The English style of spirituality is a rhythm of worship, work, reading, and leisure.  This is an unfrantic response to God who is, as Lewis insisted, always a courteous Lord.  Life-style is revealed by the use of time: what is given place and space; what is included and what, therefore, is excluded.

What we see in Lewis is the steady place of his parish church; the quiet regularity of his Bible-reading and prayers; the natural large place for his main work of study and writing; the large blocks of time for leisurely conversations with special friends; and the importance of letter writing, especially with those who sought his help in the matter of Christian pilgrimage.  For all of his immense output of literary work, his life is marked by a spacious, unfrantic rhythm of worship, work, conversation, availability, and intimacy.

Paul Ford, C.S. Lewis ‘English Spirituality’, C.S. Lewis Foundation in San Diego

On Sunday, November 22nd at the legendary Moore Theater in Seattle, plan on joining us as we host the 2nd annual Consider Concert.

Inspired by the vibrant enthusiasm of Kim Evanger Raney, whose life was unexpectedly cut short at the age of 26.  We are reminded of the gift of each day, so Consider Concert is a celebration of life– taking a night to stop, breath deep, and think big.

The evening will include performances from Shawn McDonald, Ruth, and Phillip LaRue, and through the Kim Evanger Raney Foundation, the concert proceeds will go directly to the underprivileged and oppressed youth of the Northwest and around the world.  The foundation partners with organizations such as International Justice Mission, Childhaven, Royal Family Kids Camps, Seattle Children’s Hospital, Special Olympics, and Bicycle Alliance of Washington.  Thank you to all who supported last years event– through your support and attendance you helped to raise over $20,000 for underprivileged youth.

Get YOUR tickets and come join us for this important night of music and reflection at the historic Moore Theatre in downtown Seattle on Sunday, Nov. 22nd.

Having just dominated my September 7th wedding with my epic bride, I’m now guest blogging on WeddingWindow’s blog, www. WedLoft.com.  My latest post is entitled, “How to Twitter Your Wedding“, and offers some thoughts and tips on connecting with your wedding audience throughout the engagement and wedding season via Twitter.

Image from weddingwindow.com

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;–

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

A Psalm of Life (excerpt), Henry Longfellow Wadsworth

This is what happens when abolitionists win:

On July 28, IJM Cambodia (International Justice Mission) and local police conducted a successful rescue operation at a remote brothel: 20 girls and young women were removed from the building in the coordinated operation, and all perpetrators were arrested.  The brothel owner, formerly an officer in the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, initially attempted to escape by jumping from a second floor balcony over a brick wall, but was pursued by police and ultimately found hiding in a shed.  The brothel was particularly cruel; the girls and women there were never free to leave alone and were sent to service customers at local casinos each night.  One of the girls said to IJM staff, “Now we’re out of hell and going to paradise!”  The victims are receiving care from IJM social workers as they share their stories with local authorities.  IJM will ensure that each victim is equipped with the aftercare services she needs in collaboration with local partners.  The accused perpetrators are in police custody.

dditionally, one of IJM’s South Asia teams conducted an operation in collaboration with local police at a brothel – the operation, a result of IJM investigative work, brought freedom to seven trafficking victims. Six suspected perpetrators were taken into police custody duing the rescue operation. The freed women and girls are being cared for by IJM social workers as they share their stories with authorities. (Originally posted on the IJM Institute)

This is why Climb For Captives supports IJM– learn more about the great work of IJM at www.ijm.org and you can follow them on Twitter at @ijmhq.

People climb for many different reasons.  But we climb for the captives—the nearly 27 million men, women, and children who are bound in slavery and illicit human trafficking.

You will be shocked (and we hope you are) to know that  that, despite living at the historical zenith of wealth, political freedom, and self-actualization, there are more people living in slavery today than ever before.  The statistics are staggering and the total market value of illicit human trafficking is estimated to be in excess of US$32 billion (UN), or more money earned by Google, Nike, and Starbucks combined.

Although our history books teach us that slavery was abolished in the 1800s, the reality is that there are more slaves in the world today than ever before, and modern slavery manifests itself in a host of nefarious ways.  Forced labor, child soldiering, unjust detention, the commercial sex trade—slavery in the modern world knows no creative bounds.

As if a shadow cast beneath the extraordinarily active and interconnected global economy, human trafficking is quickly becoming the most expansive criminal industry in the world today, rivaling even the drug and arms trades.  The commercial sex trade perhaps epitomizes the cruelest forms of this practice, with each year, more than 2 million children are exploited in the global commercial sex trade (UNICEF).  Despite the almost universal outrage over this injustice, sex trafficking remains one of the most profitable form of human trafficking, manifesting as prostitution, pornography, bride trafficking, and the sexual abuse of children for profit.  This epidemic is not solely a “overseas” phenomenon either.  An estimated 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked annually in the United States alone and the number of US citizens trafficked within the country is estimated to be even higher with an estimated 200,000 American children being at risk for trafficking into the sex industry each year.

