The following is a post from Blaine Hogan. Blaine, amongst other things, is an artist, a pastor and an incredible dancer. Enjoy!

How much time have we wasted trying to make ‘bigger and better’ or ‘slicker and sweeter’ messages instead of just being the messengers?” – Play Time: Finding the Freedom to Imagine and Explore by Betty Spackman, author and installation artist.

Awhile ago I was asked to submit a proposal to a publisher for a set of short films. As I sat down to write the proposal, I became acutely aware of the fact that what I was creating was very quickly going to be turned into a product. All of a sudden I was thinking about demographics, marketing, target audiences. Before I could even get started I was paralyzed, knowing that what I was writing would be subject not only to the scrutiny of my own creative process, but also to whether or not the publisher thought she could sell it. Sitting at my desk, I knew I had a choice. I could write what was inside of me. In other words, be the messenger. Or, I could write for the publisher, giving them something that might not be from my heart, but I knew they could sell.

I thought to myself, certainly there must be a place that lies somewhere between these two extremes.

How many times a week does this happen in our organizations? A creative person sits down at their desk with an idea. But before they can put pen to paper, they realize their idea will soon be critiqued, not only for its inherent artistic value, but also for its potential appeal to the audience – will the leader like it, will it move people to do good, will it change lives? There is no easy answer to this dilemma. For it is not an easy task to live in the tension. We want either/or’s. And yet the art of tension lies somewhere in the middle. A third way, if you will.

For me, the art of holding the tension between being the messenger and being a producer begins by creating environments of safety. Pastors and priests: if you want great visions, you must take good care of your prophets.

While not the case for everyone, some of you know all too well that your church is not a safe place for your messengers, artists, and prophets. The reasons vary from not having enough to time to create something from the heart, to the direct dismissal of creatives as disorganized weirdos. Regardless of the reason, these unsafe places have created communities deprived of the deep, complex, and beautiful mysteries of the faith that cannot always be spoken of in a sermon.

The artist is the pastor of the 21st century whether we like it or not.

Spackman writes:

Whether one is an artist or not, I think as Christians we are all implicated in the horrendous deficiency of imagination, the visual illiteracy, the dispassionate celebrations of ‘the joy of our salvation,’ the uncaring lamentations of our sorrow for the oppressed and wounded, our lack of protest for the destruction of our ecosystem and the consumerist kitsch that is the predominant expression of faith in most of the Christian community.

If the above is news to you, know that the creative professionals in your organization have long been aware. They have felt the deep pain of working and volunteering in places that are lacking in creativity and imagination for sometime now. Those of you who are leaders have an incredible opportunity to revitalize your community by beginning the difficult work of trusting and affirming the visions and dreams of your creative professionals. This process, however, will not be easy, nor will it be quick. But, if you are willing to live in the tension of letting your artists free and not micro-managing the creative process, you will begin to experience some amazing things.

The following is neither an exhaustive list of how to accomplish this, nor a step-by-step plan. Instead, what follows are a few things I think might help your team along.

Leaders, my challenge to you is to gather your creatives and ask them what they dream about. Ask them about the art they create. Ask them to share with you their vision of your community. Ask them to tell you what it is they find mysterious about following Christ. Ask them to dream of a place where they would be free to experiment and make mistakes. And then (here is the tough part), work tirelessly to create that place for them.

If you want to grow the mystery of Christ in your church, you must first foster mystery among your staff.

Creatives, my challenge to you is to be honest to yourself, your leaders, God. Perhaps the most tragic part of your calling as prophets and visionaries is that you will not always be understood. In fact, most of the time you will not. Be careful, however, that being misunderstood isn’t something you carry as a badge of honor. Simply know this: more often than not, the prophet will be called into the court to share her vision; she will be lauded and praised, and then she will quickly be dismissed.

Do not be discouraged and do not lose heart. You are desperately needed.

While your leaders might only now be able to ask you questions, it will be your task to gently guide them into your world. Give them grace when you are dismissed and offer strong words when you have more to say. The art of holding this tension will be largely in your hands.

So, how will you hold it?

If we are truly carrying the gospel with us in our daily experiences, through breakfast, and meetings, and coffee breaks, and creative brainstorming sessions, then it should spill out quite naturally into the art we create. It is inherently marked and stamped by the truth we hold in the center of ourselves. If this is true, then our offerings do not need to be big, better, slick, or sweet. They need only to be honest.

