• Hi, I'm Brad Abare

  I'm a make-it-happen guy working with big idea people. I design teams and orchestrate strategy so that great ideas I believe in get done.
  
  I am Jamaica's husband, Foursquare's comm director, Personality's founder, and a catalyst for CFCC.
  
  

• Twitter Updates

• Archives

  Select Category Abare News Big Ideal Brad Works God, Faith & Spirituality Hot Topic Inspiration Leadership Life’s Journey Media Politics Rant Reading Room Stuff I Like The City Wisdom
• Search for:

• I'm Also Blogging At

  Personality™
  Church Marketing Sucks
  
  

• Join the Conversation

  • Mike Ellis, Church For Men Florida on Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, Part 2
  • Scott on Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, Part 2
  • Chris Marlow on Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, Part 1
  • Matt Singley on The Cost of Honor
  • Church Marketing Sucks on The Haiti Duffle Bag

• Subscribe

  Add my RSS feed to your reader.

This week I have been in Pasadena, about 12 miles north of where Jamaica and I live in downtown Los Angeles. I’m in meetings all week with the Foursquare board of directors and, because the schedule runs from early morning through late evening, I usually stay at the hotel with the rest of the board. This provides a variety of conveniences, including a commute that lasts as long as an elevator ride! It’s also nice when Jamaica can come and stay with me which has been the case this week.

Last night I returned to the room after a long day of deliberations. Jamaica had arrived a few minutes before me, herself returning from a small group we’re a part of that communes with a handful of our homeless friends each week.

One of our homeless friends last night was barefoot and had lost her shoes. In a blink, Jamaica took her shoes off and gave them to our friend. If you don’t know my wife, this is the way she’s wired. It’s second nature for her to give sacrificially.

The funny part of this story is when Jamaica came back to the hotel. As she got out of the car and gave the keys to the valet (the only way to park at this hotel), the attendant noticed she was barefoot. “Are you a guest here?” said the valet guy. “Yes, I’m in room 621.”

Then she walked through the fancy lobby and up the elevator and to our room.

Barefoot.

I love my wife.

If you don’t have anyone to give your shoes to, perhaps you should consider a $5 donation to Soles 4 Souls which gets two pairs of shoes to people in need.

“The church should consist of communities of loving defiance.” —Ronald J. Sider

Nearly 30 years ago, a bi-partisan U.S. Presidential Commission on World Hunger suggested that “promoting economic development in general, and overcoming hunger in particular, are tasks far more critical to U.S. national security than most policy makers acknowledge or even believe.” The deepest causes for conflict in the world today, according to former U.N. Secretary Boutros Boutros-Ghali, are “economic despair, social injustice, and political oppression.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I haven’t heard much talk these days about overcoming foreign conflicts with generous giving, extreme kindness and courageous leadership with integrity.

Sider nails it when he says, “The rich often neglect or oppose justice because it demands that they end their oppression and share with the poor.” He continues, “We know that knowing more will make us morally obligated to change.”

So Now What?
“We must develop a theology of enough,” says Sider. “Christians in the United States spent $15.7 billion on new church construction alone in the six years between 1984 and 1989. Would we go on building lavishly furnished expensive church buildings if members of our own congregations were starving?”

“God casts down the wealthy and powerful in two specific situations,” says Sider, “(1) when they become wealthy by oppressing the poor; or (2) when they fail to share with the needy.”

Sider doesn’t mince his words. “Is the church really the church if it does not work to free the oppressed?”

But how much should we give? John Wesley gave a startling answer. One of his frequently repeated sermons was on Matthew 6:19-23 (“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth” KJV). Christians, Wesley said, should give away all but “the plain necessities of life”—that is, plain, wholesome food, clean clothes, and enough to carry on one’s business. One should earn what one can, justly and honestly. Capital need not be given away.” But Wesley wanted all income given to the poor after bare necessities were met. Unfortunately, Wesley discovered, not one person in five hundred in any “Christian city” obeys Jesus’ command. But that simply demonstrates that most professed believers are “living men but dead Christians.” “Any ‘Christian’ who takes for himself anything more than the plain necessaries of life,” Wesley insisted, “lives an open, habitual denial of the Lord.” He has “gained riches and hell-fire!” Wesley lived what he preached. Sales of his books often earned him fourteen hundred pounds annually, but he spent only thirty pounds on himself. The rest he gave away.

John V. Taylor suggests that “the biblical norm for material possessions is ‘sufficiency.’” We see this concept of sufficiency throughout Scripture. Sider says that the “costly generosity of the first church stands as a challenge to Christians of all ages.”

He even goes so far as to dare church institutions to “undertake a comprehensive two-year examination of their programs and activities to answer this question: Is there the same balance and emphasis on justice for the poor and oppressed in our programs as there is in Scripture?”

Rich Christians is another one of those books that is either going to sit on a shelf filled with highlights and tear stains, or become a manifesto for change.

