Tag Archives: faith

Is Talking About Spirituality and Social Change Taboo?

What shapes your world view? How does your world view influence your work to change the world for the better?

Growing up, we’re told we shouldn’t talk about two things: politics and religion. Yet these two things often help set the foundation of one’s world view. How do we go about changing the world for the better if we can’t talk about either? It’s not realistic–Is it?

httpv://youtu.be/QXfD5SJgPqo

“If I hear one more politician croak out the words that his or her faith is a private matter, I may just have to go smack them. That is so not reality. All of us have a worldview and that worldview shapes everything we think, act, or do.”  –Kay Warren, Saddleback Church

How does Spirituality + Social Change Add Up?

This post is prompted by two different events:

  1. Learning about the upcoming Justice Conference taking place next month, and
  2. Listening to a keynote address by Kay Warren at Pepperdine University’s 2010 conference, The Role of the Church in Doing Justice

The role of spirituality in social change has a lot to answer for–humans have a history of twisting one to achieve selfish desires and horrific acts. That said, does this mean that spirituality should not be a part of the social change dialogue? When you read social marketing texts or go to conferences, you don’t always hear a lot of chatter about mobilizing the network of the church or other faith-based organizations in efforts. Is it too taboo? How can we bring these two worlds closer together for good?

Mobilizing the Place “P”

The PEACE PlanIn 2009, President Obama created the Office of Faith-Based Organizations and Neighborhood Partnerships, but how can we challenge ourselves–as both practitioners and people with our own world views–to go a step further?

In social marketing circles, practitioners often look at the distribution network of Coca-Cola and ask how can we utilize the place “p” and mobilize it for good? Some, like ColaLife, are already a step ahead of many. In Kay Warren’s address, she discusses how the widespread distribution network that local churches offer can offer a sustainable solution to global health and international development efforts. To highlight the potential of this network, she shows how there are three rudimentary hospitals in Western Rwanda yet 726 churches.

Kay Warren goes on to present The PEACE Plan, a “hopeful response to the five giant problems in the world: spiritual emptiness, self-serving leadership, poverty, disease, and illiteracy.” Kay and her husband Rick Warren (author of a Purpose Drive Life) created The PEACE Plan with the goal to mobilize a billion ordinary church members–or half of the world’s Christian population–to do normal tasks that make a difference in the world.

Who is the Hero?

One of the key points from Kay Warren’s keynote is the value and dire need for servant leadership, people who lead by serving others. This is a mentality and perspective we can bring into every meeting, every conversation and every interaction with others. No matter where you stand on whether or not spirituality is appropriate to discuss in social marketing circles, I personally encourage you to watch the video above. You’ll see common themes between that which we work to achieve in social marketing and the spirituality expressed.

What do you think? How does the spirituality fit into social change? Or, is it too taboo to discuss?

The Story of a Church Making the Impossible, Possible

I wrote this post about a year ago and just re-discovered it this past weekend while doing some blog maintenance and wondered–why did I never post this? This is good stuff!

Yes, in the title, I said the church. I debated sharing this case study because I was afraid people might not read it because it says church. But then I thought, some just might read it because it does say church.

The focus in this post, however, is not the “church.” It’s about a creative, integrated strategy that utilizes a social marketing approach to achieve to strengthen America’s concept of love in the union of marriage. This love is admittedly, from the perspective of the Church, but don’t we always have the question in social marketing of – who decides? (That dear friends is another ethical conversation that can range to anything from paternalism to essentialism and everything in between.)

Onward. Have you taken the Love Dare? Is your marriage Fireproof? In the social marketing realm, there’s been talk about providing tools that equip and empower individuals to not only make personal behavior change but to help evangelize behavior change in their communities and networks. Let me walk you through a movement started at a church in Georgia.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5lSu6GkC2k

Sherwood Baptist Church created Sherwood Pictures, a volunteer-driven moviemaking ministry in Georgia. This movie studio was created from within its congregation and uses volunteers to act, produce, film and market their movies. Sony caught on and premiered these movies across the United States in movie theaters everywhere. The movie studio’s goal is to harness the influential power of Hollywood to influence behavior change: adopting Christ as one’s God, while also working to address societal issues. Their first two movies were Flywheel, followed by Facing the Giants. Facing the Giants was a surprise hit and was the best-selling resource in Christian stores in 2007.