And yet with this honesty comes the great and difficult tension that we have been speaking of. It is the tension that comes from our deep desire to create work that serves the community we are a part of, affects the hearts of people who refuse to be touched, and provides a path toward redemption and restoration. It is the tension that comes from creating something from the center of your being that is neither product, nor production, but an outward pouring of beauty.

Again, there are no simple or easy answers to offer. Instead, I say this:

May you simply be kind to yourself and may you hold the tension well.

This is a guest post from Bryne Lewis. Bryne’s a pro, a friend and one fierce writer. I hope you enjoy this post as much as I did.

The little girl just in front of me has on a white turtle neck, blue uniform pants and mismatched socks. One white set of toes and one purple set of toes stand straight against the line in the carpet. When she prostrates herself in prayer, one white sole and one purple sole curl back at me. Her white head covering perfectly frames her face, pinned neatly under her chin. My head covering is yellow and is gathered around my face, over my shoulders in way that makes it apparent I am unused to wearing it. I sit very still on the floor, not wanting to disturb my scarf or the prayers taking place all around me; this is my first time visiting a mosque.

From the moment I was invited to attend, I had the sense that my visit to the mosque would bring me face-to-face with a foreign set of expectations. My shoes were left on a shelf near the door. The prayers would be recited in a language I didn’t understand. Apart from covering my head, I would have to sit in the women’s gallery, separately from the men of the congregation. The text discussed would be unknown to me. There were rules and traditions in play that I did not understand.

Rules and rituals, even familiar ones, have a habit of begging the question “why.” They stick out at odd angles from our everyday lives. They seem out of date, out of touch, fresh out of meaning. Sometimes we perform them only out of a sense of obligation or in solidarity with tradition. We occasionally wonder, “Why am I doing this?” or “What is this for?” However, I’ve recently come to believe that religious rules and rituals are profitable precisely because they provoke that “why.”

From day to day, I move through my life trusting in my ability to affect positive change. In this mode of existing, I am pretty confident that I can think, act, or will myself out of most predicaments. If I’m hungry, I’ll get food and be full. If I’m tired, I’ll find time to rest and feel refreshed. Need A? Just secure B and C will result. As long as I can reliably trust that I can get what I need when I need it, I don’t need a reason. I don’t bother to ask “why.”

Except that sometimes life doesn’t work that way. Sometimes my best efforts don’t bring the best results. Sometimes, even though I thought, acted, and willed myself in all the right ways, I can’t get what I need. Sometimes, my ability to satisfy my needs falls short of meeting those needs. In those moments, I don’t cease to ask “why.” “Why me?” “Why doesn’t this work?” “Why does it matter what I do if this is what I get?”

These questions form the basis of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes. It’s a whole book of failed experiments in the field of life. The author tries wisdom, tries wealth, tries hard work to ensure his well-being. Each fails in turn. He’s left with a resounding “why.”

However, it’s at this crisis point that God enters the picture. It’s only when all the world’s possibilities have been shaded by futility that the impossible comes to light; the reason for living must lie beyond the scope of the world. Procurement isn’t the point of life. Instead, living in joy before God is the point. It’s not that God supplies a different kind of guarantee to get what I need. It’s that God supplies a meaning apart from the madness of appropriating the next thing and the next thing. “So, eat your bread in joy, drink your wine with a glad heart, since God has already approved your actions.” (Ecclesiastes 9:7, NJB) Love and joy can’t be obtained from the causal order. They are adjacent, but ever a part of, the daily vocation of life.

Like rules and rituals. In some sense, religion is a fall-guy, set up to provoke the crisis of “why” without having to risk our livelihoods, without having to amass riches and loose them, without having to learn everything only to realize we know nothing. Religious traditions and rules are shortcuts to the crisis of “why.” We perform them without being able to guarantee that they do us any demonstrable good. We perform them without knowing “why,” allowing them to suffer our fall into futility. So that in the end we might come to understand life as more than a completion of logically ordered acquisitions, but as love and joy in God.

After the prayer service, the imam graciously held a Q & A session. One of the visitors in our group asked about Muslim dietary restrictions. The imam explained which meats are acceptable and which are not (for the record, fish are considered clean regardless of who catches them). He offered several interpretations as to why God imposed these specific dietary laws. But at the end, he shrugged his hands affably and smiled: “Really we don’t know why God asks us to do these things. We do them in order to discover why.”

