Love Does

This is What Love Does – Part 1

/ Erin Kirk / 6 Comments

This is the first in a series about the 2013 Love Does Stuff Conference, hosted by NYT bestselling author, justice seeker and Jesus lover Bob Goff.

Photo Credit: Lisa Long

Photo Credit: Lisa Long

On my flight home from Seattle yesterday, I imagined what it will be like when Bob Goff meets Jesus Christ in person.

Of course, I hope that doesn’t happen for another 50 years or so, because I need Bob in this world teaching me how to love people like Jesus did. He’s better at it than anyone I know.

Bob is a living, breathing disciple of Christ, a first-century apostle on a stage with balloons, hollering about fireworks and felons and child soldiers in Uganda, exhorting us to expand our territory and L-O-V-E  people so extravagantly that the world thinks we’re nuts.

Because that’s what Bob does. That’s what love does.

But when he’s done here and we are all weeping and toasting him, I imagine Bob will run as fast as he can into heaven, right up to the crystal lake and do a cannonball.

As the angels applaud and hold up scorecards, Bob will surface and yell, “How cool was that?” And Jesus will nod to Peter and John and say, “There he is, there’s our Bob.”

IMG_3756

My new BFF Lisa Long, Bob and me.

Then I think Jesus will grab Bob’s face and kiss his forehead, exactly like Bob did to many of us over the weekend. I can almost hear Jesus say:

“Thank you, Precious for delivering so many of them to my feet. Thank you for helping them find me, even the ones who have done heinous and horrible things. Thank you for showing them they are not just invited to my table, they are welcome.”

In Tacoma, Washington, at the first ever conference based on Love Does, Bob’s bestselling book, he must have said that 100 times. “You are not just invited here, you are welcome.”

Photo Credit: Lisa Long

Photo Credit: Lisa Long

You are welcome to speak your dreams out loud.

You are welcome to quit stuff, even your job, if it keeps you from Jesus.

You are welcome to not have all the answers about Christianity.

You are welcome to show up with whatever faith you have and leave the rest to Jesus.

Bob Goff is  a revolutionary, reminding us there’s only one four letter Jesus used all the time.

L-O-V-E

In God’s kingdom, love is supreme and without direct, exuberant expression of it, we are just noisy cymbals and clanging gongs. Sadly, the noisy cymbals get a lot more attention than conference speaker Veronica Tutaj does.

Veronica started doing love by handing out programs at church on Sundays eight years ago. Today, she loves on hundreds of pregnant and parenting teenagers in Austin, Texas. She does love with fire in her belly and told all 1,500 of us how to do the same. I think Jesus watched, elbowing Peter and John saying “there’s our Veronica, watch her go.”

Do you want to know how to do love better? Here’s a start.

Pick up Love Does* and let it change your mind about Christian behavior. If it surprises you, then pick up the Gospel of John. Find out what Jesus actually said, not what people say he said. It doesn’t matter what you are currently doing, or who says you are unwelcome. They are wrong.

You are welcome here.

*Proceeds from the sale of Love Does support the school Bob and his friends built for former child soldiers eight years ago. It is now the #1 school in Uganda. For more information visit Restore International.

Engage Your Faith and Do Stuff

/ Erin Kirk / 4 Comments

141800800-196x300If 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?

Chatting With NYT Bestselling Author Bob Goff

/ Erin Kirk / 3 Comments

I’ve been crowing all week about my new favorite book Love Does – Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World. Do yourself a favor and buy this book, if for no other reason than the proceeds go to build schools in Uganda.

Love Does made it to somewhere around #12 on the New York Times Bestseller list and in keeping of the book’s spirit of whimsy and adventure, the author, Bob Goff, put his cell phone number in the back. That’s crazy. Do you know what’s even crazier? He answers it.

“Hi, This is Bob Goff.”

“Wow, you answered! Hi Bob, this is Erin from Texas. I just wanted to call and tell you how much I loved your book.”

“That is so sweet, thank you.”

“I can’t believe you answer your cell phone, I barely answer mine.”

“Don’t you think we all need to be more connected, instead of less connected” he said.

Bob had just stepped off a 27-hour flight from Uganda. He turned his phone on moments before I called. I asked how many people have called since the book came out and if I heard correctly, he said at least a thousand.

“It’s the best thing I ever did,” he said.

I’m going to Los Angeles next week (more on why later) and I asked if I could bring him a cup of coffee on Tom Sawyer Island. He gave me his email, so we can set it up. He said to make sure and email him because, after three weeks in Uganda, he’ll be walking into a wall of stuff when he gets home and doesn’t want to forget.

Love Does is the reason I decided to go to LA, where I’m going after my own secretly incredible life by doing something new, something that’s a leap of faith for me – or as Bob would put it, a caper.

I told Bob, I had blogged about Love Does (here and here) and he said he was really happy to talk to me. He reiterated how surprising or lucky it was I caught him. But I don’t think luck has anything to do with it.

“When you write your book, you should put your phone number in the back,” he said.

That’s funny, I didn’t tell Bob I was writing a book.