The customer says since this business owner advertised on a Christian radio station, they knew it was someone they could trust.

Seriously?

I get what the radio station is going after, but how many people outside of the knowledge of God’s grace through Christ (or even under that) experienced substantial problems when dealing with a Christ-follower?

Everyone is going to fail us and church communities are littered with examples of people doing grave financial harm to their Christian brothers and sisters.

In theory, doing business with a Christian should be a good experience. We know where their moral compass should be pointing and there is additional accountability.

So long as we follow God’s commands without considering justification for our own response to the problem…

I’ve expressed my concerns about Christianity as a business niche in the past and while that post comes off a bit more heavy-handed these days, I haven’t softened my position all that much.

If we have a product or service we believe makes people’s lives better while considering the cost, we want to share that with the people we love.

That may include people in our local extension of the body of Christ (church or other Christian community), but we must be extremely careful in the process.

This requires so much care, I completely stayed away from promoting my business around the Church. This is a personal choice for everyone to make. Maybe I’m in the spot like a guy who drives crazy so he doesn’t put a fish on his car.

Attaching anything with God to something we are doing in the business realm so it puts us in a similar position of social responsibility much like a pastor. Our actions impact how others see and understand Christ, whether that is logical/fair, or not.

It is important for business owners who are also followers of Christ to be extremely circumspect in how we market our business lest we do some Christian anti-evangelism.

Matt Chandler of Village Church made a great point in a sermon, there really is no “Christian music”. There is music with Christian lyrics – there is no “Christian music”.

In a similar fashion, we do not operate “Christian businesses”. We are Christians who operate a business.

Maybe I’m down too much in the semantics, but hopefully you get my point. On a regular basis, we should all take our jobs/businesses before the Lord including everything from the business model, product, promotion, finances, etc. and ask God to point out anything in our actions and motives he does not like (Psalm 139:23-34).

So, let’s say we lived in a nation with practically no infrastructure and no capital to build one, how would we get a job?

Fortunately, God gave us the internet. So long as someone knows the language of a highly-developed nation (e.g. English, French, German), has an internet connection, and a computer, it doesn’t really matter where you live.

Evidence of this are all the programmers I hire for odd jobs from countries where $300 a month gives you a comfortable living. In Africa, the average monthly income is substantially lower than that, and people always need odd little programming or web dev projects done. Sounds like an opportunity knocking…

The one sticking point is, “How would someone in Africa gain these skills”?

So glad you asked

Hackers for Charity is working to provide food, computer gear, and training in East Africa. The founder also has one of the most interesting stories about God using those in the tech industry. My experience and connections in the web industry has shown the personality types typically working on the web or with computers are not the type to be followers of Christ so this is exceptionally unique, and exceptionally cool. Check out the blog at least.

Does this thread of emails look familiar?

sara: Hey gang, anyone want to help bring meals for the Millers this week since they just had that baby?
steve: sounds great. I’ll do it saturday. Sara, you and the millers hang out all the time – any dietary restrictions?
sara: Thanks steve. We’ll take the next monday.
nora: We’ll do tuesday then
sara: thanks nora. Any takers for wed-fri?
jason: Hey we’d love to do it but we’re out of town every day but monday. Steve, can we switch you for wed?
steve: sure. How about those dietary restrictions?
jane: I need directions or their new cell number
sara: I’m lost w/o my garmin so I’m not good w/ directions. Jenny’s number is 867-5309. Ask if she’ll post directions to the group
jason: thanks steve. yeah, how about the diet? Wasn’t jenny allergic to eggs, or a vegan, or some other horrible affliction?
nora: hey jane, you want to grab lunch w/ the kids this week?
phil: we’ll take friday.
jane: sure nora. what time works for you?
steve: hey there “thread hijackers” … anyone know about that vegan rumor? If so this sausage gumbo ain’t going to fly.

and about 47 emails later, the week of meals comes to fruition (along with sara’s first grey hair)…

If you’ve ever sympathized with their plight, check out http://www.takethemameal.com/ had some friends using this recently and it does a nice job of keeping things organized.

• schedule of dates, dishes
• Place for notes so steve can finally get an answer to his question
• google maps integrated with the address
• printable
• easy to locate friends by name and password

takethemameal.com

The short answer is “that’s up to you and the Lord”

So far as I’m concerned, the Internet is a blessing of the Lord and from my experience in the business world offering online payment makes it easier for people to contribute. Don’t let anyone get legalistic on delivery of tithe about this because there is no frame of reference for this in the Bible and in my opinion definitely falls under the realm of “disputable matters“.

My question came when I had the option of setting auto-pay. For people with particular presence-of-mind to remember and give thanks for those incoming funds, this can be a great option. I tend to forget (ungrateful Matt…) so the auto-pay was a little “too easy” for me. Praying over my income that I will use it wisely, that the Lord will bless and multiply my tiny contribution back to his kingdom, and that he will bless my taxes and the government using them for the good of all the people.

To handle this without completely “outsourcing my tithe,” I set myself email reminders to when my paychecks post to my bank account, and then I pray over the tithe as I send it in.

I suppose The Afters have felt the same so they have been out hitting the road in more than just churches and it really seems to be catching on. Bands like these guys and the Fray are showing that Christians are not some weird space creatures that are irrelevant to today’s culture. They may not participate in all of it, but their focus is on the positive – they are moving towards something else instead of just moving away from others.

Anyhoo – great tunes.

Have a fun little song called Myspace girl which is tongue-in-cheek-cheesy to the nth degree… and I can’t get it out of my head 

Here’s a taste of their work off Youtube and you can check The After’s Myspace page as well.

And a live version

Got slammed by movie critics, but maybe that is also a point in the movie…

Looks very interesting – check out the site and trailer.

Another trailer below…

Guess it will be out on video soon so I’ll keep an eye out. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you if you’ve actually seen it. Let’s leave out the opinions based on the premise or trailer

I watched the Alexa ranking on the blog drop like a lead balloon and I can’t blame you. I had been somewhat unfocused the last few months, wrestling with what God wanted me to do with the blog, and with laziness in my walk w/ the Lord. For those of you who kept checking back to see nothing new, I am sorry – I hate dead RSS feeds as much as the next person.

Fortunately, God has provided the new vision and motivation for this blog and I added a “cleaner” look (couple bugs to work out and some sprucing up to do).

The new focus of the blog is based on addiction and recovery and I just started back with a new post. (Yes, this was retroactively posted).

When I say addiction and recovery, we’re not just talking drugs and alcohol here. I’ve struggled with just about everything and the Lord has done some nearly unbelievable work – makes my blog posts about work just seem not quite as important. I just helped launch Celebrate Recovery in a new town here in SC so my weekly involvement with this new crop of guys will ensure the posts are more fresh and come with more frequency.

If you want to subscribe or re-subscribe to the RSS feed so you get notified of new posts, you can do so via RSS here or by email here. If not I apologize for the slacking and hope we can still be friends

Just added a new feature to the blog to make the conversations a little easier to follow. Previously when you or I left a comment, they were all in one big list so sometimes it was hard to tell when there were two conversations going on within the comments on a post, which comment went with which conversation.

Now you can reply individually to each comment by clicking the link next to each comment. I’m probably way more excited about this than you and more than anyone should be about something so dorky, but who cares? Enjoy