I saw this video the other day on Trey Pennington’s blog, and I think it’s just fantastic!

It is 16 minutes long, so don’t try to watch it if you’re on the clock at work.  But I think it’s really worth the the time.

Trey primarily applied the theme of the video to social media.  He wrote:

Here’s the foundational principle at work on social media:

• everyone wants to be heard
• everyone wants to be understood
• everyone wants to know his or her life matters.

Social media is really no different than off-line, “real” life.

Every person wants to be treated like a person.

Every person is unique.

Every person is special.

Every person is gifted.

Every person can make a great impact on others.

Not only that, but…

You are unique.

You are special.

You are gifted.

You can make a great impact on others.

You are awesome!

If you can believe that, then let’s take it one step further.

Every person you meet today is unique, gifted, and capable of making a great impact on others.

Will you notice?

Will you tell them?

Not just the smart, the beautiful, the popular, the well-connected.  Everyone.

Will you validate?

Another inspiring video that was a part of our worship service this morning at Cypress Meadows Community Church.  In the service we were reminded that being a great dad isn’t about being perfect.  Being a great dad is about persevering, never giving up.  Dick Hoyt’s perseverance is truly inspiring. Watch this video which tells his story and his son’s.

Today is One Day Without Shoes.

Millions of children around the world have no shoes.  They often have to walk for miles barefoot to get food, water, go to school, or to the market.  This often leads to sores, infections, and other debilitating injuries.  According to the One Day Without Shoes website:

We are asking people to go the day, part of the day or even just a few minutes barefoot, to experience a life without shoes first-hand, and to hep spread awareness of the impact a simple pair of shoes can bring to a child’s life.

The One Day Without Shoes event was started by TOMS Shoes.

If you haven’t heard about TOMS Shoes, they don’t just talk the talk they, um, walk the walk:

TOMS Shoes was founded on a simple premise: With every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need.

They’ve given away more than 100,000 pairs of shoes. Here’s an awesome video that shows the impact they’re having:

I’m in!  How about you? Will you go today without shoes?

If you do, people offline will notice your bare feet and ask you what you doing.

But how about online?  Here’s a fun way to spread the word:

Twitpic your feet.

Post a picture of your bare feet to Twitter and Facebook.  Post a link to the pic in the comments here.  You might even Twitpic yourself barefoot throughout the day.

Here are my ugly feet.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!

For most people St. Patrick’s Day if celebrated at all is simply the next holiday to decorate for after Valentine’s Day, or an excuse to break out the green clothing and drink some green beer.  All in good fun I suppose.

I’ve had a few green beers myself over the years.  While college at Valparaiso (Indiana), I had the opportunity to go to a couple St. Patrick’s Day parades in Chicago where they dye the Chicago River green. 

But do you know who the real Saint Patrick was?

If not, he was a pretty amazing guy…

Son of a British nobleman, at 16 years old Patrick was kidknapped by a gang of Irish raiders and carried off to Ireland for slave labor.  During his slavery he found faith in God and was strenthened through prayer.  After 6 years he escaped and made passage on a ship leaving Ireland.  But God gave him a vision and a passion for the people who had enslaved him.  Patrick eventually returned to Ireland to share the Jesus Christ with the people.  Despite great danger, including imprisonment and death threats, Patrick boldly challenged the religious and political leaders of the time and faithfully served the people of Ireland, forever changing the course of history in Ireland.

A more detailed history of St. Patrick can be found here: 

• Will the Real St. PatrickPlease Stand Up?

Now you’ve a good conversation starter when you’re admiring co-workers’ ”Pinch me, I’m Irish” buttons.

What does St. Patrick’s Day mean to you?  How will you be celebrating it?

To be honest, when I first received a copy of The Search for God and Guinness I was not all that excited about it.  I love God and I like beer, but I am not a big reader of biographies, preferring “more practical” books on leadership, spiritual issues, or social media.  So, it sat on my bookshelf for several months.

When in finally cracked it open I was sorry I waited so long to read it.

In the Search for God and Guinness, Stephen Mansfield tells the story of the Guinness family starting with Arthur Guinness, founder of the famed brewery, and continuing through the Guinnesses of today.  While the book recounts the amazing rise of one of the must successful breweries in the world, what makes the book and the Guinness family fascinating is the accounts of their character, faith, and generosity.

Because of their commitment to excellence and innovation in brewing the Guinnesses became exceptionally wealthy and influential.  But rather than selfishly squander it on themselves, they were exceptionally generous with the pay and benefits they gave their workers and they demonstrated an unusual commitment to improving the conditions of the poor in Ireland and Great Britain.

