So when the mail got dropped off at The Marin Foundation’s office today there were 3 huge boxes. The sender was Zondervan. I thought… Here it is! The DVD Curriculums are here! So give me some grace and view the excitement with me of opening the very first copies of our new Love Is an Orientation DVD and Participant Guide.

It officially releases on December 13th.

You can pre-order the DVD and Participant Guide combo pack here.

You can pre-order the DVD by itself here.

You can pre-order additional Participant Guides by themselves here.

I’m popping it in my DVD player right now… Can’t wait to watch it myself as I haven’t seen the final version yet. Awesome!

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org 

So exciting! It’s almost release day for our new Love Is an Orientation DVD Curriculum which is set to release on December 13th (for those of you not in North America it will release January 1 through your respective Amazon sites and the Zondervan website).

This new resource will be for any church, university, non-profit, organization, clinic, community center, small group of friends or individuals interested in what it means to not only elevate the conversation between the LGBT community and the conservative world, but also culturally engage each community through our Living in the Tension (LITT) gatherings—as there will be an entire session devoted to building and sustaining your own LITT group. We are so, so pumped about this new resource and pray it has a huge impact in continuing to spread this bridge building movement! The six sessions will include:

1) Love is an Orientation

2) Building Bridges between Conservatives and the LGBT Community

3) Theology of Bridge Builders

4) Answering the Tough Questions

5) Teens and Sexuality

6) Living in the Tension Gatherings

We also interviewed six LGBT people from around the country, coming from all different theological, social, and political perspectives, so you can get to know them and where they’re coming from by hearing their stories from their perspectives.

We filmed in a dozen locations around Boystown and the city of Chicago, and we’re just really proud of how everything is turning out.

You can pre-order from Amazon here (DVD), here (Participant Guides) and here (Combo Pack).

Here are a few pics from our time filming. I’ll be posting many more from all of our different locations and our different interviews soon…

Looking forward for you to all have a chance to engage with it. Please feel free to post this anywhere you want to start spreading the word!

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

A few days ago the BBC World News featured the work of The Marin Foundation in written and audio form! Above is a screenshot I took of the BBC’s home page on their website… And that’s us as the feature story! It’s been crazy since it went live. We have gotten tons of folks reaching out from all over the world. This impact of our story is being felt! It’s such a humbling thing to have happen, and it’s definitely surreal to know that our bridge building message is getting spread across the globe through the most internationally trusted media company in existence. Just unreal.

You can read the full article here

You can listen to the 30 minutes segment the BBC ran on us here (and you have about 30 days to download it to keep it if you want)

Yesterday I got an email from the BBC and they gave me the following, crazy, update about our stories since they went live:

—Our radio segment (which has also been featured throughout America on NPR) is the most listened to segment of any from the BBC World Service

—Our radio segment is the most downloaded segment of any from the BBC World Service

—Our article is the 2nd most shared article of any story on any of the BBC websites

—Our article is the 3rd most read article on any of the BBC websites

I have to thank Christopher Landau so very much. He was the producer of the segment, as well as the writer of the article. Christopher was the one who fought for this story to be done! Even after some higher-ups said no to his initial proposal, he kept at it over almost 1 full year (!!!!) before they finally said yes. And now look what is happening! Brenda and I first met Christopher while I was speaking in London earlier this year. He had read my book when it first released in 2009 and as he said, “kept it in the back of my head to do a story on it for just this time.”

I’m not the most trusting person when it comes to media folks… They never seem to quite tell the truth in how they are going to present or edit something. But Christopher did exactly what he said he was going to do. A stand up man. A balanced journalist. And now a person ever so dear to not only my heart, but the millions his work has reached around the world.

Just absolutely amazing what the Lord is doing with this.

No matter the outcome, faithfulness always wins out.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

A few weeks back The Marin Foundation was called by a Catholic church in Chicago. They were calling because they got word that a gay activist group was going to be protesting their church on behalf of all the LGBT people who don’t like the Catholic church’s stance on gay marriage. Over the last few weeks we have tried to work as best as we could to help set up a private discussion between the Catholic church and the activist group. That private discussion never happened – and it wasn’t because The Marin Foundation wasn’t willing…

When the day of the protest arrived an interesting thing happened. An anti- same-sex marriage organization from the suburbs showed up and started protesting the protesters. It was a freaking mess. Who does that? What good is coming out of protesting a protest?

It’s like two dumb, blind donkeys walking in circles in the dark threatening each other with nothing other than the smell of their own butts.

