Introducing “true:shift” – Can You Meet the Challenge?

Tuesday, December 16, 2008 - Comments 7

Here we are at the end of another year. For me and my cohort Travis, this past year has largely been about working together to create this campaign, and then trying to figure out how to make it as effective as possible. It’s been great hearing from so many of you who have been positively impacted by it, and we’re excited about the future, which hopefully includes plugging more of you into our work here.

One of the most interesting things to us has been the fact that if we could take all the money we spend on “outside appearance” stuff like diets, fashion, cosmetics, etc. - about $80 billion annually - we could actually wipe out worldwide hunger. We talked about this in our I have eating issues video, and invariably when we play it for people, there is an audible gasp at this point in the video.

Since shooting that video, we’ve talked about coming up with a way to actually do something about it. Then Travis reconnected with Ben Homan, a friend from his seminary days who now just happens to be the president of Food for the Hungry. Ben also just happens to be a guy who “gets” the impact that eating issues can have within our own culture, and has personally gotten involved in helping us do something about it. Don’t you love how God works?

And so it is with great joy that I share with you the official launch of true:shift, a program to challenge each of us to “shift” our thinking, our resources, and even our culture in a tangible, practical way – away from investing so much on our outside appearance, and toward efforts that can truly heal hunger on the inside, for our sisters all over the world.

Participating in the challenge means choosing to “shift” about $32 bucks a month from something appearance oriented, toward feeding a hungry child. With each sponsorship received, Food for the Hungry will make a small donation back into our work at True, to help us continue our efforts of addressing a different kind of hunger here in the US. As a bonus, you’ll be able to begin telling a story of what it means to you to intentionally buck the appearance-oriented culture we live in and invest in another one. In fact, we invite you to send us those stories, and we’ll create a space here on the site to post them. Won’t it be cool to see what God does?

As you’re considering this, I want to emphasize something: it’s not a guilt thing. You’re not wrong for wanting to look good. We’re not “bad” for spending money on clothing, makeup, or products to help us be healthier (provided they actually do that). But let’s be honest – lots of what we spend our money on doesn’t even matter to us in a month or two. And it certainly doesn’t seem to make us much happier.

Isn’t it time to invest in something that will?

I hope you’ll take the challenge. Together we can look forward to tangible change in this new year, one step at a time…

Constance

PS. In case you’re wondering, yes, I’ve already signed up. Was the first one, actually! I’ll be blogging about it soon, and can’t wait to hear your stories too.

Click here to find out more about true:shift or sponsor a child now.