Favorite Quotes

• Clearly, this was the understanding at the time: gin destroys lives while beer is healthy and safe, enhancing rather than eroding good society.
• “We must exhort all Christians to gain all they can and to save all they can; that is in effect to grow rich… to give all he can to those in need.” John Wesley
• Arthur Guinness was the founder of the first Sunday schools in Ireland.
• October 25, 1886, the stock offering sold out within an hour.
• A Guinness worker during the 1920s enjoyed full medical and dental care, massage services, reading rooms, subsidized meals, a company- funded pension, subsidies for funeral expenses, educational benefits, sports facilities, free concerts, lectures, and entertainment, and a guaranteed two pints of Guinness beer a day.
• In 2005 the British people voted the widget (the small plastic capsule that allows a can of Guinness to be properly nitrogenated) the greatest invention in the previous forty years.
• A company should be measured by the culture it creates… what is encouraged to grow, the behavior and ways of thinking that are inspired.
• Guinness demonstrated the good that righteous wealth can do.
• A man’s profession was where he demonstrated to the world who he was.
• Don’t just sell your product – sell your product’s culture.
• “Gentlemen, find out the will of God for your day and generation, and then, as quickly as possible, get into line.” Prince Albert
• Whatever else you do, do at least one thing very well.

Personal thoughts

Stephen Mansfield concludes the narrative portion of The Search for God and Guinness with this line.

That part of the heritage will only live when men absorb it from the Guinness story and embed it in fertile fields of their own.

Clearly, he wrote this book not just to tell a fascinating story but to inspire leaders today to follow in the Guinness tradition.  These two sentences sum up that tradition.

What distinguishes [the first Arthur Guinness’s] story is that he understood his success as forming a kind of mandate, a kind of calling to a purpose of God beyond just himself and his family to the broader good he could do in the world.

[The Guinnesses] knew how to brew beer, yes, but they also knew how to care for their employees, how to invest wealth for social good, and how to create corporate cultures that would change the course of nations.

In an era where there is immense distrust and cynicism towards corporations and wealth – to the extent where a significant portion of the population considers them inherently evil – I found this account of success and generosity inspiring.

I highly recommend The Search for God and Guinness, especially if you lead or own a business.

Action Steps

As the CEO of a small business and a person of faith, I came away from God and Guinness with a renewed passion to do 4 things.

1. Do what we do exceptionally well.
2. Create a culture of excellence, innovation, faith and generosity.
3. Be more generous with our employees.
4. Be more generous with in our community and the world.

Discussion

Do you believe wealth is inherently evil?  Or do you believe in “the good that righteous wealth can do?”  Do you believe companies have a responsibility to invest in their employees and make their communities better?  If so, how?

Get a Free Book

If you’d like a free copy of God and Guinness, all you have to do is

1. Retweet this post or share it on Facebook, and
2. Post a meaningful comment to this post that contributes to the conversation (include your Facebook or Twitter usename in your comment so I can connect your comment to your share/tweet).

One person will be randomly selected the morning of Wednesday 3/10 to receive a free copy of God and Guinness.

I have mocked Woot’s “Bag O’ Crap” a time or time in the past.  If you’re not familiar with the infamous “Bag O’ Crap,” Woot periodically offers a grab bag of random items for a few bucks (click for more details).  Sometimes there’s something valuable in it, other times not.

Well, Bryan Meyers purchased a Bag O’ Crap.  He was in Haiti during the earthquake and one of the items that came in the bag – an LED flashlight – saved his life.

Here’s his letter to Woot.  And here’s Bryan’s Haiti Earthquake journal.

Amidst all the devastation and heartache, there have been lots of stories of hope and even a few funny stories. I hope I hear more of them.

In A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller writes about his discovery that the same things that make for a great story also make for a great life.  He describes the elements of a great story and explains how the reader can write these elements into his or her own life to make it more fulfilling and compelling.

But if you know anything about Don Miller, you know it’s not written in a self-help sort of way.  It’s a narrative of discovery.  It flows from offbeat and funny to reflective and serious as Miller writes about the experience of creating a screenplay loosely based on his autobiographical book Blue Like Jazz and how that changed his life.

I found A Million Miles in a Thousand Years enjoyable to read.  But more than that it’s the kind of book that can change the reader’s life.  So, I want to give away a copy.

I’d you’d like to win a copy  for yourself or to give away as a Christmas gift read on.

One of the main principles in A Million Miles is:

A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.

But as Miller explains in the author’s note:

If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end… you wouldn’t tell your friends… The truth is you wouldn’t remember that movie a week later… But we spend years actually living those stories.