To which I nodded an amen.

And accidentally lost my headscarf.

Probably one of the church’s biggest strategic mistakes in the last 50 years has been our withdrawal from the community.

We’ve preached for decades “don’t be part of this world” until we finally got there. Now, we build campuses, away from town. We organize our “own” events. Fall festivals instead of Halloween. We have been very effective in separating ourselves from the community. Then we go onto these campuses every weekend, take in something, and are told to go out and share it. Share it? With whom? The people I have lunch or dinner with, that were at the same service, or another church that morning? Who exactly? No one. That’s who.

Christ didn’t separate himself from “the world”. He lived right in there amongst them. Close enough to make the current religious leaders very uncomfortable, accusing him of excess in both drink and food. Out of this observation rises a very key idea. It’s an idea that Jesus instructed us about. He said that though we must be in the world, we must not be of it.

We in the Church have gone and done the opposite. We are now of the world, but not in it. Meaning, we remove ourselves from society with regard to culture, but what drives us and what we’re going after is the same as them. The most adamant adherents of our faith often seem the most out of touch with culture, yet much of what we chase after is the same as our unchurched peers. That is a failure on our parts. We should be just as in touch with the currents of society and culture as the next metro-sexual, but our goals, our drives, should be noticeably different.

To most of “the world” we don’t look different, just behind.

Toto, I have the feeling we are not in Kansas any more – Dorothy, in Wizard of Oz

In a rapidly changing world, we need to make frequent conceptual leaps for effective ministry.

A few years back, a European manufacturer of industrial drilling machines was suffering badly with competition from products manufactured in the Far East. Wisely, they called in consultants to help them see a way forward. “So, how would you describe your business,” asked the consultants. “Well, we sell drilling machines, of course,” they replied. “Well, actually, you don’t,” said the consultants. “You enable people to make holes.” This new way of perceiving their role led them to switch to making laser-equipment for cutting holes, with renewed business success.

Lateral thinking is so often a key to success. Food-processing engineers spent much time trying to create a machine that could crack nuts. The problem was adjust the crush strength according to the exact size of the nut and the strength of its shell. Unless they could precisely calibrate the exact pressure needed for each nut, many nuts would be damaged. As so often, the solution was completely different: put the nuts in a vacuum and the shells would just burst off with zero damage or loss.

Often, what we believe to be our goals may in fact be merely strategies. We can change strategies radically in order to reach the same ultimate goals, as this cartoon demonstrates:

The world is changing faster than ever. Those of us born in the 50s, 60s and 70s grew up in the tailend of the ‘print communication culture’ that had been launched by Gutenberg’s printing press; and before postmodernism had changed public understanding of ‘truth’ from absolute and universal to relative and personal.

Wired up differently

The brains of people brought up in an oral culture, a print culture or the new digital culture are actually wired up differently. They process information differently. They perceive the world differently. Visual story is becoming integral to effective communication in this new cultural environment. Digital communication culture in fact has much in common with oral communication cultures outside the West, especially the primacy of story.

Story is everything, as Daniel Taylor explains in this short video.

Even those gifted with an evangelistic apologetics ministry, such as Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel, claim that they must now embed their apologetics material within a story in order to get a hearing. Does this not sound faintly familiar? Jesus’ primary means of spoken communication to the ‘unchurched’ was to embed truth within visual story (‘visual’ in the sense that he painted pictures in words). And, of course, this was in the context of hanging out with people socially. All. The. Time. (See eg. Luke 15:2, Matthew 9:11, Mark 2:16.)

The question should no longer even be, “How can I embed some short illustrations into my presentation of propositional truths?” but “How can I embed essential truth into a memorable visual story?”

What story are you telling in your digital ministry? How can the element of story help make it better?

This is a guest post from Steel. Yes, Steel. Kind of like Cher, but not.

The modern, and by modern I mean the last 30+ years, approach to Christianity has become like some sort of college degree program. It’s like we’re all trying to achieve some state of learnedness, only its pursuit is perpetual. And that doesn’t seem reasonable does it?

I mean, eventually we should get the degree, be it a lower level or higher level version. But the modern church has no way of bestowing the degree that it pushes you to pursue, and it wouldn’t matter even if it did. Jesus wasn’t selling education, or even knowledge as an end. He was selling a movement. And movements move.

