TOMS Shoes, Facebook & Christianity

My daughter recently asked if she could have a pair of TOMS shoes. I immediately went to my closet and started to grab her a pair of my shoes. That is when she told me what they were. She told me about this company and how they give one pair of shoes to a person in need with every pair purchased. I then asked her to let me see the shoes. We went to the website and looked at them. I thought...Meh...

She pleaded with me...its for a good cause. Sure they were more than I wanted to pay for THOSE shoes...but the purpose was a good one.

I then saw their advertisement on Facebook and quickly realized how big this project was. There are 175 million people that log in to Facebook everyday. That is incredible! TOMS shoes is now taking their purpose, their cause, their core value that everyone should have at least one pair of shoes to the world of Facebook.

I had to ask...what if the church...what if my church, my denomination...the Assemblies of God...what if I...took up the cause of Christ like TOMS Shoes has taken their cause?

We spend a lot of our lives trying to find happiness. Helen Keller said,

"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose."

I can think of no more worthy of a purpose that the cause of Christ...what will you do?

GC Squared...

I heard this phrase this weekend from Coach Rod Olson. This little equation has stuck in my head and I can't get it out. I wish I could get it out of my head and have it embedded in my heart. Oh...what is it? What does it mean? Something that I have heard in church a million times and, truthfully, said a million times. It means the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. GC squared.

I have a relatively easy time with the Great Commandment. You know, Matthew 22:37

I mean, it can sometimes be difficult for us to give God all of our heart, soul, and strength. Especially when we have made the schedules we try to keep...note it is the schedules we have made. Now, keeping the Great Commission is a whole different ballgame.

It can be hard to love our neighbors. One thing I remember from my fraternity days in college was this..."You have to be a brother to have a brother." Now, don't get me wrong with all this, I am just illustrating a point. If you want to have a neighbor, you must first be one. What does this mean? It means we need to care about people and share Christ with them just as someone cared about me and shared Christ with me. We need to learn to love people like Christ loved people.

Love covers a multitude of sins...GC squared...