Driving this underground economy of slavery is, at heart, a worldview that regards people as commodities—whether inhumanely working a man and his family to exhaustion to pay off debt, or subjecting young children to service the sexually demented of our world, the modern day slave trade is empowered by a deranged mindset that aggressively defies the innate dignity in each and every person.

We hear often about the audacious claims by abolitionists to end the modern day slave trade which oppresses nearly 27 million people through forced labor, prostitution, and indentured servitude.  But what is the purported abolition of slavery without the restoration of the soil in which this ancient weed has sprouted, for as William Wilberforce so insightfully remarked, “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.”  There will be no abolition of slavery without the reformation of our society, and it is to this end we must labor.

So the question is not why we climb.  What we and our supporters know, is that it is the who we climb for that makes Climb For Captives so compelling:

We climb to give a voice to the voiceless.

We climb to give hope to the hopeless.

We climb to advance the modern day abolitionist movement.

We climb to inspire a generation to radical generosity, solidarity, and activism to end slavery in our lifetime.

**photo by ThEssenceOfFaith.  Statistics provided by Kevin Bales @ NotForSale, International Justice Mission, the UN, and UNICEF.

Many of you joined me last year in the global fight against Human Trafficking by supporting the 2008 Climb for Captives.  As we continue preparing for the 2009 climb, which will be taking place on August 14-16th, we need your help to launch a global awareness campaign.  For this years climb we will be partnering with the International Justice Mission (www.IJM.org) to raise $40,000 to free slaves in India and we want to spread the word to EVERY corner of the globe!  We will be launching our new website on July 4th,  Independence Day here in the US, to signify our commitment to freedom for ALL, and we need your help to make the launch a success.

HERE is a video with instructions for how you can participate in our I Support Climb for Captives campaign.  Basically, we are trying to get as many of our friends around the globe to take photos of themselves with a sign that says “I Support Climb for Captives” (and has their city/country in parentheses) in front of famous landmarks in their area (i.e. Statue of Liberty, the White House, Mt. Rushmore, the Pyramids, Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall, etc).  We are trying to get photos from every state in the USA and every continent of the world!

We would like to have several pictures on the website by the time we go public on July 4th and that is why we need your help now.  If you could take some time in the next week to take a photo in your area it would be a huge help for us as we try to gain some momentum early in our launch.  You can either email the photos directly to me or send them to the site mentioned in the video.

Thanks again for your support and your friendship.  Stay tuned for other ways you can be involved in the 2009 Climb for Captives!

We’ve all been to one.  Many of us have been involved in one.  And many more of you have planned, hosted, enjoyed, (survived), and celebrated your own.  As I now stand at the outset of my own engagement, I am like a sponge ready to soak up the collective wedding wisdom that abounds in my community.  Tell us what we need to know!

Post in comments.  Post on our Facebook walls.  Send us emails.  Call us.  Tweet us.  Do whatever you must, just don’t keep your experience, advice, and counsel to yourself!

On Sunday afternoon overlooking the Sydney skyline at sunset, I asked Vanessa Larkin to marry me.  She graciously said, “YES!”

It was a sacred time, not only because I kissed the love of my life for the very first time, but although we have only been dating for six months, there is an undeniable sense of togetherness and joy, in not only simply being together, but in looking to our future– knowing that our marriage will be a trophy of Jesus’ extravagant love and His mighty power to save.  This is a humbling, epic, and joyful time that we are thrilled to share with our incredible community of friends and family around the world.

You can see many of our photos from Down Under HERE.  Our official wedding website is at robandvanessa.weddingwindow.com (the beta launch!), and you can follow us on Twitter at @robandvanessa for all the essential updates leading up to our wedding!

This past weekend was full of more conferencing than I’ve been involved with in a long time.  The 2009 Pacific Northwest Microfinance Conference was visited by an all star lineup of practitioners from some of the leading microfinance organizations in the world, including Kiva.org, WorldVision, Esperanza International, and Agros.

Just down the street was the Freedom Initiative’s UNBOUND Anti-Human Trafficking Conference, a great breakthrough in unifying Seattle’s many abolitionists in a meaningful weekend spearheaded by the student-led Freedom Initiative.  I was honored to lead a workshop on the topic: Social Entrepreneurship and the Abolitionist Movement, and my presentation is posted online at HERE.

Speaking of which, to present the content for the workshop, I did a last-minute switch from Microsoft PowerPoint to www.Prezi.com, and I must say I have never been more impressed with a free, web-based app than I have with Prezi.  It has completely changed how I will share presentations from now on.  Check it out!