But modern church-pew Christians do not, as a rule. We’re instructed to pray, to study the bible, and little more. But all this does is prepare us for tests that we never take, or score poorly on when we do. They’re really more like pop quizzes. And occasionally we’ll sign up for a lab course (mission) where we get to employ what we’ve “learned”, though it all seems a bit artificial and setup for us ahead of time. We’ll kind of act like we know what we’re doing, attempting to come off a bit more studied in the subject at hand, and fumble our way through, hoping for good enough. But ultimately, we just want to get it done.

I’m positing a new approach. Away with what has come to be a form of intellectual Christianity, where your status level is inferred based upon what you know. I’m proffering a new course called Applied Christianity. There’s very little to learn; in fact, you probably know most of it already. It’s really about doing. And wasn’t that what Jesus was about, going and doing? For if our Christianity isn’t applied, then what is it?

Toward the end of his life, Vincent van Gogh succumbed to his mental illness, cut off his own ear after a fight with friend Paul Gauguin, and in May 1889 committed himself to a mental hospital in Saint Remy.

In the last 10 weeks of his life, while in the care of the doctor, he created over 100 pieces including The Church at Auvers, a scene from his youth created out of memory.

The foreground seems to be in daylight, whereas the church itself and the sky seem to be in shadow, nearly a night scene. The church’s form is distorted adding a feel of gloom to the scene. A church painted in this manner may reflect van Gogh’s feeling about the church and religion after his failed studies as a preacher and missionary.

One other site explains it this way:

Rather than the church looking like a place of refuge and solace, Vincent has shown it as a place of impending doom and gloom.

Early in his life, Van Gogh aspired to be a pastor and missionary.  However, he failed miserably at both callings and, even though there is no specific documentation about his spiritual crisis, it’s pretty safe to bet that he got turned off from religion because of his inability to “meet the expectations.”

This is a sad story, and comes to life through this man’s paintings.  If you notice, the church is surrounded by light, but the church itself does not create or emanate any light, which gives the impression that it is dead.

Is your church dead?

I hope that your church does not resemble Van Gogh’s Church of Auvers, nor does your own example of faith. Christ’s view of the church is clear, “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.” (Matt. 5:14.)  I pray that, when surrounded by darkness, that we might be the light of hope and encouragement to the world around us, and not just as a church building with its lights on, but that we, ourselves, glow with the love of Christ, so that people might be drawn to us, and Him.

This is a guest post from friend and fellow Bethel Seminary grad Adam Silverness.

The Church is in transition. This is not the first time this has happened and certainly won’t be the last. Whether you are on the front edge of this shift, trying to convince your friends and family you’re not a heretic, or you are holding on to your traditions for dear life, the shift is undeniable.

Now if you’re like me and you are closer to edge, trying to push this transition forward, you are having a very difficult time explaining yourself to those around you. Whether they are at your church, your school or in your family, the task of playing the ‘postmodern’ in your community can be a taxing one. This gets even tougher when you aren’t really sure where you believe the Church should go from here, but instead are only able to define your views in negatives (i.e. I don’t think the Church should be seen as a service on Sunday, I can’t accept that the only Biblical view of women is one of subservience, etc).

I was talking with a friend the other day about this very topic and we were discussing ways of trying to get our views of where the Church should be headed to people who seem, in our minds, stuck in an un-Biblical and needlessly traditional place. As we were talking, an analogy for this very thing popped into my head:

Explaining this shift is like trying like trying to tell football fans that instead of focusing on the game every Sunday, we should be focusing on the practice sessions during the week.

To any fan of football (or any person familiar with any sport), this idea seems absolutely ridiculous, for obvious reasons. It would be changing football as we have done it since the creation of the game.

For those of us who lean a little left of center on the Church situation, we are saying “YES, this shift would change how Church has been done for a long time! But this is a good thing!” But what we sometimes fail to remember is that tradition is rooted deep; deep enough that we sometimes think any change to it would completely destroy the thing entirely.

So, how do convince a die hard fan that changing the game is the best thing for its future? I don’t know, but if we feel passionate about our views (on either side), we need to start asking, because whether we realize it or not, the shift cannot happen without those who are already invested.

