for jobs. They aren’t interested in doing that. Now, I know that those people represent less than 5% of the actual poor out there. But they are the 5% that most of us ever get to deal with, so I am assuming that they are (unfortunately) influencing our national attitudes toward the poor. Why would we want to help those that just want a free hand out?

There has got to be a way to get something like this started here in the US. Some kind of site that links us needs with those willing to give. I am thinking mostly time here, and not money. I would love to go do something about poverty, if I could just find where to go on my free Saturday afternoons.

The Whole Gospel From All Angles

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A recent post at the Thinklings, as well as a session that my wife taught at a retreat this weekend (Holistic Health), got me thinking about the Gospel. The whole Gospel. Most spiritual people, even if they don’t follow Jesus specifically, tend to be able to tell you what they think the Gospel is.

The simple answer for most Christians is that the Gospel is the “Good News” of the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. Some have been arguing that the Gospel is really something else – specifically, it is offering social justice to the oppressed. A few are slowly beginning to realize that it is both and even more.

A few months ago, my wife and I attended a “community health evangelist” training at our old church back in Waco. The session started off by looking at Jesus’ mission statement. When Jesus began his public ministry, you see him in the temple reading a specific passage from Isaiah (chapter 61, verse 1, but I have included more here):

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners (or the blind),to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,

and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD
for the display of his splendor.

They will rebuild the ancient ruins
and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
that have been devastated for generations.

Many people look at these verses from the spiritual angle. When He speaks of restoring sight for the blind, we think that God will give (in)sight to the spiritually blind. The interesting thing is, Jesus then went around physically healing the blind.

The intent of The Gospel was to minister to the whole person – physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. And we see this is so in the verse from Isaiah above (with a smattering of social justice thrown in for good measure). Take a look at this part of the scriptures from a non-spiritual angle:

  • “to preach good news to the poor”: what is better news for the poor than to know that their oppression is gone? That they can be free from debt maybe? There’s your social justice.
  • “He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted”: healing our emotional wounds and issues.
  • “to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners”: freedom from addictions (physical health), from oppressive relationships (social health), from destructive emotional conditions?
  • “to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion… and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair”: emotional comfort in tragic situations.
  • “They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations”: rebuild devastated communities, or even social relationships.
  • “And you will be called priests of the LORD, you will be named ministers of our God”: even when looking at this scripture from a non-spiritual angle, there is still an obvious reference to addressing spiritual issues.

The interesting thing is that Jesus took this passage of scripture from both a spiritual and non-spiritual angle at the same time, and lived his life fulfilling both angles daily.

Social Action For the Common Person

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Lately, my wife and I have really been pondering and praying over the issue of social justice. Well, my wife has always been thinking about it, since she is working on a PhD in Community Health Education and all. But lately, I’ve been noticing that everything I get involved in has something to do with Health Education. Maybe God is trying to tell me something….

I even went to a Community Health Evangelist training session recently. One of the thoughts that really stirred me was the concept of Jesus’ vision statement. He had one – the one that He began His ministry with:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19 NIV)

This passage refers to spiritual as well as physical interpretations (even though most sermons I have heard focus on the spiritual interpretation). The big question for me is: how can I do any of this?

The problem being that I work full time in the educational technology field. That is what I feel called to do, but it seems like ministering to the poor has to be your full time vocation. My free weekends are scattered. So, I can’t sign up for something that happens every Saturday, because I might have to miss from time to time. My rational brain thinks that there is nothing to be done to help the poor at night, because they have already had dinner.

I wish there was some type of resource that just lists ministries and opportunities in my community that anyone can jump in and serve as they can. Say, I have nothing to do Thursday night, and I look up my city on Thursday night and see where I can minister to the poor. Great idea for a website, but I wonder if it would work.