My Ounce of Prevention

© Mark W. Pettigrew
It's been said that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". Today, I find myself meditating on the meaning of that saying, particularly with regard to its relevance to the issue of homelessness.

If you're a Christian, you probably find yourself thinking from time to time about what heaven will be like. You may be one of those who bought Randy Alcorn's book "Heaven", or the more recent book "Heaven is For Real" by Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent. You may be convinced by Colton Burpo's childhood story of having been taken to heaven (in the midst of a medical crisis where his father thought that he might die). Or you may have your own ideas about what heaven will be like.

You may even disbelieve in heaven, if you are not a Christian believer. But even if that's the case, I think that the chances are extremely good that your vision of what heaven is like, or might be like if only you could believe in heaven, does not include homeless shelters.

You may prefer to shut your eyes and pretend that homelessness isn't an issue, but wishful thinking will not make the problem go away. In fact, the more you try to ignore the problem, the more likely the problem is to persist.

According to the Bible, there will be no homeless shelters in heaven, for the simple reason that there will be no homeless people in need of such shelters. . According to John 14:2, Jesus is preparing "many mansions" for those who will destined to go to heaven. Who needs a shelter, when you have a mansion?

The Bible describes Christ as our "hope of glory". Heaven will indeed be glorious! But lest we forget, we're not there yet. Here on earth, poverty remains a big problem. Homelessness exists because poverty exists. Some personal problems (such as substance abuse) can increase the likelihood of becoming homeless, but the truth is that no one is immune. Not even Jesus, who was perfect, was immune to homelessness when he walked the earth. Speaking about Jesus, the Bible tells us the following in Luke 9:58: "Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to rest his head."

In his song "You Did Not Have A Home", Christian singer Rich Mullins sang:

Birds have nests, foxes have dens
But the hope of the whole world rests
On the shoulders of a homeless man...

Compared with unbelievers, Christian churches and parachurch organizations have been relatively good about ministering to the needs of the poor, the homeless, and the down and out. Even so, I can't help but think that we believers aren't doing nearly as much as we ought to do.  "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven" says the Lord's prayer. To pray the God's will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven, is to hold extremely high standards (as we ought to do). It is sheer hypocrisy to pray that God's will be done here on earth, if one is not doing God's will here on earth!  

God has has already done far more than any person could reasonably expect him to do, and he continues to do so. Now it's time for you to do your part. Prayer is good; but if that's all you are doing for the kingdom, then I say that it's time for you to get off you butt, and start doing! I call it the Prayer Plus Plan. Prayer plus meaningful action beats prayer alone almost every time. (The book of James affirms that such is the case.) There are occasional times when one can't really do much but pray, but such instances are surprisingly rare. We often have a lot more power than we realize, especially if we all join forces in pursuit of common goals. Time's a'wastin'; let's get crackin'.

Homeless people very rarely become homeless overnight. They become homeless, usually, after a prolonged period of begging fruitlessly for help. I wish that it were not so, but my personal experience as made me aware that the church is full of a lot of believers who are as dense as lead when it comes to understanding how much their own indifference to the material needs of others helps to contribute to the problem of homelessness.

A lot of folks would rather make excuses than get things done when those things need to be done. Instead of worrying about who gets the credit, we need to focus on helping people and giving God the glory.

I'm not saying that I don't appreciate those who contribute their finances and their volunteer hours (or professional services) to the homeless shelters in their communities. But what I am saying is that it doesn't even come close to what ought to be done. Even the best homeless shelters are stopgap measures at best.  (The American Heritage Dictionary defines the phrase "stopgap measure" as "an improvised substitute for something lacking; a temporary expedient.")

We need a whole lot more than token gestures and stopgap measures. If a stopgap measure is "an improvised substute for something lacking," then what we ought to be asking ourselves is, "What is lacking? Why are we willing to settle for an improvised temporary substitute, when we should settle for nothing less than what we really need?

Maybe the reason we so often settle is that many of us have managed to delude themselves into thinking that we aren't at risk of homelessness. It's "not our problem", we think, so we tend to put it on the back burner of our priorities.

If you're ever lost a job, or experienced a natural disaster (such as the tornados and floods and hurricanes and earthquakes which have laid waste to numerous communities, just in this year alone), then you realize (if you are a thoughtful person) that you are vulnerable to homelessness, no matter how self-sufficient you may think you are. If it's not a natural disaster, or a medical emergency (such as the stroke I had in June, 2011), it's a corporate layoff or any number of other things which can cause one to be unable to stay paid up on one's mortgage or one's rent.

Homelessness is utterly incompatible with God's kingdom. If you call Jesus Lord, and you're content to turn a blind eye to the needs of the poor and the homeless, then you, my friend, are lying to yourself and (probably) to others.

God's kingdom begins here and now (on earth, as it is in heaven), in your own mind and heart and manner of responding to the needs with whom you are surrounded. You have a personal vested interest in doing all you can do to make a positive difference in the lives of the homeless or nearly homeless people in this world, because you are not nearly as invincible as you may think that you are. It isn't just a matter of doing the morally right thing. It's also a matter of enlightened self-interest.