This is a guest post by Mike McArthur. I asked Mike to share his experience after reading some of his posts, particularly this one. Check it out!

“We are too small to be able to afford to pay a pastor, the church will have to close.”

Bad call!

Employing a pastor is not a necessary requirement of a healthy church. In many cases it is really a convenient way to make life easier for the elders and church members.

Many small churches are struggling to balance budgets, yet the last expense to be cut is usually the pastor’s salary. As an elder myself I would never want to make a pastor redundant, but after our part-time pastor resigned a year and a half ago we did not employ anyone to replace him. Despite some doubters, our congregation is still thriving, we have an excellent Sunday school program, great sermons and heartfelt worship singing each week.

I would like for us to employ a pastor, but my reasons are purely selfish – it would make life easier for me. It would probably also tempt me to disobey God. My responsibility as an elder is to “shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you;” (1 Peter 5:2 ESV). I cannot push that responsibility onto someone else by casting my vote to pay them a salary from the church budget. The commission to shepherd (pastor) God’s people was given to me when I accepted the office of elder.

Likewise, no Christian can delegate their obligation to love one another onto a pastor by virtue of contributing to his salary. Responsibility for serving God’s people lies with all believers  according to the grace God has given (1 Peter 4:10).

At its best, a group of believers would act in accordance with the exhortations of Romans chapter 12. Those with particular abilities use them for building up the whole group. God promises to give what we need to serve Him, so we can assume that He will place within each group the skills, or ability to acquire the skills, required to fulfill the purpose He has for that group. The leaders in such a group of believers would be:

• Experienced
• Stable and above reproach
• Humble
• Willing servants
• Committed to the wellbeing of those in the group (see 1 Timothy 3:1-13 and 1 Peter 5:1-5).

What is missing from this picture? Plenty, if you are using contemporary churches as the measuring standard. A couple of obvious things are buildings and a pastor. But if we use the New Testament as our standard, buildings are barely mentioned and neither are pastors.

We do see elders as a required church office in the Bible, and that those who labor for the gospel and in preaching are worthy of wages for their work. It is OK to pay those who labor in ministry, but nowhere are we told that a church must employ a pastor. The responsibility for  shepherding (pastoring) lies with the elders.  If we can trust God to give all we need for life and godliness, and if we believe that spiritual gifts are given for the common good of the church, then it is reasonable to assume that within each congregation of His people God provides grace to corporately fulfill His mission without dumping most of the work onto one man.

In order to follow such an ideal of church leadership we have to adjust our expectations. By accepting that God gives the grace to achieve His call on each fellowship, we also have to accept His standards and priorities for His work. We know God doesn’t judge outward appearances and that He is happy to accept people who are shunned by everyone else. So elders, brace yourselves for a shakedown of any appearance-based expectations and to be called-out on substandard shepherding.

It is interesting that along with all the other special interest social networks, there are now some that are designed for churchgoers. This comes as no surprise, because many churchgoing people want to stay connected, just like everyone else. If you are a person of faith, you may want to check out the following five social network sites.

1.Xianz

The slogan for this site is, “The MySpace alternative for Christians! It’s the Faith Based MySpace.” Among the things that xianz.com offers are the opportunity to connect with people you know, join and create “Groups” around your interests, get recommendations for everything from a great restaurant to a good church. They also have videos available along with forums, chat groups and other features. A special item is the opportunity for bands and musicians to promote their music and to network with fans and other artists. Xianz 2.0 launches June 14, 2010.

2. Our Christian Place

This site has been newly designed. They say, “We are a Social Network Site similar to MySpace or Facebook but with a Christian atmosphere.” They offer numerous opportunities and services, including: upload music, share photos, upload videos, live chat and many others. Their slogan is, “All in a Christian Atmosphere!!!” Ourchristianplace.com stresses their Christian orientation. This is a good-looking site, and it is free to sign up for this service.

3. Faith Light

This attractive website has a great number of small pictures, all of which can be enlarged, on their home page. They have blogs, videos, photos, chat rooms and other features. They say their site provides a Christian Social Network site for everyone. Their stated goal is to provide the best place for Christians to make new friends online. They state that they are a Christian Facebook alternative.

