Ten Days Without: Daring Adventures in Discomfort That Will Change Your World and You: What If Changing the World is as Simple as Taking Off your Shoes? - Softcover

Day, Daniel Ryan

 
9781601424679: Ten Days Without: Daring Adventures in Discomfort That Will Change Your World and You: What If Changing the World is as Simple as Taking Off your Shoes?
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1601424671 ISBN 13: 9781601424679
Verlag: Multnomah, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

A Rebellion against Apathy.
A Strategy for Action.
 
“Life is full of good intentions, but for too many, our good intentions never become good actions—they don’t move us forward, draw us closer to God, or make a difference in the world.
Good intentions are cans of paint that could have become amazing works of art…but never did.”
—Daniel Day, in Ten Days Without
 
Daniel Day could tell you all about his love for God and his desire to live as a follower of Jesus. But it took a simple but radical experiment to move from simply talking about it to actually living like it. For ten days at a time, Daniel chose to abandon a certain “necessity”—a coat, a voice, shoes, media, furniture, legs, touch—and to blog about it to raise funds and awareness for organizations that are doing amazing things to make a difference in the world. And then he invited others to join him in the experiments and spread the vision. Together they served God and others—and experienced significant personal change in the process. Ten Days Without is the story of their life-altering adventure.
 
Ten Days Without is a compelling story and practical guide that will equip you and your friends to break through walls of convenience and indifference, and join a movement that is confronting apathy and ignorance around the world to make an impact on people’s lives in a God-honoring way. Ten Days Without is where our good intentions end and making a difference in the world begins.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

DANIEL DAY is a graduate of Appalachian State University and the Focus Leadership Institute. Currently, he is director of content and marketing for Axis, an organization that challenges students and families to move from apathy to compassionate social action. Daniel is married to his high school sweetheart, Rebecca, and they live in Colorado Springs, CO, with their three children, Noah, Finley, and Ava.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Introduction

Those of us who live in the Western world live in a culture of excess.

Turn on the TV, and you see it. Pick up a popular magazine, and you see it. Eavesdrop on conversations at a coffee shop, watch people at the local mall, examine social media posts from your favorite celebrity—the examples go on and on.

Most of us have never experienced true need, genuine poverty, or authentically painful hunger. Our needs are met. Many of our wants are satisfied too.

And as a follower of Christ, I am bothered by this more and more as I’ve gotten older. Do society’s priorities match what Jesus wants us to desire and obtain? Would Jesus be pleased with our culture of excess? With all our wealth and stuff, can’t we do more to help people less fortunate in this country and in developing nations around the world?

As Christians, it seems like we’re called to live differently; but how can we amid all the excess of our culture?

These kinds of questions haven’t always concerned me. I wasn’t the kid who gave away all his toys to needy families or the high school guy who ate only stale bread to draw attention to global issues. I grew up in a Christian home, attended a Christian school, and was involved in church, but I always felt as if my life was meant for something more. I wanted to honor God by loving him and loving others, but I didn’t know how to make a difference.

Then I came up with the idea of Ten Days Without. This is the story of how I abandoned certain “necessities” as a way to increase awareness and raise money for amazing organizations that were doing good things to help others. It was my way of saying enough is enough—it’s time to stop talking and time to start doing.

But it’s more than just my journey; it can be yours too. I’m no expert in solving world problems. I’m still trying to figure things out. I’ve simply tried something that has worked for me and for many other people (you’ll read some of their stories along the way). I started a blog, did some crazy experiments, opened up my life and experiences to the world, and shared honestly about my struggle to make an impact for God.

Maybe you’re dissatisfied too. Maybe you know that you’re destined to be more than just another shopper at the mall and another consumer of all the latest gadgets. Maybe in the midst of excess, you can chart a different path that makes God smile and has a lasting impact on people’s lives.

If you’re ready for an adventure that will challenge you, stretch you, and surprise you, then keep reading. The stories
you’ll encounter are real. More importantly, so is the change I—and many other people—have experienced by simply going Ten Days Without.

What Is Ten Days Without?

So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.
James 2 :17, nlt

Sometimes asking one little question can turn your world upside down.

“What if making a difference in the world is as easy as walking into a business meeting without shoes?” I asked my wife on a warm fall day three years ago.

She and I had been sitting on our living room floor laughing about a goofy image: a guy walking into a high-powered meeting in New York City, wearing an expensive suit but no shoes. Blame the caffeine rush. Or a series of sleep-deprived nights. She asked me to explain what I meant.

“I feel like my life is all about me and not about God,” I said. “Yeah, I work for a ministry, but I feel like all I’m doing is marketing. I’m writing e-mails. Updating websites. Designing brochures. But I don’t feel close to God. I don’t feel like my life is making a difference. It’s like I’m caught in some sort of vicious cycle that keeps me from growing closer to God or making an impact in issues that matter. How does my little marketing job make a difference in the big issues like poverty or human trafficking? How does my life help people see God?”

“Okay, but how would walking into a business meeting barefoot solve those kinds of issues?”

Good question. I paused to consider how it would make a difference.

“Well, if I walked around barefoot in places where people normally wear shoes, don’t you think they would notice and want to know what I was doing? It would spark some amazing conversations! I could give up wearing shoes for a set period of time. Every day I’d write about the experience on a blog and connect it with a real-world issue and an organization that fights that problem. And then I could challenge people to get involved with that organization.”

“Do you think that would make a huge difference?”

“Well, I’d be raising money and awareness for an organization that provides shoes for kids who don’t have any, so children around the world would get a pair of shoes. Yeah, I think it would make a difference!” I started to get excited about this seemingly ridiculous idea.

“Okay, but for how long would you give up shoes?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Forty days is all over the place in the Bible.

That seems like a spiritual number.”

“You want to give up wearing shoes for forty days? How about you do it for a week?”

“But that seems too short,” I said.

“What about ten days?”

“Perfect!”

And that’s how Ten Days Without was born.

The next day, before anyone could douse the flames of this crazy idea with a cold bucket of reality, I created a blog, and within a week I had started the Ten Days Without Shoes experiment. When I call it an experiment, I’m not exaggerating. I didn’t have time to think about whether it was a good idea or not. It was just an idea, and with the support of the ministry I work for, I went for it. And the response amazed me. My newly launched blog (10dayswithout.com) received over two thousand views in the first month, so I kept going. What else could I go without? Soon I went ten days without furniture, legs, media, a coat, waste, speech, human touch—each experiment a response to a need that I cared about.

But this is where things get really exciting: along the way, I realized that other people could join the cause. I didn’t have to be the only one going ten days without—teenagers and young adults and parents and pastors and all kinds of other people could do similar experiments to inform and engage the people in their world.

And when I say they, I really mean you! This whole adventure is all about you: how your life can be absurdly altered for God, how your ten-day sacrifice can help people see God, how this challenge can help you grow closer to God as you experience for a few days what some people in this world experience every day. If you say yes to Ten Days Without, you’re saying yes to going ten days without something—maybe something I went ten days without or maybe something particular to your life, your community, your passion. If you’re a youth worker or leader, it means engaging a group of teenagers or young adults in this adventure and encouraging them to take ownership of this exciting
opportunity.

We’ll dive into the details a little bit later, and you can learn more on the special website we’ve created for this book,
10dayswithout.com. But it’s my hope and prayer that as you continue to read about my experiments, you will be challenged to join the journey. If you do, your life will never be the same.

The Power of Going Without

A youth group in Iowa decided to do several...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Multnomah
Erscheinungsdatum
2013
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1601424671
ISBN 13 
9781601424679
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
224
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar