Loose change and bottle returns

Yesterday my wife and I decided to tally up all of our loose change, and return the pile of bottles and cans that have been building in our garage over the winter for their 10 cent deposit. We loaded up the car with the returnables and joined the mass of people who had the same idea we had on a rainy day in Michigan, and waged war against the return machines(If you have ever returned bottles you know what I mean). When we got back from returning the bottles and cans, we gathered up our loose change and put them in to rolls. At the end of our journey we had gathered up $98 dollars in deposits and loose change. Ninety-Eight Dollars!!

This got me thinking. I was reminded about how rich I am in comparison to the world; that I could gather up $98 dollars in a matter of two hours from piles in my garage and boxes on my dresser. I was also reminded what $98 dollars can do in this world.

$98 dollars can feed and educate a child in Africa or Haiti for 3 months.
$98 dollars can provide 98 Africans clean water for the next year.
$98 can buy five people mosquito bed nets, and help protect them from malaria.

This list could go on, but you get the point. I am thankful to live in a country of abundance, but also reminded of my responsibility to share from that abundance. I am blessed to be a blessing, not blessed to live a life of comfort, and abundance.

The Singing Thing

I read "The Singing Thing" by John Bell recently and really gleaned a lot of good stuff from it. I wanted to share with you really quickly some of those things.

Reasons why we sing:
1. Because we can.
2. To create identity.
3. To express emotion.
4. To express words.
5. To revisit the past.
6. To tell stories.
7. To shape the future.
8. To enable work.(Justice!!)
9. To exercise our creativity.
10. To give of ourselves.

Reasons why we don't sing:
1. Someone told us we were bad at it./We were never taught.
2. Because we live in a performance culture.
3. The space we sing in doesn't encourage singing.
4. Bad leadership
5. Because its "not our style".

This book has made me "rethink" how we go about singing in a modern worship culture.