Twitter friend PastorElvis (not his real name, unfortunately) asked me the following question this morning:

 

 

Although I contend with the idea that God Almighty loves country music, I thought that this was a provocative question, because it raised a deeper question: Why do we watch movies and TV shows?

They say that Haiti should be pitied. 

They say that we should feel sorry for all those "poor, starving people over there."

They say that the destruction caused by this awful earthquake can never be redeemed, that Haiti will never be what it could have been.

They say that many children will be orphaned, the economy will remain in shambles, and the people will never recover.

But I've been hearing different reports...

I read Donald Miller's newest book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years a couple of months ago. It's about time that I share my thoughts, since I co-authored the book. (Kidding! But there's a funny story behind that.)

 

I both loved and hated it.

 

I loved that Don challenged his readers to live a more interesting story.

 

I hated some of the flaws of the entertainment industry that were revealed. Okay, part of me kind of enjoyed this, but it also made me sad. The first part of the book (which is about how Don and a couple of screenwriters are trying to turn Blue Like Jazz into a movie).

If you're not careful, this whole fad of caring for the poor and doing good works for the destitute can cost you your soul.

 

I know that sounds melodramatic, but it's true. In fact, I've seen it happen many times -- in my life and in the lives of my friends. Good works has become an obsession; the doing has replaced the being that is so necessary in the Christian life. We can be tempted to not act out of faith in what God will do, but instead out of fear that he won't do something. Instead of abiding in the vine, we try to make fruit spontaneously spring from desolate earth.

 

Every year, I hear stories from young people who have spent a week or a month or an entire summer in the mission field, and how that one trip changed the course of their life forever. Sending a high school or college student on a mission trip is an investment into their future; it's a way of saying, "That is what's important in life." Not only that, it's scriptural. If you really search the New Testament, you find that the precedent for missions isn't long-term, but more often than not, it is short-term (three years or less).

 

 

I need to preface this post by saying that I have always hated the idea of marketing. I grew up in a house that didn't have a lot of money, so we rarely bought what was trendy (except for maybe that pair of red Air Jordans, which I'm still not sure how we afforded).

 

I grew up, basically ignoring advertisers. As an adult, I found ads to be disingenuous, as if companies were trying to trick people into buying their products. (To my credit, many were.)

 

So, when my job title had the word "marketing" attached to it, I cringed. However, over the past three years of serving with Adventures In Missions, I've learned that marketing can be more than tricking people. It can actually mean giving people what they want.

In college, we had a convocation series called the "Last Lecture Series." This was a chance for our professors to give one last lecture to the student body, to pass on one last bit of sage advice.

 

It was a hypothetical situation, of course; this wasn't their last lecture. However, the idea was compelling: If you had one last message to share with the world, what would it be?

 

Mine would be this: Don't give up.

The kind of person you want to be is someone who cares for others so much that it hurts. She carries her friends' burdens and struggles not in an unhealthy, codependent way, but in a way that is compassionate.

 

I had a rough day yesterday.

 

I think I got frustrated with myself -- my own procrastination, inability to do everything that I wanted to do, and general humanness. By the end of the day, I was emotionally tired, not to mention a bit physically fatigued from going since 5am.

 

I came home and kind of crashed on the couch. I probably whined a bit to my wife, too, if I have to be perfectly honest.

 

Then, guess what came next...