The following open letter has been signed by 500+ Wheaton alum since Friday evening, and you can sign it as well here.

Dear Wheaton Presidential Selection Committee,

As an academic institution and as a Christian community, Wheaton recognizes the importance of diversity and has acted successfully on it. The selection committee, chosen to help select the next Wheaton president, also recognizes the importance of diversity and includes this as part of its “Commitment” section in the concise “qualifications desired”:

To champion ethnic, economic, and gender diversityCompared to other academic institutions, the percentage of white and male Christian college presidents in the CCCU is much higher than in their secular counterparts (currently there are no minority CCCU presidents and only 2% female, compared to 12.8% and 21.1% respectively in all national institutions). Wheaton College has had seven presidents over the course of its 150 year history and Litfin began his tenure as Wheaton College’s seventh white male president in 1993. We should acknowledge that our historical prejudices would probably not have allowed it otherwise, but a lot has changed in the 17 years since Wheaton last had the chance to select a president.

We strongly encourage the committee to search diligently for a female or minority candidate to be in the final pool of candidates. It is not enough to hope that qualified women and minorities will present themselves. Wheaton should make diversity of primary importance in considering the leader of this great academic institution for Christ and His Kingdom.

The Selection Committees deadline for applications is next week (Nov. 1st) and so we are trying to gather signatures as quickly as possible. The hope is that this letter will serve as an accountability check on the process, recognizing that diversity isn’t something we just pay lip service to, but that we actively have to work against some of the systemic discrimination that exist in the system.

After posting this letter on my own facebook page and sending a note out to all my fellow Wheaton alum, I received a rather negative comment about this sort of “affirmative action” being “racist” and discriminatory. It was a pretty harsh critique, but seeing as the letter had already garnered several signatures in a couple hours, I felt I wasn’t alone in my beliefs. Before I had time to respond to the comment another friend, Indie, gave this brilliant response that I’ll include below. I think this comment is a great summary as to why a letter like the above is so important to keeping our “christian” institutions accountable.

That depends on your definition of qualified. “Qualified” has traditionally been defined in a way that excludes the experience of women and minorities. For example, if unpaid volunteer experience is considered to be less than paid experience then by and large women are being excluded because they tend to spend a large amount of their time not working in order to serve others. As a Christian institution, Wheaton should be recruiting leaders based on Christian values. Giving up your income to serve others is very Christlike, but it seldom wins you any fans on the types of boards that choose presidents of universities.

Another thing that might be looked at is where a candidate did his or her course work. Will the committee take into consideration that some candidates were excluded from even attending many schools in the past (including many Christian schools) due to their race?

The biblical precedent for this sort of thing is jubilee. Those who had failed and missed out in the past (due to injustice or their parents or whatever) were given another chance, an equal playing ground. We need to really clearly understand that women and minorities have not been given an equal playing ground and take that into consideration.

The letter simply asks that a minority or woman be in the final pool of candidates. That is not too much to ask. If 50 percent of the final pool is not female, the leaders at Wheaton should be asking themselves long hard questions about the fairness of the system to begin with. Unless they truly believe that women are inferior. In that case they should be upfront about it. Likewise, minorities should be represented in proportion at least to their existence within the Christian community. The fact that we have to be so intentional to make this so points to the systemic unfairness of the system in the first place rather than the unfairness of the request for equal representation.

Please consider signing the letter and passing it on to your friends and fellow Wheaton grads and students to sign as well.

I’m not usually one to play the salesman role, nor am I one to plan much in advance. However, this year we managed to order some fair-trade (read: Slave Free) mini dark chocolate bars for Halloween. The deal is though that you have to buy in bulk, 888 bars of chocolate for $144, which evens out to 16 cents a bar. And you need to order right now so you have it in time for Halloween. Just do it now and then sell the candy to your friends and neighbors who probably haven’t run by the store to stock up on their trick-or-treat handouts either.

Order Here.

Read about child labor in the chocolate Industry here. and here. and here.

If I’ve had an impact on your life, consider having an impact on someone elses

The one thing I think about each year when my birthday rolls around is whether or not my life (and the past year) has had a positive impact on those around me. If I’ve had a positive impact on you let me know and consider doing something intentional …Read More

The one thing I think about each year when my birthday rolls around is whether or not my life (and the past year) has had a positive impact on those around me.
If I’ve had a positive impact on you let me know and consider doing something intentional to have a positive impact on others. I’ve listed 5 things that make up my birthday wishlist for this year. Consider doing one of them and then let me know about it (or not).

1. Become a mentor ( http://www.bbbs.org , Kinship, Bolder Options)
2. Eat Fair Trade chocolate or give up chocolate for a year. http://bit.ly/lqC1R
3. Sponsor a child ( http://www.worldvision.org/ http://www.compassion.com )
4. Take a person in need out to a nice dinner or hold a banquet for a larger group http://bit.ly/2ytjsX
5. Loan money to someone through http://kiva.org

And if your not comfortable doing any of the things I listed pick something else: bike to work, donate blood, volunteer at a domestic abuse shelter, pay for the persons toll behind you, give all your money away, become an organ donor, adopt a child, give away your nicest coat and don’t buy a new one, smile.