For a story to be great, the protagonist has to want something really big – bigger than himself – and overcome big obstacles to get it.  And the same is true about life, if you want to live a great story, you have to strive for something really big – bigger than yourself.  True, isn’t it?

If you’d like to win a copy of for yourself:

First, post a comment about what you’re going to strive for in 2010 that will make your life a great story.

Then either Twitter: Win a copy of A Million Miles 4 yourself or 2 give 4 Christmas from @PaulSteinbrueck @DonMillerIs @ThomasNelson – http://bit.ly/8VlgO0

Or post a link to this post in Facebook.

If you’d like to win a copy to give as a Christmas gift:

Hey, don’t worry about re-gifting… I received two copies, one from @backstageleader the other from @human3rror (thanks again guys), I presume they received them from @ThomasNelson, so you would be quad-gifting, or something like that.  Anways…

First, without giving away the name of the person you have in mind, post a comment telling why you think A Million Miles would be a good gift for them.

Then either Twitter: Win a copy of A Million Miles 4 yourself or 2 give 4 Christmas from @PaulSteinbrueck @DonMillerIs @ThomasNelson – http://bit.ly/8VlgO0

Or post a link to this post in Facebook.

I will draw one random winner at 3 PM EST tomorrow (Thursday) and mail the book off as soon as I get an address, so you should get it before Christmas.

Disclaimer: I am not associated with Donald Miller or Thomas Nelson, Inc in anyway, but I mention them in a shameless attempt to get them to retweet this post since in doing so they will get some extra pub too.

Dear Deana, Chris and the whole Cypress Arts team,

Thanks so much for the money you contributed towards the trip Jennifer and I took to Nakuru, Kenya.  It was a blessing to learn that the airline wasn’t going to charge us for the two checked bags Jennifer and I each took.  That freed us up to use the money given for other purposes.  I thought you might want to know about some of the ways God used and blessed your generosity.

Before we left for Kenya, we used about $30 to purchase beads and string which we used to make bracelets with about 40 children at rural church in Kabarak and 15 girls at the Canan Girls Rescue home in East Pokot.  After the children made the bracelets, Jennifer presented the gospel to them by explaining how the colors of the beads represented different aspects of the gospel story.

While in Kenya we spent $25 on a massive box of lollipops, or “sweeties” as they call them in Kenya.  We gave them out to children everywhere we went – at the hospital, the church in Kabarak, the landfill, the girls home.  Here in the U.S., I would be suspicious if I saw strangers giving out candy to children, but maybe they’re less cynical or suspicious in Kenya as the sweeties brought smiles to the faces of parents and children alike.

While in visiting the hospital, we met a young mom whose 2 year old boy has a heat condition.  She told us she needed 7,000 shilling (about 85 dollars) for her son to get an MRI.  We contributed $25 to help make that happen.

When we visited the community the lives on the landfill, we met a young family – Sammy, Eunice, and their two little children – who live in a shack with a roof made out of wood and cardboard.  He told us that the night before we visited, it rained and the roof leaked.  We spent $35 for sheets of steel that will help them stay dry the next time it rains.

I hope you feel like the money was well spent.  We certainly do.  One of the things we came away from Kenya with was an appreciation for how just a little bit of money can make a huge difference there.

If you’d like to hear more about our trip and how you can continue to make a difference in Kenya, Jennifer and I invite you to join us on July 31 at 6:30 PM at in Studio 4:12 at Cypress for Springs of Hope Night.  Or if you can support Joe and Molly Bail and their ministry directly through their website SpringsOfHopeKenya.org

In His Service,
Paul Steinbrueck

This morning we drove to the rural village of Kabarak.  This village had lots of problems with alcoholism and prostitution, but about a year ago All Nations Church, the church in Nakuru that Joe and Molly are a part of, planted a church in Kabarak.  The church building that was constructed not only serves as a place of worship but also as a nursery school and a community center.  The church has become the heart of the village and the transformation has been remarkable.

As a rural community they rely on agriculture to survive.  The last couple of years have been very dry, and this year again the rainy season has been short.  Crops are failing and many of the people in the village are hungry.

We arrived and went into the church building where about 40 children under the age of 6 and 40 adults had gathered.  We were welcomed warmly, and a group of the children sang a song for us.  By the way, you know you’re in a rural church when you glance outside and see cows strolling two feet away from the window.  Anyways…

It’s difficult for children to pay attention when they’re hungry, so next we had snack time.  We passed out little packages of cookies they called “biscuits.”

