Reflections on the Everything Must Change Tour, Part 1

I’m down to my last few hours before leaving for a trip to Africa to be part of the Amahoro-Africa gathering in Kigali, Rwanda. Before I finish (actually, start) packing, I want to thank everyone who participated in our recent eleven-city Everything Must Change tour. It was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life, and I believe that the ripples from our eleven gatherings will spread with good effect for many years to come.
As you can imagine, I’m unspeakably grateful to Linnea Nilsen Capshaw, founding partner of Deepshift.org, and colleague in this tour. Wise, sensitive to the Holy Spirit, gifted, highly competent, cheerful, fun-loving, and prone to erupt into laughter … she’s been a pleasure to work with.
Add to that pleasure the joy of working with Tracy Howe – our worship leader and co-producer of the tour CD, and Eric Haines – a man with many super-powers which include technical wizardry and old-fashioned helpfulness, and Jo and Will Burgess – newlyweds who helped us with all sorts of logistics before and during the tour.
Then I’m so grateful to all our sponsors – Emergent Village, the Sierra Club, Sojourners Faith and Justice Churches, the One Campaign, Mars Hill Graduate School, and Faith at Work.
To our official sponsors, I’d have to add my friend Ian Morgan Cron and the good people of Trinity Church in Greenwhich, CT, who generously covered basic expenses for one of our events.
We truly were partners in this tour, and we’ve truly become friends as well. If you don’t know about these organizations, I hope you’ll take a few minutes to check out their websites – and maybe get involved.
I’m equally grateful to two other groups of people …

… I’m so thankful to our amazing hosts in all eleven cities. Each host team worked so hard and was so hospitable. We truly couldn’t have done this without the amazing organizers, promoters, registrars, chair-movers, refreshment-preparers, packet-packers, musicians, tech people, prayer-leaders, station-preparers, and other volunteers who radiated love and joy in each city. And then there were the local voices who participated in our panels … You were amazing!
And finally, I want to express my thanks to all those who came to the events in Charlotte, Dallas, Boise, Tampa, DC, San Diego, Seattle, Chicago, Kansas City, the Bronx, and Goshen.
What an amazing thing – for people to devote a Friday night and all day Saturday to engage with global crises and to learn how the message of Jesus equips us to make a difference. We had people in their teens and people in their 90’s and everywhere in between. We had Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox … plus quite a few who wouldn’t call themselves Christians at all, but were interested in learning how they can work with Christians for the common good. We had people of all skin tones and political persuasions, and a good mix of women and men as well.
My only regret … well, I’ll save that for another post. For now, I just want to say thanks once more to all these people, and also to those who wished they could have been there but couldn’t make it. Many of you prayed for us, and for me in particular, and again, I want to say thanks – thanks to you and thanks to God for you.