Read Part One

“The rich must live more simply so that the poor may simply live.” —Dr. Charles Birch

It’s no secret for the past few years I have been re-thinking and re-learning what life is all about when it comes to stewarding my resources. From what I get paid and how I live, to how I spend my time and what I give, my worldview has been messed up. In a good way.

Two years ago Jamaica and I downsized to a smaller living space in downtown Los Angeles, four blocks from Skid Row. Earlier this year we became a one-car family. Every year for the past three years we have decreased our spending and increased our giving. Reading books like Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, The Irresistible Revolution, Jesus Wants to Save Christians and Strength to Love haven’t helped much either.

The latest book to make me want to hide in a cave or move to another country and rot to death, is Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ronald J. Sider. It’s a 30-year-old book (with a new edition) that has sold over 400,000 copies. Its 270 pages are a real struggle to get through both for the overwhelming nature of the problem and the sheer amount of data to digest. This ain’t bedtime or beach reading.

I think the biggest statistical takeaway for me was learning that the global hunger problem could be solved solely by the amount of money we in the U.S. spend each year on weight loss. How ironic. Writes Sider, “The National Center for Health Statistics reported that people in the United States spend between $30 and $50 billion each year on diets and related expenditures to reduce their calorie intake.” So while two billion people try to increase their calorie intake every day to survive, here in the U.S. we spend billions trying to reduce our calorie intake for our thighs.

So how did those of us in the developed world get to this state of ridiculous indulgence? Sider points to the Enlightenment.

Theologian Patrick Kearns has argued that commitment to unlimited growth and an ever-increasing “standard of living” is really a sellout to the Enlightenment. During the eighteenth century, many Western thinkers decided that science was the only way to find knowledge. This thinking elevated all things quantitative and devalued all things nonquantitative. Thus intangible values such as community, trust, friendship, and the beauty of creation became less important. It is hard to measure the value of friendship, unspoiled nature, and justice. But Gross National Income (GNI) is easy to measure. The result is our competitive growth economy where economic success and material things are all-important to many people.

Regardless of the reason we’re in this period of huge disparity between the haves and the have nots, we all have some work to do. According to Sider, “Most of the poor want to earn their own way. They have enormous social capital: intact families, a desire to work, pride, and integrity. But they need some help.”

More tomorrow.

The November 2008 issue of Condé Nast Traveler has a one-page conversation with Wyclef Jean, known to most people as the co-founder of the 90s hip-hop group The Fugees. Wyclef’s fame was nurtured more recently by his collaborative ingenuity with the Yes We Can video during the Barack Obama presidential campaign.

What got my attention in the Traveler interview was Wyclef Jean’s founding of Yéle Haiti (yéle comes from the Creole word for shout). Yéle sponsors projects in Haiti that are making a difference in education, health, environment and community development.

Having invested 10 days in Haiti last January with my family, I was overwhelmed by Haiti’s need. It’s the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Recent headlines continue to highlight the need for justice and mercy.

I’m grateful for people like Wyclef Jean who pay attention to that inner voice. That inner voice, in Wyclef’s case, that said, “You can’t leave these kids behind because you could have been one of them.”

I don’t have cable so I haven’t been able to see any of this Iconoclasts series on the Sundance Channel, but it looks really interesting.

The people that have been paired together is in itself enough to talk about:

• Desomond Tutu and Richard Branson
• Cameron Diaz and Cameron Sinclair
• Bill Maher and Clive Davis
• Venus Williams and Wyclef Jean

After watching a few clips online, it’s great to see people get out of their presumably limited social circles and interact on the perimeter of comfort and familiarity.

According to the Dictionary, an iconoclast is one who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas or institutions, or one who destroys sacred religious images.

What would it look like if you paired up with someone not of your own world and spent some time together? How would your ‘popular’ ideas or institutions be overthrown?

“Mine honour is my life, both grow in one. Take honour from me, and my life is done. Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try; In that I live, and for that I will die.” —William Shakespeare

I’ve been thinking a lot about honor. It seems to be in short supply these days. And by honor I mean the authentic sacrificial preference manifested in the esteem and distinction of someone other than you. The kind of honor that costs something, not the obligatory recognition that often accompanies shiny medallions or trophies. Not the stuffy ceremonies where you lose track of whose turn it is to back-pat who.

A little over a month ago I had to let three people go from my Foursquare team. Three people out of a team of 17. There were 20+ people let go across the organization, and all were due to company-wide budget cuts. Although necessary and fiscally responsible, the loss was painful. I realize Foursquare is not alone and by no means unique. Reductions in workforce appear to be a daily headline in this tough economy.

Which brings me back to honor.

The ancient Greek concepts of honor (honour) were not just about the exaltation of the one receiving honor, but also the shaming of the one overcome by the act of hubris. In ancient Greece, hubris referred to actions which, intentionally or not, shamed and humiliated the victim. This concept of honor is like a zero-sum game. In other words, according to these ancient Greece concepts, honor can’t be manufactured, manipulated, or made. Honor must come from sacrifice.

