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 

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

About a month ago I got an email out of the blue from the City of Chicago. That’s usually never a good sign…

However this time it was awesome. In it, I was being asked to be one of three judges for the final night of competition for the 58th Annual City of Chicago and Chicago Park District Junior Citizen of the Year Award! The contestants have to be seniors in high school and meet an extensive criteria of grades, civic service and be involved with the Chicago Park District. They were nominated through a variety of routes; through Chicago government officials, regional directors of the Chicago Park District, high school administration, etc. Out of the hundreds that were nominated it has been whittled down to 12 finalists (6 males and 6 females). So this is the cream of the crop! The finals are held at Soldier Field (where the Chicago Bears play), and each finalist will have to give a speech and then participate in a public Q&A session, from questions asked by us judges, to score and rank. Previous to the finals, the contestants had to write a number of essays, all of which have been given to us well in advance to read and score. At the end of the night there will be a banquet dinner where the winners will be announced. Each of the top four winners all receive a nice chunk of scholarship money towards their college education, with only one student being named the 2011 City of Chicago and Chicago Park District Junior Citizen of the Year!

Tonight, Friday March 25th, is the night! I mean, what an honor to be selected as one of three judges who get to award extremely deserving young people actual money to better their lives through their college education! When I contacted the organizers back to say yes, I was wondering how I got selected as one of only three judges for this prestigious city-wide event. It turns out that someone who works at the corporate headquarters for the Chicago Park District follows the work of The Marin Foundation, and this blog, and thought because The Marin Foundation’s work is about reconciliation and strengthening community, in addition to the fact that I speak in public all of the time and face my fair share of criticism (so I know what it’s like to be judged), that I would be a good fit! The other two judges are pretty high-profile Chicago folks (one is an official from the Chicago Public Schools and the other heads up one of Chicago’s largest philanthropic organizations), and from what I understand everyone is going to be there tonight – the Mayor and a number of elected officials, professional athletes and the rest of Chicago’s elite!

I’m still floored… Can’t wait to see what happens.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

Two years ago today (Martin Luther King Jr. Day) I spoke on Capitol Hill the night before the Inauguration of President Barack Obama.

The event was an official Inauguration event, a series of government sponsored events that led up to the actual Inauguration ceremony of our country’s 44th President. This event consisted of two representatives from each of the major faiths that make-up America, to speak about something that reflects the essence of Martin Luther King Jr and the current state of our country.

It was a huge honor to be there, not just because I had the opportunity to speak on Capitol Hill during such a pivotal time in our country’s history, but because the other evangelical representative speaking was Dr. Vincent Harding, the former speech writer for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr! Here and here are two of Dr. Harding’s recent books. After MLK’s assassination, Harding worked closely with Coretta Scott King to preserve MLK’s legacy, including being the first Director of the only official MLK museum, the King Center, in Atlanta, GA.

I was humbled to find out that the talk that I gave that night (above) impacted the director of the Smithsonian Museum, who was in attendance that evening. Later, I received a document from the Smithsonian asking for my permission to archive my talk in our country’s history depository. Needless to say, I signed it and what you hear above will always be a part of our country’s history. To date, speaking on Capitol Hill with Martin Luther King Jr’s speech writer, leading to my talk being archived in the Smithsonian, the night before the Inauguration of President Obama, has been the biggest honor of my life.

It’s still amazing to me that any of this stuff has even happened. I was just a kid who moved into Boystown with my best friends because I loved them and wanted to seek the truth, because what I heard from the Church world about LGBTs and what I heard from LGBTs about the church world never matched up to any experiences I had in either community. Let’s keep this bridge building movement of reconciliation rolling…

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

Someone recently sent me this song and I started to cry like a little baby. So unbelievable…

I’d Need a Savior by Among the Thristy

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

I don’t want to clog any of what will be said with my words.

PLEASE READ THIS. (and the comment on the link by Jesse, who was also there)

If you have ever wondered about the work of The Marin Foundation, our Living in the Tension gatherings or what we’re all about – the above link will answer them all (maybe not to your satisfaction, but surely to mine).

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

My friend Chris Heuertz recently wrote something for Duke Divinity Faith and Leadership. You can see it here. In it, Chris is talking about me, and in reading it, it really touched my soul. I committed my life to playing baseball (I played Division I in college) and improving my abilities through the hard work that no one knew I did. This is the first time it has ever been made public. I had no idea Chris was writing this. And for it to be done in such a humbling way by Chris tying it into a deep spiritual lesson, it means more to me than I can express.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

There are a few times in life where your heart is truly touched—and here are three of them that have happened recently that not only brought me to tears, but gave me some encouraging perspective on what I’m actually doing through The Marin Foundation.

1. A year and a half ago a guy wrote a really nasty blog post about me—he didn’t know me, he never talked to me and never came to anything I’ve ever done. And then yesterday I saw these words posted by him on the Neue Podcast comment section:

Andrew Marin has a very non-judgmental spirit and I appreciate what he is doing to reach out to what the church often wrongly considers “untouchables”.

Kurt

2. I recently received a Facebook message from a person who is a Campus Pastor in Philadelphia that said:

Just thought I would let you know…some of our students from the Christian fellowship on campus are reaching out to the GLBT Pride group this week. It is a first step hang out game night. It is a direct result of them coming to your talk at Jubilee Conference about how to build bridges on college campuses. Thank you.

3. There is a team of pastors from North Carolina who have flown in for three days to learn from what The Marin Foundation is doing in hopes they can better build bridges to their own local community in Raleigh. They came to the Living in the Tension Community Gathering last night, I will meet with them all day today and then they are all going to my speaking event tonight at Willow Creek (which is open to the public and starts at 8pm – at the Barrington campus).

This is the first time anything like this has happened, and it’s such a humbling thing to realize that what you’re doing, other people see important enough to take time to fly out and be a part of it themselves. This is an honor that will stick with me for a long, long time.

Much love.
www.themarinfoundation.org