There are few things that get me more heated than people on both sides of this topic who, for no greater good at all, stifle peaceful and productive dialogue that produces reconciliation by only wanting to hold nasty signs at each other and yell in their stupid megaphones.

You should have seen the ridiculous scene at that church: People coming in and out of mass met on the church’s steps by hateful LGBT people with signs and megaphones and then looking two feet in the other direction and a group of hateful conservative Christians with signs and megaphones protesting the protest. And not one person in either of those groups had any personal connection to that Catholic church. Amazing. Here’s a quick letter to the protestors:

Dear Protestors Who Believe You Are Doing The Right Thing,

You are not doing the right thing.

Jesus said that wisdom will be proved right by her actions. If Jesus’ words are true, then you all must have not a drop of wisdom in you. Try investing even a quarter of the amount of time and energy you currently use to promote dissent into seeking dialogue and relationships of ‘loving your enemy’ and watch how productive you can actually be. I guarantee it will be a zillion times for productive and you won’t even have to go to all of the trouble to do so much coloring of signs.

And to those conservative Christians there protesting—I have a hard pressed time even believing you are a Christ-One (literal definition of Christian). God says to Isaiah:

“These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder. The wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.”

And to those LGBT people there protesting—you think your signs and megaphones make one ounce of difference to that Catholic church, The Catholic Church or any of the people in it? You don’t. You just look like hateful idiots who are solidifying the Church in thinking they’re doing the right thing.

Next time, instead of picking up your sign pick up your phone and schedule a time to sit down with ‘the other’ and have a conversation focused on trying to understand each other.

Much love.

Andrew

www.themarinfoundation.org

Lumen 1.30 – Andrew Marin from mariners church on Vimeo.

This video was from two weekends ago while I was quite sick. I’m just happy my body and voice lasted. What did you think of the 3 suggestions to engaging the LGBT/conservative Christian conversation?

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

In most cases single people are treated as crappy in church cirlces as LGBTs. Who cares what others think of you. Love yourself because God loves you THAT much. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

Starting today I am flying to Geneva, Switzerland to speak to the United Nations at their International headquarters – specifically through the UNAIDS: Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS. Since May 2010 I have been involved in on-going discussions with UNAIDS surrounding what it means to build bridges with conservative faith communities, as well as on the topics of faith, sexuality and HIV/AIDS.

This past July I took my first trip with UNAIDS to Vienna, Austria where I spoke to a number of world leaders connected through the UN on the broad topic of what it means to seek reconciliation with the ‘other’. It was an unreal experience, and it made me quickly realize that there is a whoooole different and bigger world out there that could care less about faith and how that intersects with anything, really. But it looks like it went so well in Vienna that I got invited out to the UN’s International Headquarters to continue these discussions further.

I am looking forward to this week to meet with and speak to more folks curious about what this bridge building lifestyle looks like. I just pray that I can represent this Movement and you all, to the UN/UNAIDS executives and other leaders from around the world, with honor and dignity in such a way that they will, if nothing else, respect what we’re all about. While I’m out there I’m also excited that I have the opportunity to speak with the heads of the World Council of Churches and the Ecumenical Advocay Alliance.

As always, I will try to blog about my experiences. However my track-record from these types of trips show that probably won’t happen. So in my place I will have The Marin Foundation’s Director of Community Relations, Kevin Harris, and Director of Pastoral Care, Nathan Albert, blog in my place.  Looking forward to talking soon.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

This is my friend, Native American leader Richard Twiss, speaking about the abuse against Natives by the white power structure of our country. The first one minute and twenty four seconds of this video Richard throws it down (because he’s speaking at a conservative Christian college’s chapel service, it seems like he eased up a little on them the last minute of his talk. I’ve heard him bring it for hours before!). Over the last few years Richard has opened my eyes to the atrocious treatment in which the white dominated government of the United States, since day one, has bestowed upon Native Americans.

Did you know that Native American reservations aren’t even owned by Natives? We all think they own their land. They don’t. A person appointed by the President is their liaison to the land they live on, and before anything happens on a Native reservation, this man has to give them approval!

This was their country. We took if from them and now are continuing to oppress them. 

On this day I am thankful, among many, many other things, for one thing in particular:

That Jesus Christ came to this earth as a baby of no status or privilege, incarnating himself into a broken world and righteously loving all of humanity to Him, even though many didn’t, and don’t, want to believe. I am also thankful for Jesus brutally dying on the cross, that my sins are forgiven because I believe in an unchanging God who longs to flood this world and all humanity with redemption and reconciliation to God, and to each other.

