Electric Ethos

An Idea my friend Eric Watt has been working on for nearly 20 years. Check it out!

http://www.goatsforchristmas.com/

Over the past ten weeks my pastor at Shoreline Community Church has been speaking about adversity.  For several years now he has been searching the Bible for principles that could guide us during tough times. As the series wrapped up I offered to share Pat Lynn’s story via video because Pat had mentioned that this was something he was interested in doing. I hope the following video helps you to become whole and find healing body, soul, mind and spirit. I love my friend Pat Lynn and I wanted you to hear part of his story in his own words.

Pat is an inspirational person, his heart for people is hard to miss.  As an energy carrier Pat brings life everywhere he goes.  Pat would be a great guest speaker for any school, youth group, civic organization, church or non-profit. Feel free to share this link with your friends.

http://www.electricethos.com/?p=727  

Pat @ Husky Stadium

Pat grew up on Bainbridge Island, Washington and was a star basketball player. He went on to play ball at the community college level and finished his playing career at Northwest University. 

Inhumane acts, outrageous legal systems and savage dictators can never enslave men or women whose hearts have been set free internally by their Creator. The Emancipation Proclamation in my view is both good and bad. It is both a happy and sad occasion, when those who had been enslaved, are set free.

Why good and bad?  Why happy and sad? Slavery is always a bad thing, so the call for freedom, set forth in the proclimation brought a real sense of joy for those enslaved, as well as those seeking the freedom of others. It would have been nice if there was never a need to set slaves free. Unfortunately, there was a need for a proclamation nearly 150 years ago. Thank God it happened.

I think that celebrations of freedom and liberty should be preceded by inward reflections about personal freedom in regard to the way we live.  Why celebrate freedom if you are not living free inwardly. Are not all such celebrations charades? Those with freed hearts are responsible to model a life of freedom for those who think freedom of the body is greater than freedom of the soul.

Today I am reminded of the eternal proclamation of freedom set forth by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the promise of internal freedom He gives.  I am thankful that men and women of faith all over the world are living free regardless of the deplorable conditions of physical slavery. About 1600 years ago a young man by the name of Patrick was a slave in Northeast Ireland.  In the midst of slavery, St. Patrick, as he would later be known, had his heart shaped by his Creator, so when he escaped to physical freedom he dedicate his life to the mission of inward freedom for his barbarian captures.

I want to live like a free man, not because a law or a Declaration of Independence say I can, but because my heart has been set free by Jesus. Today is Double Independence Day.

Live free and pass it on. People will think you are electric.

Eric Watt

About mPOWER

I spent a couple of days with Eric Watt earlier this year and thought you should know about him. Eric is living life on the edge and leads from years of personal practice that are beyond simple thoughts, classroom theories and overstated and empty musings. You can follow him on twitter, I do.

mPOWR is one of the world’s first peer-to-peer “funding” marketplace communities that combines a passion to bring real transformation to the developing world with the highest levels of personal trust.

Eric Watt, founder and CEO, birthed mPOWR after nearly 20 years of training and development work in the Middle East, the Sub-continent, Central Asia and the Pacific Rim. Each global field partner is hand selected to reflect the highest values and standards of ethics, financial integrity and social responsibility.

At https://www.mpowr.org/index.php, donors/lenders are given an opportunity to mPOWR a socially responsible business owner in the developing world. Each qualified business owner is selected and mentored through viable field partners. The business owner is assessed by the field partner in regard to the strength of their business plan and the social impact of their endeavor.

Here’s how it works. After registering at www.mpowr.org, funders are free to search by country, type of business, etc., to discover the opportunity that suits them. When they choose a business to mPOWR they will then be given an option to help fund the business by providing either a tax deductible donation or an interest bearing loan. They get to choose. Monies will transfer from your online mPOWR account to the field partner and be personally delivered to the business owner within a few days. Donors/Lenders will then be able to track the progress of the business and its impact in the surrounding community.

The word vogue is synonymous with fashion and being fashionable.  I have to admit that I have never been the leader of the pack when it comes to fashion.  I am more likely to be a guest on “What Not to Wear” than to be featured on the cover of any popular fashion magazine. Most of the time I find my sense of style takes a back seat to dollars and cents. If it’s not on the clearance rack I’m not buying. So what’s a guy to do when something he has been taught and tried to live out his entire life becomes vogue? I am not talking about bell bottoms or flat tops making a comeback, I’m talking about service and serving others.

I hope the current trend that seems to have every high profile person on the planet pointing out the plight of the underprivileged never ends. It is always right to help those who are in need when it is in your power to do so. My parents did a great job modeling service and selflessness for me. Fifty years before Angelina Jolie started adopting orphans my parents opened their lives on a continual basis to needy people in their community and around the world.  For my parents there was and still is nothing vogue about meeting people’s needs.

 James 1:27a Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.

Lillian Trasher

This is one of the key verses I hear that is driving the current trend of service, and it gives a clear list of priorities.  Widows and orphans need someone to look after them. This past year I read a biography about Lillian Trasher entitled “The Greatest Wonder in Egypt.” Lillian started the first orphanage in Egypt nearly a hundred years ago now. In her lifetime, she almost single handedly saved the lives of thousand of young girls that the Egyptian culture of the early 1900’s had tossed out because they were female.

Decades later the Egyptians started building their own orphanages only after the world had noticed what Lillian was doing. Lillian served others because service was at the core of who she was.  It was part of her ethos. The Egyptians built their orphanages because it was the vogue and in style thing to do.

Some people are bothered by the masses following the latest trend of service. I see it a different way. If someone is willing to serve others, no matter the reason for their service, let them serve. Lillian Trasher became a model for the Egyptian people and in the process they collectively saved the lives of tens of thousands of beautiful Egyptian babies. Now that is truly vogue.