A couple thousand folks piled into Discovery Church just outside Orlando. 
 
We were able to give a shout-out to the Florida based Coalition of Immokalee Workers [www.ciw-online.org/], a movement of migrant workers just around the corner who pick tomatoes and other veggies for companies like Taco Bell, Burger King, and Subway (years ago many of us marched from their farms to the growers association in Orlando with the words of James on our lips “The cries of the harvesters has reached the ears of the Lord Almighty)”.  These brothers and sisters are some of our heroes and have won major victories in recent years as they work for justice and living wages.
 
Our highlights from Orlando were the interactions after the presentation.  There was a lot of dreaming and scheming and plotting goodness.  One young girl (no more than 10) shared her struggle with whether or not to say the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag.  Shane told her he prays the Lord’s prayer any time folks are saying the Pledge to the flag (and only follows the flag when it follows Jesus).  She smiled, seemed to like that answer.
 
A sixteen year old kid doting a big VANS t-shirt told us he had just gotten his first job working for the VANS shoe company and had become concerned about where and how the shoes are made.  How incredible is it that 16-year old Christians are asking questions like that! (we wish that we, at sixteen, had been more concerned with who made our shoes than which color looked best on us)).  We encouraged our new VANS friend to take the opportunity to really do some research and raise those questions with humility and holy boldness, and to applaud the good things and expose the ugly things his research unveils.  He seemed excited to dive into that adventure as he re-defines his subversive purpose there.
 
We talked with some of the leaders of the mega-church hosting us and the gears were moving.  With fresh fire in their eyes they thought of all the potential they could have as a congregation.  Perhaps thinking of our new VANS friend, Chris told them to start small, perhaps with one thing they could do well and focus on – “like, what if you decided to make shoes.”  One of them said they had been thinking of exactly that and hosting meetings with funders just that week – creating some jobs in a missional kingdom business.   And there is certainly a need out there for Christians who want to support missional businesses that embody kingdom values.  This is the story of our own friends at Dotted Line shirts http://www.dottedlineshirts.com/.  They make the JFP t-shirts for the tour – each is made fair-trade, with eco-friendly inks, providing local jobs in Camden-Philly area. 
 
One of the main reasons for the tour has been to spark local revolutions of people who are changing their neighborhoods and world – and not just waiting for politicians to change the world for them.  These are the stories we love and share along the way — like the Christian Healthcare Ministries www.chministries.org/ (which started as 400 folks and now is 20,000 Christians sharing medical bills of over 12 million a year) or the Relational Tithe www.relationaltithe.com (where we share our 100% of our tithes with the needs of the poor in our neighborhoods and villages).  A congregation like Discovery Church (or the dozens we met on the tour) are catching a fire that really could transform the way we think of insurance, politics, tithing, missions – as we seek to be a Church that embodies the Good News in wholistic ways.  What a gift to see mega-congregations begin the journey by using fair-trade coffee and then growing into considering job-creation to make things people really need while providing jobs for folks who really need them.  But it doesn’t start with big visions, but with small things done with great love – like a 16 year old who wants to know the invisible faces behind his VANS. 
 
 A lot of folks have asked what we are reading as we travel.  Chris has finished Rene Girard (the Rene Girard Reader) Crossan’s God and Empire, and Howard-Brook and Gwyther’s Unveiling Empire (a study of Revelation), and Shane just finished the new Mother Teresa book Come Be My Light.  Now Chris is on to Thich Nhat Hahn’s Peace is Every Step and chewing through some of Nietzche’s challenges. Shane’s going to rock some fiction, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.