Greg Adkins

Do I Look Like I Care?

So here is something I've been wrestling with lately... I'm not even sure how to articulate it but I'll give it a shot. 

I don't spend a ton of time reading facebook, myspace, and blogs, but I do spend a few minutes every day reading through my list of regulars.   Almost everyone now has at least a few of the following:

A "Make Poverty History" banner
Invisible Children in the Top 8
Facebook causes such as Blood Water Mission or Darfur
A picture of them in an invisible children t-shirt
An invite to attend an awareness raising event

Here's my problem... as my friend Bill might phrase it, is awareness the new activism?   It seems to me that a whole lot of people feel like if they can trick out their social networking pages to make it look like they really care about this stuff, maybe, just maybe... that will be good enough.

Now I'm not taking any kind of moral high ground here because I'll openly admit to being selfish and full of excuses.   I could do more.   Lots more.   God help me get up off the couch.   God help me stop lying to myself with "I'm too tired... I'm too busy... The bills won't get paid if we give to this or that."   That's me and I've got to work on it.   That said, I am still bothered by this new form of "activism" that I see blossoming across the internet.   

I'd like to propose a challenge or a thought.   If you're going to put a "make poverty history" banner up, do something to help make poverty history.  If you're going to blog about going green, change something in your life.   If you saw "Invisible Children" and were moved by it (I've seen it and I was moved by it), find out how you can support something financially and then do it (I'll admit, I haven't done this either so yes, call me plankeye).

I'd love to hear your thoughts.   Am I getting old, cranky, and cynical or has anyone else been feeling this too.   Don't get me wrong... I think awareness is essential and the more people know about these causes, the better.   I just think that for too many of us, we think that if we do just a tiny bit to spread awareness, it's the same as actually doing something.   I just don't think it's the same thing.   

I may have gone green, but I ain't no hippie

So today was earth day and I can honestly say that this is the first time in my life I actually gave that fact a second thought. Jessica has been on a real "green" kick for the past few months. I'll admit... I was one of those people who thought it was just for dirty hippies and tree huggers. But... listening to some really excellent preaching on creation care and how God views the creation and how we have been entrusted to care for it has changed my ways. I exaggerate a bit... I wasn't anti-green really, I just wasn't proactive about it in any way... but now, mainly thanks to Jessica, we've begun to change some things.

So, today for earth day, I decided to do a few things. First of all, instead of driving to lunch I rode my bike. About a 2.5 mile trip down Emory road... would have been great except I was misinformed on how far the sidewalk went. Trying to navigate the curves down by the train tracks on a bicycle wasn't the smartest move I've ever made... I about got run down by a Pepsi truck. Still, it was nice to be out in nature and it was an absolutely beautiful day.

After that, I drove down to the Halls recycling center where they were giving away big recycling bins. I put one of them in the church's copy room for paper recycling. Our church does not do any recycling to my knowledge and we go through a LOT of paper. 500 bulletins every Sunday and I'm certain that almost all of them end up in the trash. If we could just recycle our paper it would be a great start.

I'd like to hear some other ideas of how a rather large church that really doesn't do ANYTHING can start to take steps towards going green. I believe that Christians need to get our heads out of the sand and start leading the charge on environmental issues. Heck, if I can do it, anybody can. Seriously... I'd love to hear any suggestions on what we could do at Powell. It's one thing to change what I do at home but I think we could make a much larger impact by changing what we do at church.

So am I a hippie now? Let's see... did I bathe today? Check. Do I still hate Widespread Panic? Check. Am I still not the owner of a hacky sack? Check. Have I played a djembe in the past 24 hours? Nope. Are there any illegal substances in my car? Not unless you can smoke a 6 month old Wendy's chicken nugget.

Looks like I'm in the clear. I guess you can care about the environment and not be a giant hippie. Who knew?

Men With Hair Need Not Apply

My friend Jason just sent me this screen capture from Granger Community Church's worship services with the email heading "Four Bald Guys???" Apparently Granger has started an all-bald worship team which I think is awesome. Maybe I'll grow me a sweet goatee and start an "all-goatee" team here at Powell. That would rule.

Services I watch

Each week I try to set aside some time to watch the services from Granger Community Church and also from Newspring Church. Both of these churches are massively huge. I get different things from both of them... Granger often gives me good ideas for visuals (they do a lot with projection and whoever produces their original video content is really good) and Newspring has a really great worship leader named Lee McDerment. I've picked up a few good arrangement ideas and also learned some new songs from watching them. There are things about both of these churches that I don't really care for too but the good thing about watching online is I can just skip around.

Are there any other churches that broadcast full service videos out there? I know a lot of places do just the sermon but I really like seeing the whole thing. It's interesting to me to study how other churches handle their service order, announcements, closing songs, and other things like that. I know 7:22 in Atlanta broadcasts... any others you guys watch?