Kingdom Strategist

Holy crap. Jon Acuff and the Stuff Christians Like blog community totally hijacked my day. Here’s the recap:

• Jon Acuff of StuffChristiansLike.net is inspired by his 6 year old daughter’s sense of injustice that there are hungry children around the world;
• Jon, still reeling from how many people have come to enjoy and support SCL gets an idea: leverage the power of the community to do something big for a charity;
• Jon reaches out to the community for inspiration as to what charity to work with;
• Jon settles on Samaritan’s Purse and works with them to coordinate the building of a kindergarten in rural Vietnam… all Jon needs is to raise $30,000.

Which brings us to today. This morning Jon shares his idea, asks the readers to support the project and raise the $30,000. Jon sets a goal of raising the funds by December 31 of this year.

Throughout the day, we watched as the donations came pouring in. No one expected to raise this much money so quickly.

This evening, sometime around 10:30 pm Eastern timezone, the total donations given in support of this project surpassed $30,000.

The Stuff Christians Like blog community raised over $30,000 for charity in 18 hours.

The StuffChristiansLike.net online community raises over $30,000 for charity in one day!

I’m am so excited to process this, synthesize what happened and share any insights. But for right now, I’m just going to sit back and enjoy the power of what Christ has done and how God has been and will continue to be glorified through it.

[Update:] We’re not done. The tremendous momentum built up yesterday can’t be just cut off, so Jon and Samaritan’s Purse are asking everyone to continue their support and raise another $30,000! That’s right, the goal is now to build two kindergartens for the people of Vietnam. Let’s do it!

Read the updated post here: http://stuffchristianslike.net/2009/11/lets-build-a-2nd-kindergarten/

Click here to donate: https://www.firstgiving.com/scl

And be sure to follow the #SCLVIETNAM conversations on Twitter.

I met Jon Acuff at the Christian Web Conference earlier this year. I got to talk to him a bit, primarily about the tremendous responsibility that comes with being funny (I think that’s what we talked about, it’s all a blur now). I saw him again at the Cultivate conference in Chicago and got to spend a little more time with him. Jon Acuff is a good guy.

The one of the main things I like about Jon (other than his ability to pull off the “down-filled vest” look) is that he gets that the point of all of this is not just to have a blog, not just to be funny. The point is to use what God has given us to love and serve others all over the world and in doing so, proclaim Christ as King to the nations. We are to use our influence to glorify God and advance the Kingdom.

Jon gets that. (In case you’re thinking it’s not that big of a deal, go read his blog. The reasons Christians “like” all that “stuff” is because we don’t always get it.) So that’s why I like Jon. And the vest thing. And because he knows there’s more to books than just the content on the pages. But I digress.

While at Cultivate Jon mentioned that God has put something huge on his heart and that he was beginning to work on this new project and hoping to use the scale and reach of SCL to make it happen. Today Jon announced that the Stuff Christians Like blog community is building a school in Vietnam.

Cool, right?

Jon is asking his readers to join with him and Samaritan’s Purse to build a school in Vietnam. Kind of like this one:

Want to help bild a school like this one for the kids in Vietnam?

If you want to be part of something big, bless the people of Vietnam, and have a few laughs along the way, head over to Stuff Christians Like, read about the project and add your support by either donating or sharing this with your friends. Thanks.

Link to Jon’s post on Stuff Christian’s Like: http://stuffchristianslike.net/2009/11/this-cant-be-real/