Tuesday, April 18, 2006

40 Day Revolution

A few people from church went out to St. Louis for a Servant Evangelism conference. Servant Evangelism is essentially the idea that you should do something kind for someone else without expectation of getting something back. That’s the servant part.

You serve others without any expectations except for the hope that the person you served will be happier and spread your example around, that’s the evangelism part.

Have you ever seen the movie Pay it Forward? This kid (played by Haley Joel Osment… Is he even around anymore?) goes out and does some random acts of kindness to strangers around him. All he asks is that you repay that kindness with someone else.

If I help 10 people and even half of them help 10 other people, you can eventually change the world. It will spread like a virus (or an Ideavirus if you read Seth Godin). You’ll have individuals going out in the community and looking at other people as people instead of nameless faces to be ignored or used to get ahead.

One way I live this in my life is through lunch with others. I tend to go out to lunch a bit to meet with people at church. At these lunches I generally try and pay for the entire meal. When someone offers to pay I simply ask that they save the money and use it to take someone else out to lunch later.

For the high school bible study we’re beginning a curriculum called the 40 Day Revolution. This takes servant evangelism and puts it on steroids. The goal for high schoolers is to spend 40 days sharing kindness with students in their school. The ultimate goal is to get everyone in the school, from the administration to the students, to be considering one-another with all of their actions. There is also a hope that some people will find a saving relationship with Jesus.

I was ordering the curriculum and heard a story from the author’s dad believe it or not (he was great to talk to). He was telling me about this school in Florida that was targeted by a couple of churches during the 40 Day Revolution. This was a school which wasn’t the bottom of the barrel, but wasn’t perfect either. They had their fair share of drugs and fighting.

You begin the Revolution by sending a letter to your principal, letting them know what you are doing. This Florida principal was more than skeptical, he was openly critical of the idea. At the end of the 40 days the principal went up to the youth minister leading the group and actually thanked him. He offered the school’s auditorium for the closing ceremony and asked if they would continue doing the Revolution within the school. Turns out that the year the school did the revolution they only had one drug incident and one fight. How incredible a change that is. That a group of youth was able to help the entire school grow.

Richard Mull, the author of the 40 Day Revolution really aims at making this bigger than a school. Once a school has bought in, bring in a community. Once you have the community taking part work on the county. It goes up and up, until we have the entire world caring about one-another in ways we’d never thought was possible.

I’m looking forward to what changes are going to come across in my own life and the world around me. How will I apply this stuff to my job, my family and those around me? It’s definitely going to be a step out… a step I’m really excited to take. Are any of you up for joining me? I’ll definitely let you know how it all works out.

Peace,
+Tom/Bob

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