Fair Trade for Your Feet

As promised a few weeks ago, here are some resources for fair trade items. Sarah had asked me a while back where you could find fair trade shoes. I have a short list of online retailers who sell fair trade footwear. I believe this list is fairly accurate, you may want to double check me, because I did the research a few months ago. I haven't purchase from any of these companies yet.

These first two are actually owned by the same company:

http://www.simpleshoes.com (bonus - they are eco-friendly)

http://www.teva.com/index.aspx

New Balance seems to be a good brand. As long as you don't buy ones that are made in China they are pretty much guaranteed to be fair trade.

http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/rs/profile.cfm?id=270

My First Country Single...

Some how my heart has embraced the melody of country western music and my soul has begun singing with all the twang that my voice cannot muster. As I made my journey down the hallway toward that place where I attempt to sleep, a prayer in the form of lyrics that earlier I couldn't force enough creativity to produce came with the a splendor of a CMT top 10.

While it is typically my nature to immediately dispel any thought that is accompanied by pedal-steel guitar, this thought needed to be shared. They are not complete and probably will not be anytime soon, but in their rawness there is a truth that I need to hold on to right now.

You'd think that I'd lived enough
that I'd have something worth saying now
You'd think that I'd dreamed enough
that I'd quit or they'd go away

I want to do great things
God help me with the small.

God help me with the small. How quickly do we forget that? Some how we convince ourselves that:

A. Somehow we can just go straight from mediocre to great.

B. Only the big matters

C. We we have the power to accomplish anything within ourselves.

That relates to me in a few straight forward ways:

A. I have to write a bunch of crappy songs in order to write one great song. Creativity takes works. I often forget that. I want instant gratification. Hit song, now. Award winning design in 2 minutes. Write a book on an airplane ride. Solve the world's problems with one blog. One small step at a time. That is how you get there.

B. It is not all about the end goal. The journey matters. The organizing, the planning, the little jobs that you do not want to do because they are tedious or just plan suck; these are things that make a project, a worship service, or an organization great.

C. I only breathe because God makes it so. There is nothing that I or anyone can do without His strength. He is all powerful; I have no power. Anything that I do is only because He permits it. Without His grace, I would cease to exist.

Where is the thing you hoping for instant gratification? What is the small that you have been overlooking or avoiding? What are you trying to do by your own power?

American "Worship" Idol

Warning: If you haven't watched the Thursday results show to American Idol and want to be surprised by the opening song, then do not read this.

Ok, so with that out of the way, apparently there has been a moderate sized controversy brewing over the grande finale to Wednesday's "Idol Gives Back." Due to the fact that my DVR cut out before the end of the show, I was completely unaware of even the possibility for controversy. With all the splendor and musical mediocrity that is a mid-90's Integrity worship tune, the top 8 closed out the show with a rendition of "Shout to the Lord."

For most of the world the controversy lies in the fact that they cut Jesus from the first line of the first verse. For those who weren't offended by the first performance, the idol's came back with a second performance to open Thursday's show, this time including the name of Jesus.

So the controversy begins. The lyric change was a bad idea on Idol's part and perhaps the backtracking was even worse, but that is the type of thing that is to be expected from a national television show. I'm not really shocked and their decision doesn't affect my faith and I doubt it affects the faith of many other Christ-followers. It probably was not the deciding factor on someone's decision to follow Christ either. So while it was disappointing, it is not the controversy that I wish to explore.

We could examine the irony that is self-proclaimed idols singing a worship song towards God, but perhaps they weren't singing towards God. Maybe then we should explore that controversy. Does a "secular" musician singing a "Christian" song affect its "Christianess"? Does a Christian singing a "secular" song make it "Christian"? It is a worthwhile discussion, but it is not the thought that plagues me tonight. Instead, I intend to aim for a seemly more shallow discourse.

Here I go: How horrible was that arrangement? It was everything that is anything that is cheesy about "Christian" music. In all fairness, I have to disclose that "Shout to the Lord" is not one of my current favorite worship tunes. It is a beautiful song. The words and melody are wonderful. I have sang it many, many times; however, I have grown tired of it. In my opinion it has been over sung. In addition to being over sung, it has become dated.

Please understand that I am not the guy who thinks that all music older that 10 minutes is old. I love hymns and I enjoy pulling out old standards and giving them new life. I just wish they had done the same with this song. On a show that criticizes singers for poor or dated arrangements, they pulled off the perfect mid-90's inspirational ballad. And it seems like they got away with it. This leaves me afraid for several reasons.

Night after night, American Idol rocks the stage with some fresh new musical takes on a variety of musical styles, but when it comes to the worship song they go mediocre. Is this the best that Christianity has to offer? My fear is that a majority of Christians thought that this was a great version of the song while the non-church attending masses were thinking "I am glad American Idol doesn't sound like this every week." If the majority of the songs in season 7 sounded akin to this version of "Shout to the Lord"; I highly doubt there would be a season 8.

Which makes me think that perhaps this is why for many people there isn't a Sunday after Easter?

I truly believe that worship through music should be a form of evangelism. The best band in any town should not be the one that plays at a bar. It should be the one that plays at our Sunday morning worship gatherings. I cannot think of a better way to engage a society that is driven by pop music than to present the gospel via that same medium.

Please understand, I am not saying good worship music is about style. Neither am I trying to detract from the main focus of worship music which is the worship of God. Rather, I wish to make a point that as a secondary purpose worship music is about connecting those who are disconnected. Whether it is country, rock, pop, hip-hop, r&b or one of the other dozens of styles out there, I believe that if we present musical worship in a way that is creative and that people can enjoy, God will use it to connect people to Him.

It is common for great bands who do not reinvent themselves in order to keep up with current musical tastes to fall out of favor and fade into non-existence. Unfortunately, I believe the same can happen with the church. I am not speaking of changing our message. For just as rock music will always sing about common human themes such as love, pain, beauty, and the quest for truth; our message will always be that God's love is unconditional, He can heal the pain, He makes all things beautiful, and He is the Truth.

Fair Trade is Hard

This year I made a personal commitment to buy more goods that are fair trade. It is not going so well.

If I was looking for coffee, then it would be easy. In fact, if you are looking for coffee may I recommend 963Coffee. (I will be going on a trip to Guatemala that is partnering with 963 to promote fair trade, more about that in another blog.) Alas, I do not drink enough coffee to feel that I am living up to my fair trade commitment.

What then shall I do?

For me the big issue is clothing. There are other fair trade issues out there, but clothing seems to be the largest portion of my spending that I know is made by people who are likely not being treated fairly.

How then shall we change this? To start, much research. I have done some research, but it's not easy. For the life of me, I cannot find fair trade clothing that is affordable (not cheap, just affordable), stylish and easy to obtain. Walking into a department store is out of the question. Fair trade and major retailers do not seem to go together. A few of them, such as the Gap, have adopted a "supplier code of conduct"; however, the actual implementation of this code is spotty at best.

I wish that I could say, "you can buy all your clothing from XYZ source and feel assured that it is a fair trade product", but it is much more complicated. Over the next few days, I plan on posting what I have found in my research. If anyone has some good resources, I'd love to see them in the comments sections.