Author: Allen Bingham

I am a follower of Jesus, husband, father, and pastor of Haymount United Methodist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA.

Tell the story to the ones who will listen …

The market isn’t always ‘right’, if right means that it knows how to get what it wants in the long run. Too often, we are confused, or misled, or part of a herd headed in the wrong direction.

It’s almost impossible to bring the mass market to its senses, to insist that you know better. What you can do, though, is find discerning and alert individuals who will take the time to understand. And then, if you’re good and patient and lucky, they’ll tell the others.

Which is why, over the last thirty years, farmers markets and other entities have slowly grown in influence. Because happy customers tell stories about remarkable products and services.

When you see the corn paradox, label it and act accordingly. Tell stories for the few, help them to spread.

via Seth Godin’s post “The Naked Corn Paradox“

Seth Godin Asks a Crucial Institutional Question

At the congregation down the street, they’re doing things the way they’ve done them for the last few hundred years. Every week, people come, attracted by familiarity, by the family and friends around them, part of a tribe.

And just past that building is another one, a different tribe, where the tradition is more than a thousand years old.

This is not so different from that big company that used to be an internet startup, but all the original team members have long left the building. Work tomorrow has a lot in common with work yesterday, and the safety of it all is comforting.

Che, Jefferson, Edison, Ford… most of these radicals would not recognize the institutions that have been built over time.

The question each of us has to answer about the institution we care about is: Does this place exist to maintain and perpetuate the status quo, or am I here to do the work that the radical founder had in mind when we started?

via Seth Godin’s post “(re)Radical“

Collecting our hearts into one prayer …

With a favorable eye, O gracious Comforter, behold all that are in affliction; let the sighing of the prisoners, the groans of the sick, the prayers of the oppressed, the desire of the poor and needy, come before you.

Give unto my enemies grace and pardon, charity to me and love to you; remove the cloud from their eyes, the stone from their hearts, that they may know and feel what it is to love their neighbor as themselves.

And may it please you to enable me to love all mine enemies, to bless them that now curse me, to do good to them that hate me, and to pray for those who spitefully use me and persecute me.

Be pleased, O Lord, of your goodness, shortly to accomplish the number of your elect, and to hasten your kingdom; that we, with all your whole Church, may have our perfect consummation of bliss, through Jesus Christ our Lord; by whom, and with whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honor and glory be unto you, O Father Almighty, now and forever.

John Wesley (1703-1791)

Where are you giving yourself away?

We have greater work here to do than mere securing our own salvation. We are members of the world and church, and we must labor to do good to many. We are trusted with our Master’s talents for his service, in our places to do our best to propagate his truth, and grace, and church; and to bring home souls, and honor his cause, and edify his flock, and further the salvation of as many as we can. All this is to be done on earth, if we will secure the end of all in heaven.

Richard Baxter (1615-1691)

Walking the walk …

Let it be understood that those who are not found living as he taught are no Christians, even though they profess with the lips the precepts of Christ; for it is not those who make profession, but those who do the works, who shall be saved, according to His word.

Justin Martyr (100-160)