Hit the Back Button to Move Fwd by Gavin Richardson

#10yearsago : what i want back & what i'll gladly leave behind

so all my rowdy twitter friends are doing this #10yearsago tweets. i thought i'd actually create a little list and see what i can remember from the last decade.

• i moved to nashville and began "my career" in youth ministry the first days of january 2000. since then i've staffed at three churches, one secular hiatus career, and a stint at rei.
• i might not have owned a cell phone 10 years ago.. its hard to say. my first phone was some sprint flip open phone. i'll have to do some investigating on that one.
• 10 years ago, socially, i wasn't married and didn't have a child.. so that stuff is relatively new
• in the last 10 years i've had my work published in a few books, a cdrom project, and a number of articles.. i think that's pretty cool for someone who needed spell & grammar check to get out of university
• i actually graduated from college 10 years ago. i wasn't finished with my degree when i left the university of alabama. i told them i was going to nashville to finish up (my internship) and take a job offered to me. they told me my gpa wasn't high enough to leave town for my internship, i said tough, i'm going.. a few months later & a lot of paperwork, i had a college degree. (i didn't do the graduation walk for another year when little bro got a grad degree)
• 10 years ago Coe was my companion.. she was younger then and a little more spry & mischievous. she would open the gate to the house i lived in at that time and would go rolling in the dirt at the mulch company behind our house and thru some woods. would also take my brothers corgi with her. bath's were a regular occurrence in our house.
• 10 years ago darren & i would pontificate the deepest theology for some 25 yr old dudes over cigars and cheep beer in our backyard..
• 10 years ago my house had an answering machine... i suppose it also had some phone attached to a wall with like 500mghtz of power where you can walk down the street talking. big time!!
• 10 years ago i was thinner... care not to expand on that further.. 'expand,' sorry, wrong wording
• 10 years ago i remember watching the millennial celebrations all freakin day long
• 10 years ago i watched the music city miracle on a fuzzy tv that didn't have cable hooked up yet (remember, check out #1, just moved to nashville)
• 10 years ago had no idea what blogging, twitter, facebook, were (cause they weren't invented silly).. but i did build a kick-ass youth group & website with a bunch of java script enabled games

so the many things that did happen the last decade will have to wait for another posting.

what were the things you were doing 10 years ago?

a heretics advent : how do you give thanks

A Heretics Advent from Gavin Richardson on Vimeo.

i read this little parable for our youth the first sunday of advent. we were coming off the thanksgiving holiday and it seemed poignant. i share with you to ask the same thing i asked of our teenagers. 'what are you doing to not live into this parable.

here's what i am encouraging you to check out.

• 61st Avenue umc & the last minute toy store: little ole’ 61st ave umc is putting together its annual “last minute” toy store to help families in hardship provide some toys, food, and sometimes a christmas tree for over 3,500 children here in nashville. toy store starts at noon on friday and goes thru Monday. join me on friday by driving yourself over. volunteer orientation starts at 12. The Toy Store will stay open till around 6:30pm when the last shoppers go thru.
• send a message of hope to our growing church in cote d’ivoire, west africa. there is a lot of need, and when there is need a little hope goes a long way. send some encouragement.
• check out advent conspiracy, get yourself aware of the conditions people live in outside your world. spend less, give more, love all!
• maybe you are just a cool person who cares
• volunteer at the community care’s fellowship or nashville rescue mission
• become aware of local and global issues.. maybe the world AIDS or water problem

making a splash in social media : its okay to loose control

i liked this little ted talk presentation on social media, in part, because it is short and tells a simple story. the learning point that i would suggest my church tribe needs to take a hold of is, "its okay to loose control" and that "no longer does the message come from the top down."

we can all think about how 'the world is flat' and everyone has an equal voice to traditional media institutions and powers & that was really scary to them a number of years ago (might still be). but if you embrace that others are talking maybe not just about you, but with you, then they are people to lift up and share the genuine voice/face of your ultimate cause.

but, the control factor comes into play.. 'what will they say next?' etc.. well, as someone who comes from a religious background, we say that one needs to have 'faith'.. yes, novel concept, but a good concept when one practices it. my experience though is that people really only have faith as long as it falls within their boundaries of human control. with that, we miss out on the possible beauty bound up in the mystery of individuals and community. i hope for a day when my tribe's structural institutions that helped it to get a certain status and size, see the way to get out of the way and have faith in its community to do something remarkable.