I want to be the kind of guy that thinks twice before honoring people. Because if I am going to truly honor someone, it means I must truly sacrifice something.

Our three teammates were let go with little honor. From auditor demands and HR policies, we let protocol get in the way of people. And when protocol and policies precede people, honor can become a commodity.

It’s not too late to honor our former comrades, but it’s going to cost us something. Because if it didn’t cost something, it wouldn’t be honor.

Thomas Nelson president Michael Hyatt had a great reminder today from Jim Collins‘ masterpiece, Good to Great. When times are tough, great leaders must do two things simultaneously:

1. Confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be.
2. Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties.

Collins refers to this approach as “The Stockdale Paradox” and uses the story of Admiral James Stockdale, a prisoner of war for eight years during the Vietnam War, to make his point.

After his release from prison, a reporter asked Admiral Stockdale, “How in the world did you survive eight years in a prisoner of war camp?”

I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted not only that we would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event in my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.

 The reporter then asked, “Who didn’t make it out?” Admiral Stockdale replied,

Oh, that’s easy, the optimists. They were the ones who said, “We’re going to be out by Christmas.” And Christmas would come and go. Then they’d say, “We’re going to be out by Easter.” And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”

An attribute of truly great companies and great leaders, suggests Collins, is that they are able to embrace simultaneously these twin truths of their current reality and their ultimate triumph.

Today is Reformation Day. In Wittenberg, Saxony (present-day Germany), 491 years ago today, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the All Saints’ Church, which served as a notice board for university-related announcements. The result would be arguably the most significant transformation in church history.

Jamaica and I traveled to Germany three years ago and we traced some of Martin Luther’s steps. We visited the place where he nailed the 95 Theses (the original building had burned down).

Although Facebook, blogs and Twitter were non existent in those days, something else had been gaining major mainstream momentum. Thanks to the printing press, “the 95 Theses were quickly translated from Latin into German, printed, and widely copied, making the controversy one of the first in history to be aided by the printing press. Within two weeks, the theses had spread throughout Germany; within two months throughout Europe.”

If you haven’t read the theses, I encourage you to do so.

We must not forget that the Reformation was a reformation of the church. I think too many times we think culture needs a reformation or that “they” need a reformation.

No my friends, we need a reformation.

Bring it on.

I’ve been a Seth Godin fan for many years and appreciate so much of what he suggests through his books and his blog. As with most things that become increasingly popular and mainstream, my enthusiasm and interest has the tendency to dwindle a bit. I like discovering unknown people and ideas, as Seth was so many years ago. I realize this is a direct result of my own pride and arrogance, but I’m working on those issues. So forgive me if this reflection of Tribes is more a reflection of my temperament.

I had the opportunity to read Seth’s latest little gem, Tribes, this past weekend. The first third of the book is excellent. Fresh, insightful and worth the cost of admission alone. The remainder of the book, as with so many of Godin’s goodies, seems to be redundant and tangent-filled as you progress to the end. This is the case for most books so Seth is not alone. I’m sure it’s that balance between having enough pages to justify a book versus a booklet. I digress. Again.

The big shift for Tribes is that Seth has moved away from his familiar marketing speak to a different conversation about leadership. In his previous books, Seth suggests that “everyone is a marketer.” In Tribes, he suggests that “everyone is now also a leader.”

Being both a member of several tribes and a leader of a couple tribes, I resonate with so much of what Seth writes about. “You can’t have a tribe without a leader, and you can’t have a leader without a tribe.”

Seth’s big call to action is that there are tons of different tribes all waiting to be led and “We need you to lead us.” “It takes only two things to turn a group of people into a tribe: 1) A shared interest and 2) A way to communicate.”

If you’re looking for a fresh take on leadership, this is an easy-breezy read. Tribes will give leaders a game plan for:

• Challenging the status quo
• Creating culture
• Developing your curiosity
• Using charisma to attract followers
• Communicating your vision
• Committing to a vision
• Connecting followers to each other

Go tribes!

Have you ever read a book and had that overwhelming sense that what you’re reading is not just another book? A book that has that ‘my-life-is-about-to-be-changed’ quality that doesn’t seem to go away, page after page after page?

It’s not often that I have this experience, but this latest manifesto from Rob Bell and Don Golden has done exactly that. Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile was so stirring, I finished it in two days and I’ve been reading it a second time to Jamaica this week. Wow.

Unfortunately, there is no way I can capture or convey my thoughts and feelings in a blog post or book review. This just doesn’t do it justice. But I’ll try.

Jesus Wants to Save Christians is a re-telling of the Bible in a way most of us here in America have never read or experienced. It’s the story of humanity and how we’ve been moving “east of Eden” ever since we were kicked out of the Garden. Not only have we been moving east, we’ve been settling there, establishing ourselves and getting further away from the way things are meant to be. “From the very beginning humans [have been] moving in the wrong direction.”

Read more

Next Page →