Imagine living in a place where clean water is nothing more than a hope. Imagine having the luxury of small amounts of clean drinking water but dirty, non-potable water for bathing, washing clothes and dishes. Imagine having to pay a small fortune for an amount of clean water barely large enough for your family to drink on a daily basis. A sad reality is that a huge portion of the world lives these realities every single day.
Now imagine how much water we waste during the course of a normal day. I have done a personal inventory and I’ll be the first to admit I’m a first class water waster. I tend to turn the shower on and let it warm up to my favorite temperature before jumping in. I’m prone to wash my car with a leaky water hose and I end up with as much water on me as is on my car. (When) I wash dishes I often leave the water on between rinses. I’m sure there’s more but I’m suddenly too embarrassed to go on. I’ve been to the Third World and witnessed kids drinking from ditches. I, of all people, should know better.
So here’s my plan for Water Awareness and Repentance: I commit to becoming a better steward of the precious commodity of clean water. I also commit to ramping up my awareness of the shrinking supply of clean water across the world. I also, also commit to sharing my resources so children won’t have to consume nasty water. In other words, I am going to contribute to the JCBC Annual Missions Offering, knowing that a portion of my gift will be applied to clean water initiatives. And, I commit to never, ever looking at a glass of clean water in the same ways again.
Please consider joining me in this recommitment to being better clean water stewards. JCBC will be buying a clean water system and installing it in the Third World Dominican Republic if our annual offering is strong enough. If should not be a word in the lexicon of JCBC. We are the church that met challenges at the epicenter soon after the Haiti earthquake. We meet missional needs from the Mexico-Texas border to around the corner at No Longer Bound. We roll in after hurricanes and tornadoes. If is not a word we embody.
So give, and together and collectively let’s save a segment of the D.R. with clean water. Then we will save somewhere else. That’s what we do. We are JCBC!
Michael McCullar
MM
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
The 11-Month Solution
Me, being of sound mind and body (except for the one bad knee), solemnly resolve to not go to the Gym in January!
Now that’s a doable New Year’s Resolution. This one has success written all over it. How am I doing thus far? Excellent. I haven’t even slowed down when driving by my Gym. While everyone else is dropping like a rock I’m riding the wave of resolutional success. How am I doing it? How am I so strong? Fortitude, uber-commitment and an intense case of claustrophobia. There are so many people in my Gym in January it’s hard to breathe. By mid-February, half of the January crowd will be long gone and then it’ll be safe to go back. Yes, it’s an amazing plan. Thank you for noticing!
The Internet states (and it has to be true if it’s on the Internet!) that between 80% and 90% of all New Year’s Resolutions fail within four weeks. Four weeks. One month. Do the math and you’ll see the grim reality of a 7%-8% success rate for the remaining 48 weeks. So, let’s fix this bog-of-failure by tossing out January. What? You heard me. January is out.
I, being totally out of the box and veering off the reservation of conventional thinking, do hereby grant you permission, even encourage you, to erase January from any and all of your previously stated New Year’s Resolutions, and to thereby have a do-over beginning February 1.
Feel better? Feel more successful already? Great, but there is a catch: Grace must naturally be followed by an altered life. Erasing January is an example of grace. It’s a do-over. Another name for this would be a fresh start. Grace must lead to an amazing feeling of thankfulness. True thankfulness must lead to a different approach to life, people or in the case of Christians, God. Try to imagine the eleven full months remaining in 2013 as a time to live out your thankfulness to God for His Amazing Grace.
I believe 80%-90% of resolutions could succeed if they were, for the lack of a better word, baptized. So let’s do just that. Let’s spiritualize and effectively baptize our hopes and goals for personal improvement; and, see February-December as the most amazing months in our existence. You know, we might be on to something here!
Michael McCullar
Now that’s a doable New Year’s Resolution. This one has success written all over it. How am I doing thus far? Excellent. I haven’t even slowed down when driving by my Gym. While everyone else is dropping like a rock I’m riding the wave of resolutional success. How am I doing it? How am I so strong? Fortitude, uber-commitment and an intense case of claustrophobia. There are so many people in my Gym in January it’s hard to breathe. By mid-February, half of the January crowd will be long gone and then it’ll be safe to go back. Yes, it’s an amazing plan. Thank you for noticing!
The Internet states (and it has to be true if it’s on the Internet!) that between 80% and 90% of all New Year’s Resolutions fail within four weeks. Four weeks. One month. Do the math and you’ll see the grim reality of a 7%-8% success rate for the remaining 48 weeks. So, let’s fix this bog-of-failure by tossing out January. What? You heard me. January is out.
I, being totally out of the box and veering off the reservation of conventional thinking, do hereby grant you permission, even encourage you, to erase January from any and all of your previously stated New Year’s Resolutions, and to thereby have a do-over beginning February 1.
Feel better? Feel more successful already? Great, but there is a catch: Grace must naturally be followed by an altered life. Erasing January is an example of grace. It’s a do-over. Another name for this would be a fresh start. Grace must lead to an amazing feeling of thankfulness. True thankfulness must lead to a different approach to life, people or in the case of Christians, God. Try to imagine the eleven full months remaining in 2013 as a time to live out your thankfulness to God for His Amazing Grace.
I believe 80%-90% of resolutions could succeed if they were, for the lack of a better word, baptized. So let’s do just that. Let’s spiritualize and effectively baptize our hopes and goals for personal improvement; and, see February-December as the most amazing months in our existence. You know, we might be on to something here!
Michael McCullar
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