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I ran across this teaser video today. It brought back such interesting memories in light of the financial state we’re going through.
In 2007, I had the pleasure to venture out to Atlanta for the Q conference. It was to this day the best conference I have ever been to. It was a collection of some of the brightest minds and thinkers, and a few of my favorite speakers, all collected into one space.
But then Chris Seay got up. What was a fun conference on creative ideas meant to reveal the kingdom became in a split second a moment of reality. Chris was angry in a way a Father is angry when his daughter has just survived a violent car crash. His anger was as much for us, asking us to wake up to our reckless behavior, as it was at the problem.
He spoke about the wanton spending we Christians take part in as Americans. We’re literally trained to spend as a means of personal fulfillment. I remember these statistics. Americans spend:
$18 Billion on makeup
$15 Billion on perfume
$17 Billion on pet food
The pet food number always stuck with me. And then he reminded us of these startling opportunities. It would cost:
$5 Billion to eliminate illiteracy worldwide
$10 Billion to solve the water crisis for everyone in the world
$19 Billion to eliminate hunger worldwide
I remember feeling stunned all throughout the talk. And when the talk was over, Chris asked us to sit in groups of 3-4 and discuss what we heard and thought. I remember turning to two gentlemen next to me who didn’t know what to say. They were literally speechless for the about twenty seconds.
The first guy finally said, “Wow. That hit me. I just sold my house to move into a bigger house, and the day before we moved we took four loads of “stuff” to Goodwill.”
The second guy sat equally stunned and then said, “I’m his brother in law. I just sold my house to move into a bigger house next to his. And we just took six loads of “stuff” to Goodwill.”
We have a lot of stuff don’t we?