A Lesson from the Church on Social Marketing

Building on this momentum, their latest movie, Fireproof, went above and beyond the work that even Call+Response or Invisible Children have propelled. Not in terms of raising “awareness,” but due to the plethora of TOOLS the Fireproof movement has around it. First, Fireproof has a few interwoven objectives (according to the makers of the film):

  1. Show what real love is.
  2. Show how this love is integral for a successful marriage that is Fireproof against today’s high divorce rates.
  3. Show how families are a foundation of today’s society that should be nurtured.

I’m not here to debate whether you agree or disagree with the message behind the movie. But look at the TOOLS! These tools help someone commit to changing, take action to change and help them maintain that behavior over time while also encouraging others. What can this teach us about how to provide tools for people to address their health? Not just relationship health, but environmental health, public safety health, civil health, etc.

  • A national launch fueled through grassroots evangelists for “premiere night” with watch parties through already-built church networks.
  • Fireproof DVD and movie at a low price (about $8).
  • At purchase, you can opt-in: 1) their email list survey, their feedback survey, or for their ambassadors survey, where you can get involved in the MOVEMENT for healthy marriages.
  • Download and/or purchase an educational curriculum. This curriculum can be utilized in churches, small groups and/or between individuals to assist in marriage preparation classes or for sermon series.
  • Step-by-step DVD to assist in nurturing healthy discussion about the topics presented in the movie.
  • Because the movie is centered on a concept called, “The Love Dare,” which is a 40-day challenge to love your spouse. The producers of the movie actually wrote a hard copy of the “The Love Dare,” so that any couple can walk through the same process the actors in the movie did to nurture their relationship and/or marriage.
  • And, if you don’t have a way to view the movie, the movie “Fireproof” was also developed into a book for those that prefer reading to video.

As for promotion? It all started with Facing the Giants. A Christian movie produced by a church in Atlanta all by volunteers within the congregation that premiered through Sony in movie theaters across America. Congregations rallied around the movie and its purpose–here again, with Fireproof, people did the same. Couples, churches, communities, businesses, firefighters, and the Catholic community all pitched in to help promote the movement. In addition, any consumer who bought the materials online, could also opt-in to be an ambassador of the movement to arrange get togethers, watch parties and more around the central themes in the movie.

What This Means…

Let’s remember where this all started…at a church, by a group of volunteers wanting to a) show the power and love of God and 2) work to address societal issues in a big way. In other words–they started with their goals. They didn’t see barriers. They didn’t stop at possible. They saw the impossible and made it happen.

What does impossible look like to you? Make it possible.

PS: Interested in Christian churches who are creating a movie-making ministry? In McClean, Virginia, McLean Bible Church has a group of congregation members working to create a Christian movie studio, named In Jesus’ Name Productions. Their first movie, The Messiah, has a $75 million dollar budget and is due out 2012.

How Much Is the Rest of Your Life Worth?

Image from Change.org's Original Post

Image from Change.org

This is not a wimpy philosophical post. We are talking dollars and sense. (Not a typo). A new business model experiment is in the works, relating to social entrepreneurship called: The Life Investment. Basically, it comes down to this question according to the Social Edge blog:

If an investor offered you a large infusion of unrestricted capital, say $300,000, with the only condition being that you would give them 3% of your income for the rest of your life, would you take the deal?

Apparently, it was fueled by this guy as the concept of personal investment contracts. Then, thanks to Nathaniel Whittemore, Change.org’s Social Entrepreneurship blogger, the conversation grew bigger until three innovative bloggers at SocialEdge, the blog hosted by the Skoll Foundation, took the leap and announced the Thrust Fund. Each has their own start-up social entrepreneurship, and here is their offer:

Kjerstin: Offers 6% of her annual income for a $600,000 up front investment.
Saul and Jon: Each offering 3% for $300,000 up front.

Now this gets interesting and I have to say ballsy. If this idea and conversation gets you off your chair and gets your mind thinking, Kjerstin, Saul and Jon are hosting a conversation about their offer saying: “Invest in us; we’ll give you some of our equity for life.” I’m still marinating on this whole concept myself, but I love the innovation here. The details is where it may get tricky–but man, bravo for putting themselves out there and believing in something that strong. What do you think–if you were made the offer, what would you say: Deal? or No Deal?