Jennifer then led the children in a craft and Bible lesson.  She had the children break into 5 small groups, and some of the “mamas” helped the children make bead bracelets.  They each got a string and put on a gold bead, followed by a back bead, a red bead, a white bead, and finally a green bead.  When every child had a bracelet on their wrist they returned to their seats.  Jennifer then used the colors to tell the children (and adults) the gospel message. Gold represents the streets of gold in heaven, black is for our sin, red represents Jesus’ blood shed or us on the cross, white is for forgiveness, and green represents our continued growth in Christ.

It was a wonderful lesson!  I am so proud of Jennifer for organizing and teaching it.

After that we distributed dehydrated food, flour, and matches to all of the adults who were there.  It was received with gratitude and will be a tremendous help to these people who have so little.  We also gave the young men a couple soccer balls and an air pump.  Later when Isaac, one of the elders, was speaking he admonished the young men saying, “You did not receive these balls so you can play and start fights like they do in other places.  You received these balls reach other young men with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  When these balls have worn out we want to see many souls saved because of them.”  I thought that was pretty cool.

After the distribution of food, we had a time of singing.  All we had was one drum and our voices but it was the best worship I’ve experienced in a long time.  Not because of the quality of the music (though the singing was good) but because everyone in the room was full of joy and that joy was being expressed freely in their faces, by clapping their hands, and by singing to the Lord without concern for how well they sang or what the people around them might think.

That was followed by a time of speaking and mutual encouragement.  Bishop Jothom, who is pastor of Joe and Molly’s church and oversees the church in Kabarak, thanked us for being there.  Isaac, one of the elders of the church spoke and encouraged each one of us individually.  Molly, Jennifer, and I each spoke words of gratitude and encouragement to the people of the village.  Victor closed by praying for everyone.

With all due respect to brothers and sisters back in my home church whom I love dearly, the entire experience was perhaps the most wonderful expression of Christian worship and community I have ever experienced.  There was worship and signing, scripture and prayer, hugs and fellowship, sharing of resources, young and old, black and white.  The Holy Spirit spoke through many to many.  It was absolutely beautiful!

When it was over, we went to visit a young mother in the village who has a little girl with a cleft pallet.  We are hoping that she will be able to have surgery to correct the problem, but in order to have the surgery she must be healthy and at least 6 kg (13 pounds).  Because of the scarcity of food and the difficulty this baby girl has eating, at 13 months old she weighs only 5 kg (11 pounds).  We talked with here mother, encouraged her, and gave her some extra food so she could try to help her daughter gain weight.

We returned to Joe and Molly’s house in the late afternoon and had some down time to rest before dinner.

Dinner – Kenya Style

We had Victor and his wife Mary, Daniel, his wife Nora and 4 year old son David over for an authentic Kenyan dinner.  Mary made a beef stew and sukamawiki, which is kind of like collard greens.  We also had Ugali, which is maize flower poured into boiling water and stirred until it’s the consistency of mashed potatoes, and Chapate, which is a corn flatbread.

The food was delicious!  And I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to get to know Daniel, Victor, and their family’s better.  We also talked about how life in Kenya compares with life in the U.S. – schools, taxes, government corruption, and more.  I’ve said before that Daniel and Victor are wonderful brothers in Christ, but today I also call them my friends.  I will be praying for them and communicating with them often after we return home.  Heck, they’re already my Facebook friends!

Samuel

On a more serious note, do you remember Dorcus’s son, Samuel, who we met at the hospital Tuesday afternoon?  He was in the advances stages of AIDS and when we first invited him to accept Jesus as his savior he said, “The day after tomorrow,” but after more conversation and prayer he had a change of heart and received Christ.

We just got word that he died at 11 AM this morning – the day after tomorrow.

I don’t know if there are words to describe the strange mix of emotions I’m feeling right now.  I’m so sad for Dorcus, who is the most wonderful sister in Christ you could ever meet and has been through so much hardship.  I am so joyful for Samuel who is now AIDS-free and with his Savior.  I am in complete awe of the way our loving God orchestrated the events of the last 2 days to bring this prodigal son home.

We started this morning by going to the infamous landfill.  I say infamous because I’ve been told about it by Joe and Molly as well as Douglas (senior pastor of my church) and Chris (worship leader of my church) when they went to Kenya earlier this year, and I’ve seen some pictures.  There is an entire community of people who live on the local landfill.  I don’t mean near it or next to it, but literally on top of it.

The Not-So-Beautiful

Walking up the hill of garbage on our way to the landfill community was just surreal.  It was not far from what I expected but it was still difficult to believe it was real even though I was seeing it with my own eyes.