(Via my Birthday Wishlist on Facebook Causes)

And for other random birthday fun, become a fan of these Facebook Pages below:

(And become a Friend on Google Connect)

Last summer, I was walking around the block with my daughter when one of the neighborhood kids came up to me, “do you have a wrench?” I sure did, so I grabbed my wrench and we walked over to see what the fix-it project was. Turns out the kid was swapping some stuff on some bikes so he’d have something to ride. I assessed the situation and said:

“Actually, what you need is a chain tool.” I ran inside and grabbed my small handy little device for removing a bike chain. When I came out and showed the kids how to use it, I was instantly transformed from that random neighbor who walks around with his kid all the time to The Bike Guy (I’d like to think of it as on par with super hero status).  Soon, I had neighborhood kids coming over all the time to make adjustments and patch tires. We’d sit on the porch together and I’d show them some of the basics (I honestly don’t know all that much myself).

Fast forward to this summer, We have a growing pile of dismantled bikes in our backyard, the kids are still knocking on the door daily asking to use tools, I even bought a few thrift store bikes and gave them away, flats are still a regular repair…and then my bike pump broke. I’d had some ideas brewing for a while, but now with the need to dig up some money for some new tools, I decided to put them into action.

I got approval for a neighborhood block grant to organize a community “bike safety” event to give youth bike locks, and then I’ll also use grant money to purchase a set of tools and a whole stockpile of patches, tubes and more. And recently, I’ve been talking about Eli about what a northside bike project might look like.

I have a small vision right now: Ensuring every kid in my neighborhood, that wants one, has a bike and a lock. Hopefully along the way we can teach some basic bike maintenance, build some relationships, and have some fun. Interested in getting involved? Let me know.

Monday’s are my blog reading day, I go through all the posts in my reader and tag ones to come back to, skim most and respond to others. One post mentioned Gladwell’s book, Outliers, which I read last year and his premise that “Becoming a superstar takes about 10,000 hours of hard work.” And just like that, I decided I needed to start blogging again. I took a break earlier this summer to focus on a few other projects. Though I did concentrate my energy elsewhere, I still wasted enough time in the day to day that I could have been writing.

So, here I am, back with some daily posting. The reality is that I enjoy writing, if only because it helps me process my thoughts. I feel I frequently find myself saying that I’m not a very good writer, but that I tend to say things I don’t see being said. So, until someone comes around and starts saying these things more eluquently then I (which wouldn’t be hard), I’m going to keep saying them. And that’s true. At the same time, I find that each day that I write I’m slowly refining my craft and becoming a better writer. Maybe not great, but better.

It might not be till I’m fifty, but if I keep writing on a daily basis, I’ll hit my 10,000 hours of writing in plenty of time to share that skill with others afterward. Here’s to trucking toward 10,000.

I’ve only written 4 blog post in the last month and a half, but it doesn’t seem like you missed it too much. The break, which I have every intention of continuing in some form or fashion, has been beneficial. I’ve focused my energy a little more and cut back where I could. At the same time, I didn’t replace blogging with other writing, which is what I had fully intended to do. Honestly, some of my time was just squandered away playing a ridiculous flash game that will remain unnamed.

Here’s some of what I’ve been working on lately and what’s been on my mind:

• InsideNorthside.org is the project I’ve been contributing most of my energy to over the past month. I’ve carved out a few hours a week to meet with people and organizations in the neighborhood to try and spread the word about the effort. It’s basically an encyclopedia (built of the wikipedia model of user contributions) for North Minneapolis. I’ve met with some great organizations, our council person and even the mayor. My plan is to spend maybe another month to try and spread the word and hopefully “sell” folks on the idea. People are very receptive of the idea, but very few people have actually made contributions. Anyways, that’s where most of my free time has gone.
• Summer has meant a lot more time outside with the kiddos, parks, bike rides, libraries, you name it. Add a couple recent road trips and it’s wound up being a busy summer.
• I started reading again, after about a 6 month break without finishing a single book. Recently I’ve read: Work Hard. Be Nice. which is about KIPP Academy a very successful charter school; The Glass Castle, a memior; Finding an Unseen God, reflections of a former athiest; and  maybe one or two others I can’t remember right now.

And of course now the kids are waking up, so my time here is almost done. My current plan is to write one short thoughtful blog post a week, probably following a certain topic or train of thought (consistently is the plan). So, help me choose the first topic thread to begin with:

• money and finances
• church
• parenting
• neighborhood and community

Or if you’ve got something else you think I might like discussing leave a suggestion.

As I mentioned last week, I’ve got a lot of random things I’m working on at the moment and thus have been brain dead for new blog material. That said, the other projects are things I would love to have some input on. Here’s a few things I’m working on, of which I could use some feedback, so if your interested, it would be appreciated.

• A short article for Geez Magazine about our experiment in using female pronouns for God (on which there is still a great ongoing conversation, thanks to Phil).  I want to write about what I got out of the experiment, include what I learned from others responses.
• An article for Consp!re magazine about Food Not Bombs on Sunday mornings. It’ll be a shorter version of Sundays With The Anarchist, which I first posted at JesusManifesto.
• InsideNorthside marketing. InsideNorthside is a project I think could have some real value in our local community, sometimes I’m not so sure. But I want to give it a shot and that means putting a little thought into how to explain the project to others simply and concisely. I could really use some input on that (thanks to Trevor for already giving me some valuable guidance).

Those are the main things for now. I’m gonna work on both the articles online, so if you want to take a peek I would really love some feedback. Leave a comment and I’ll send you the article. Peace.

I just don’t have a lot of new thoughts to share on here. Could be my mind is spinning with other ideas or projects, but mostly my writing has reached a semi-lull. For better or worse, I’ve got a bit of a writers block.

That said, I’d really love some feedback on Monday’s post, How Much Is Enough? I know a lot of people read it, and I’m just curious of where people stand, what thoughts folks have.

Take a minute and leave a comment on Monday’s post, if you don’t mind.