Engage Your Faith and Do Stuff

March 8, 2013March 8, 2013 / Erin Kirk / 4 Comments

If you’ve been around here long, you may recall my meeting last fall with NYT Bestselling Author Bob Goff.

I didn’t write much about it because it was a visit, not an interview. I was really moved by his book Love Does (if you haven’t read it, run to your Kindle and buy it) and I wanted to tell him that. Since he put his phone number in the back of the book and he answers it, that wasn’t as hard as it sounds.

One night in LA, Bob squeezed me, a stranger, in into his impossibly tight schedule and we chatted for about 45 minutes. Here are two things I learned about Bob:

1. In person, he’s just like he is in the book.

2. He is a funny and refreshing example of gospel-centered Christianity in action.

For example, when negotiating the contract for Love Does, Bob told the publisher he wanted a big enough advance to build a school in Uganda. They gave it to him and now there’s a school in Uganda. Here it is under construction:

Bob, who is a lawyer, took a bunch of law students along to beat back the tangled bush of the Ugandan legal system, providing due process to dozens of kids languishing untried in jail.

Then they began prosecuting witch doctors for child sacrifice/mutilation and educating, with kindness and creativity, other witch doctors about Uganda’s laws regarding the practice.

Bob’s example is one reason I am going to Zambia. I can’t do what Bob does in Africa but God isn’t asking me to be Bob. He is asking me to engage my faith to create something sweet that doesn’t currently exist. As Jesus said,

When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father. John 15:18

In other words: Love Does.

Bob guest posted over at Donald Miller’s Storyline blog yesterday and here’s what he said:

“I have often wondered why the things that are talked about at Bible studies I’ve been at never really stuck with me…I wanted what was said to matter, but like Taylor’s song, it didn’t – at least not enough. But that all changed when I started engaging my faith; when I started doing stuff. It was then that I stopped humming along to someone else’s song and started writing my own.”

I love both of these guys and if you read Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, you can hear how they met. Both them have inspired me to write a better story with of my life, to get out of the boat, into the world and do stuff.

What are you supposed to get out and do?

A Rainy Thursday Peptalk.

February 21, 2013March 4, 2013 / Erin Kirk / 4 Comments

It’s raining hard at my house today. Thunder and lightning. Cold and I’m paying bills. Not a great time to give up coffee.

But SoulPancake made me giggle. It’s a project started by Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson), whose intent is to make discussions about Spirituality, Creativity, and Philosophy cool again. I happen to be all for that.

If you could use a little encouragement this morning to get busy being who you are, spend three minutes with this kid. Like my friend Bob Goff says: Forget what you’re able to do, what were you made to do? And why not do more of that?

You Can Feel Jesus In Your Bones.

December 8, 2012December 9, 2012 / Erin Kirk / 2 Comments

I read a story once about how a woman, who was deaf from birth, listened to music.

She would turn a record up really loud and place her hands on the speakers, until she could feel the vibrations move into her chest and overtake her body. The rhythms would eventually articulate and she could fill in the melody with her mind.

Knowing Jesus Christ is like that.

We’ve all heard the mockery in people’s voices when they talk about someone who has “gotten religion” or is “high on Jesus.” It’s not their fault; they just don’t know you can feel Jesus in your bones. They don’t know it’s possible for a deaf person to “hear.”

But it is.

When people shouted at me about Jesus, I couldn’t hear them because I was deaf; but I wasn’t blind and I could see they were shouting, which made me resent them.

But when I finally put my hands on that Bible and read it, I was surprised by the tiny hum that rose in my chest. As I read more, the hum grew stronger and engaged my heart, my imagination and my gratitude. When I read more, the drums picked up and created rhythm; the cellos formed a baseline and the violins and piccolos chimed in with a melody. All together now this internal orchestra has surged into something fine and true that I really want to share.

But try as I might I can’t explain it to you. You have to put your hands on the speakers until you can feel it in your own bones. Then you’ll know.

The Israel Philharmonic (Wikipedia)

Some people like Bob Goff, Joyce Meyer, Matthew Barnett, Chris Caine and Nancy Alcorn, play gorgeous music with their lives, but I’m still a young orchestra, and I’m sometimes pitchy or behind.

However, I’ve committed to practice and to follow the world’s greatest conductor, who promises the more I practice the finer my music will become. He is the most reliable speaker upon which to place your hands.

So with that, here is my tiny, little solo – a birthday present for Him.

I am raising money to counter human trafficking in SE Asia with The Exodus Road. In a week, we have raised nearly 30% of our $1400 goal. We have until Christmas.

The Exodus Road is playing some beautiful music right now. Please put your hands on their speakers, and when you’re done, put them in your pockets and help them play more.