4/5--No Shoes Day

On April 5th, our church joined the world in Tom's Shoes' "One Day Without Shoes" promotion. This is a global awareness day where people vow to wear no shoes (where permissible) to raise concern for those in the world without any shoes at all. For those of you unaware, Tom's Shoes is a company that gives one pair of shoes away for each pair bought from them--one for one (http://www.toms.com/). It is a brilliant business model and one I really appreciate. Not only does the model help those in need, but it also goes a long way to show Christians how they can redeem things of this world. So often we in the church tell people they must forsake the world and be prepared to give everything away, not holding on to anything that gets between themselves and God. This is true, of course. I also feel, however, that God does not condemn a man for being a good steward of resources and becoming rich. Rather, it is the rich man's heart that comes into question. The problem, of course, is not being rich, but what being rich does to the man's heart. The rich man must constantly seek to redeem the world about him and the fact that he has made money. I think that the owner of Tom's Shoes does a good job at redeeming the business world. In a sense, he is saying it is okay to make money. In fact, he says, I am going to make a whole mess of money. But from the moment of the sale, I am using that money for something greater than myself. I like that. I think more Christians could learn from his model. You may or may not disagree.

In any event, the church here took part in this event and combined it with a mission's fund raiser as well. For some time, Hope Valley has supported an annual mission to Bali. They have an area of the country which a group goes and ministers to every year. This year they decided to, in collaboration with this "No Shoes" event, raise money to buy Tom's Shoes for the kids in Bali. In so doing, they would not only be buying a pair to give away, but somewhere the Tom's company would also give away a pair to a needy kid--doubling the charitable power of the money.

The goal was to raise nearly $10,000 as a church and we came pretty close. More importantly, the event put missions at the fore of everyone's mind in the church. Even if you can't give, we pointed out, you can still raise awareness and not wear shoes.

So that is how I spent April 5th, wearing no shoes. What an experience that was! I had several conversations because of it and several very painful cuts. I was also able to raise nearly $50 for the event. This is not much, I know, but it was a start!

In Christ,

Chris