There were people standing on a newly dumped load of garbage picking through it for food and other items of “value.”  Along side the people were cows, pigs, and sheep also sifting through the same garbage for food.

Midway up the hill we were met by Tony and Joseph who are amazing Christian men and served as our guides.  Joseph lives on the landfill and is the grandson of Dorcus who we saw at the hospital yesterday and whose son, Samuel, has AIDS and received Christ as his savior during our visit.  Tony grew up on the landfill and now helps and ministers to people there on a regular basis.

As we walked along Tony described the living conditions for the people there.  We began seeing some children, talked with them, and gave them lollipops or “sweeties” as they call them.

Dorcus

Tony took us to Dorcus’s house.  She invited us in.  She started blessing Joe and Molly, praising them for the way God was using them to help others.  I mean here is a woman who lives on a landfill and her son is in the hospital dying of AIDS, and she is encouraging and showing love to us???    Wow!  It just put me in awe of the mighty power and love of our God that he could surpass even these circumstances.

Some of the ladies in the landfill including Dorcus’s daughter, Grace, earn a living by making and selling handbags.  They weave them using strips of plastic from bags they find in the landfill.  They are quite beautiful, and Jennifer and I bought some to bring home with us.  By the way, if you would like one, let me know.  We are bringing home a few extras, which you can purchase, and we’ll give the money to Joe and Molly’s ministry.

Two Families

As we continued walking, Tony told us about a woman at the landfill who recently gave birth to a new baby and “went mad.”  She was running around camp naked and because the people in the community feared she would hurt herself or someone else they locked her in one of the shacks. We met her brother who is now caring for her 4 kids plus 2 of his own.  They are all living in a little shack that might have been 7 or 8 feet on a side.  We talked with him, prayed with him and then gave him a supply of dehydrated food.

After that we met a young couple, Sammy and Eunice, who have a 2 year old and 9 month old child.  Eunice is such a beautiful young woman and their kids are just precious.  They’re little home doesn’t even have a metal roof.  It looked to be mostly cardboard.  Sammy told us that when it rained last night they had water coming in through the roof.  We helped them with some food and then Joe made arrangements for them to get sheets of steel needed to cover the roof.

We ended up spending a couple of hours there talking with people and distributing dehydrated food.  We gave kids more “sweeties” as well as many of the flip-flops and childrens books that were given to us back home.

It was another opportunity to experience first hand a clash between extreme desperation and extreme hope.  On the one hand you have conditions that are absolutely deplorable.  There were little children walking around barefoot in garbage where livestock were roaming.  Imagine for a just moment your own children living in such conditions.  Uh, it just breaks my heart!  On the other hand, you have people with huge hearts and unshakable faith helping people with their physical and spiritual needs.

Dorcus, Tony and Joseph (Dorcus’s grandson) are such an inspiration to me that no matter know matter how little I have or how difficult my circumstances, God will not just get me through it, but enable me to continue giving and loving others.

The Beautiful

After reading the events of the first two and half days in Nakuru, some of you are probably freaking out and saying, “I could never do that.”  (And you’re right, you couldn’t … and neither can Jennifer or I. It is all God making this possible.)  But our trip hasn’t been all serving in extremely difficult situations.

Today after the landfill we went to downtown Nakuru and did some souvenir shopping in an open-air market area.  I usually hate haggling and so does Jennifer, but we had our secret weapon with us, Daniel, who knows what a fair price is and how to get it.  I actually had fun with the negotiating, because the vendors had some really cool stuff and we all knew that if we didn’t like their price there were 3 or 4 other vendors on the same block with virtually the same stuff.

While we were there a bunch of the street boys saw us.  Molly got some bread and fruit for them.  Jen and I waited in the car, talked with them, gave them some candy, and took their pictures.  They got a kick out of seeing themselves.

From there we went to a nice resort called Sunbird Lodge for lunch.  The resort is on a bluff overlooking Lake Elementaita, which dotted with flamingo (though you can’t see them in the photo here).  The food was good, the conversation was great, and the view was spectacular.  After that we went up to the Menengai Crater, which is just a short drive north of Joe and Molly’s house.  The crater is a huge inactive volcano, and the view from the top is amazing as well.  I just love being outside in God’s creation.  It’s one of the things that really fills my emotional and spiritual tanks.

My words can’t do justice to these beautiful places, so I’ll just close with a few pictures (not that they really do it justice either, but it’s the best I can do.

Daniel, Joe, Molly, and Paul on a rocky cliff overlooking Lake Elementaita

Paul and Jennifer at Menengai Crater