With that said, on this thankful day of Thanksgiving, I am thankful for what Jesus did so I, as a white man a part of the dominant culture that has given me extraordinary privilege for doing nothing other than being birthed into a powerful socially constructed group of people, can sincerely apologize for:  

Metaphorically and physically raping and pillaging the Indians over centuries, the thing that created this holiday; and using the death of Christ for the cultural sins of slavery, colonization, the crusades, racism, sexism and anything else that holds others captive because they are not like the dominant culture of the day.

I’m sorry. And I’m thankful I believe in a God who is bigger than all of my people’s sins committed on behalf of God’s name.

Please watch the video of Richard. It’s powerful. Here is Richard’s website and here you can find him on YouTube.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

Here is a video of me speaking at The Evangelical Network (TEN) national conference, being interviewed by radio host Tony Sweet. You can check out TEN’s website here and their YouTube Channels here and here. I really appreciate the President of TEN, Todd Ferrell, not only giving me the opportunity to be there with them, but also for being a friend.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

Thanks for all of your great insights yesterday on what you believe is the Gospel! I loved reading them, and I generally like to think that the people that read this blog are at least 82.6% smarter than people who read any other blog Maybe it’s just that the people who have thought about what the Gospel means are the only ones who commented, but man, preach those definitions my brothers and sisters!

In the broader Christian world the word Gospel is thrown around so easily and quickly without a clue what it actually means. “Gospel” is now a part of the Christianeze language that, when someone says it, is to be automatically assumed they are: 1) A great Christian; 2) Totally know what they’re talking about. I would tend to say that neither of those points are accurate.

In fact, I physically cringe when I hear people say the word Gospel. I cringe because I know when people say it, that’s all I’m going to get from most of them when it comes to that word … just a bunch of lip service. This is kind of what I feel like when I hear most people talking about the Gospel:

Let me try and make this as clear as I can:

“Gospel” is not a word, it’s a way of life.

It’s not an understanding. It’s not a theology. And it’s sure not something that should ever be said lightly. Yet it has turned into all of those things.

In fact, I think the word Gospel should never be said.

You heard me right. Never. It should be lived. No one out there (especially those who are not Christian) cares about an over-used, under-impacted word that Christians say as the password to get in the club. However, through the message of Jesus living through you and I, we will be the hands and feet of Jesus’ reconciling work to bring ourselves and others into a restored relationship with God, each other, and have the strength to live a daily faithfulness of what it means to establish Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

Jesus references the word translated to “gospel” seven times, five of them coming in the book of Mark. Five of those seven times Jesus says something to the effect of “preach the gospel.”  Narrowly looking at the phrase “preach the gospel” it would assume most Christians are right today in their spoken usage of the word. The problem comes in to play when looking at the whole of Jesus’ life and ministry. His overtly intentional incarnational ways (not just as the God-man but also in the way he went about ‘living in the neighborhoods’ doing good deeds) were the presupposition to his earning the right to speak about what people call ‘the Gospel’ today.  

There is no such thing as a Capital-G Gospel. 

I say this because the capital letter denotes a person or a name; a label. You could argue that Jesus (a person) is the Gospel (a label to Jesus’ work). But the problem I see with that is that Jesus the person commanded us to live as he lived – not just label as he lived. So many times throughout Jesus’ life the roadblocks people encountered with him were because they weren’t ready to live as he lived (the Rich Young Ruler, the Pharisees, etc).

The “Gospel” is based on a life lived, not a construction of how to get saved.

The Gospel is meant to be a verb that describes an action; not a label of the ideal of someone’s actions for us.

So please, I ask you to stop saying the world Gospel and instead just faithfully live your life. The “Gospel” will be felt with more impact through active unspoken mediums than any intellectualized ones.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

In April 2010 I heard a man I know and respect greatly, Scot McKnight, speak about his understanding of the Gospel. Scot is a no-joke theologian and someone that when he talks, people (and I) listen. His talk about the Gospel peaked my interest because I had never really thought deeply about what I believed the Gospel is. My whole life I hear Christian folks constantly talking all of the time about:

preaching the Gospel

teaching the Gospel

spreading the Gospel

presenting the Gospel

After much reflection and study on my part since April, I have some very strong thoughts about what I believe the Gospel is. But before I post mine tomorrow, I would love to hear your thoughts first. Don’t worry – this isn’t a test and there are no right or wrong answers

What do you feel the Gospel is?

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org