4. Tangle

This site quotes Newsweek Magazine, which described it as, “One of the hottest sites on the Internet.” The Jonas Brothers, Chris Tomlin, Toby Mac, Kathy Ireland and other well-known Christian artists are all members. The site has all of the usual features, plus you can sign up to receive a Christian video every day. They have a large prayer ministry and a feature to locate a specific church. Christian-oriented news stories are featured. Tangle.com is an interesting, well-developed website.

5. MyChurch.org

This site is different from the others, because it focuses on churches, not individuals. It enables a church to create a network for its members, offering them free social networking. There is a fee to the church for the service. It can choose from different levels of services, beginning with the least expensive Basic plan. 40,000 churches are a part of this social network.

Millions of people use social networking sites each day. The Christian-oriented sites are a definite plus for churchgoing people.

When she’s not wasting her time on social network sites (which is often) Louise Baker writes about Online degrees for Zen College Life. Her most recent article deals with obtaining online criminal justice degrees.

Personally, I’ve had the chance to work with Kevin on a few projects for the Center for Church Communication. Through those experiences, I can tell you that Kevin’s solid. He’s a good dude and I’m excited for you to hear his story behind Addition by Adoption.

Deviant: What was the main inspiration for writing “Adoption by Addition”?

Kevin Hendricks: I started pulling the book together because I wanted to share all the funny stories about our family with my Grandma. She’s not on the Internet at all so Twitter means nothing to her. But the kind of stuff I was sharing on Twitter is the kind of thing she’d love. And it turns out a lot of folks felt the same way.

The letter I received from my Grandma about the book has probably been one of the coolest things about this whole project.

That’s how the book started, but it’s definitely grown well beyond something to share with my Grandma. It evolved to include my son’s adoption and the causes we’ve embraced.

D: Social media seemed to play a huge part in writing this book. Give us an idea of how you use social media in your everyday life and the benefits you see from it.

KH: I’m a work-at-home dad with two kids under four. I don’t get much social interaction with adults. It sounds pathetic, but social media is one way I get some of that interaction during the day (Editor’s note: HA!). Twitter and Facebook keep me connected.

I use social media to share stuff about my family, pass on interesting links, offer insights or comments or dumb stuff. It’s kind of amazing how Twitter has changed how I consume media. I used to read magazines—Time, Wired, Fast Company. Now I check Twitter.

D: If you were riding in an elevator and only had 30 seconds to describe your book to someone, what would that conversation sound like?

KH: It’d probably sound very awkward, because pitching my book to strangers in an elevator is the last thing I’d do. Shameless promotion is part of the self-publishing package, but I’m not that shameless.

But if you want the digest version, the book is a curated selection of Twitter posts about raising kids, embracing causes and our adoption journey. It’s eyebrow-raising quotes from my daughter, breakfast time songs and how my son became a part of our family.

Are you clawing at the elevator door yet?

D: There are a few causes connected to your book. Tell us about them and what you’ve chosen to do with some of the profits from your book.

KH: The biggest one is water. A portion of the proceeds from the book (about $2 per copy) are being donated to charity: water to build a clean water well in Ethiopia. I’m also encouraging people to make additional donations or just skip the book and donate directly to charity: water (http://mycharitywater.org/addition).

Water is such a simple thing that we don’t even think about it. But a billion people don’t have access to clean water, and it kills them. That’s the reality. Kids die every day from drinking dirty water. Ethiopia—my son Milo’s birthplace—is especially hard hit, so it’s a no-brainer to support a cause like this.

Other causes don’t get nearly as much space in the book, but I do talk about homelessness quite a bit (if you’re not following Mark Horvath and InvisiblePeople.tv, you need to be).

D: Finally, what is the biggest misconception people have about adoption?

KH: Oh boy, where do I start? I could talk forever about this, but how about just five misconceptions:

People think it’s too hard. They think you have to be some superhero to adopt.

People think it’s too easy. They think a little love can cover over a lifetime of pain and they’re not prepared for the reality of it.

People think adoption is only for those who can’t have a biological child.

People see the price tag and red tape and assume someone is getting rich. Corruption can certainly happen, but important protections are in place to prevent human trafficking, and unfortunately, that’s not cheap.

People overlook the inherent pain in adoption. I like to talk about how wonderful adoption is, but another reality is that if a kid needs to be adopted it’s because of some kind of trauma.

Support Kevin by checking out his book on Amazon or stop by his website and hire him for a huge, giant communications project. YES!