Don't wait until you have been made aware that your next door neighbor is about to lose his or her home or apartment. If necessary, open up your home, in a display of true Christian hospitality. Jesus not only took a risk for you, he sacrificed it all. So stop worrying about how "risky" it is for you to care for others. A much bigger risk, my friends, is that you will stand before God on judgment day, when you will most assuredly have to answer for how you have treated the "least of these" in their moments or hours of need. In fact, that's not a risk so much as it is a certainty.

Supporting your local homeless shelter is admittedly better than nothing, but I want to encourage the readers of this blog post to take the next logical step. Stop passing the buck to the "professionals", and start becoming part of a real community of your own making. Use the brain and the resources God gave to you for a reason, and start working towards the goal of helping other people (and especially other Christians, if you are a believer) to truly prosper, so that they can likewise bless other people in your community (which, FYI, is now the entire world, but especially includes your nearest neighbors).

I understand that there are some people who are homeless as a result of unwise decisions they have made, particularly with regard to substance abuse, but that is not the entire story. Was Jesus addicted to alcohol or drugs? Was he guilty of any crime? On that contrary, there was no fault to be found in him. Yet, he was still homeless, according to the scriptures. So instead of playing the blame game, take ownership of your own actions. Show the same grace and mercy God has shown to you to other imperfect human beings. Be an instrument of hope and healing. Dispense with the self-righteousness, and choose instead to show some compassion and humility.

I myself am very limited in what I can do, in terms of material things, but what I can do, I pledge to do  (with the resources of the ArtisticRescue Project, and my related project, the Chapel Network News), for as long as God gives me breath. Please partner with me in that effort of mine.

If one ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, imagine what all of us can do when we add all of our little "onces" together into one massive pile.

A Sample Image

© Mark W. Pettigrew

The following image is a sample of the original photos I hope to sell here, in the form of prints, for the purpose of raising funds for charitable causes such as World Vision and Convoy of Hope.

When ordering prints of this photo, you should ask for Image 019 in the form of an 8x10 print with an Inset Image.

About Chapel Network News

© Mark W. Pettigrew

If you've read some of the articles in this blog, you know that the Artistic Rescue Project exists partly out of my desire to raise funds for existing reputable organizations and charities .

Such organizations do a lot of good in the world. But there is also a need, it seems to me, for people to have a means of directly communicating their needs with people (and especially with Christians) who might be willing and able to help to meet those needs.

Relying solely on big organizations and big projects is a pretty easy way to insure that some people will always fall through the cracks. One size rarely if ever fits all.

Therefore, I have long had a dream of creating a classified ad publication specifically for the purpose of enabling Christians to directly communicate their needs, projects, ideas and more with other Christians.

The concept itself, in its most basic form, has been rattling around in my brain for 20 years, or even longer. But the vision has undergone significant modifications over the years, thanks in large part to improvements in technology.

The option of publishing documents in the form of downloadable PDF files and eBook files did not yet exist. In the early years, I could not see how I could create my publication without getting substantial funding for printing and distribution purposes. It would have been extraordinarily expensive to print physical copies and  distribute them via all of the churches in any given region. Worldwide distribution wasn't even conceivable to me.

But the Internet changed the paradigm. These days, worldwide distribution should be no more difficult or expensive than distribution to a church located right down the block.

Tonight, I just registered two new domain names, specifically ChapelNetwork.com and ChapelNetwork.info. I intend to use those web addresses in order to take people to web pages, or a dedicated web site, where they will be able to download the Chapel Network News in the form of PDF documents. I hope that Chapel Network News will develop into such a popular resource for various believers that new editions will be issued frequently, possibly even in regional editions which focus on different areas of the nation. But the nice thing about PDF publications is that they can be revised as often, or as seldom, as circumstances and needs require.

Hmmm. It occurs to me that I may need to call my project Chapel Network News International (CNNI), in order to distinguish between my project and CNN (Cable Network News). Or maybe I'll just use the web address, ChapelNetwork.com, as the name of the company itself.

In any event, inasmuch as I am currently attending Hillcrest Chapel (an Assemblies of God church in Bellingham, WA), I have decided to call the publication Chapel Network News.

However, I've left off the word "Hillcrest", partially because I don't want to expose myself to legal liability (since this project is not an official project of Hillcrest Chapel (although I am hoping that Hillcrest Chapel will both endorse and use this classified ads publication), but also because I don't want to limit the applicability of this project to my own church. I really see it as being applicable to the needs of all Christian churches and their members. I want people to see Chapel Network News as a transdenominational means of communicating with other Christians in town, or in the region, or even clear across the world.

Even if most individual churches offered the means of easily communicating with individual Christians within those congregations (and it's a demonstrable fact that many of them do not do so), the fact would remain that it is often needlessly difficult to publicize various needs and projects in an efficient manner which reaches really large numbers of believers, without regard for geographical barriers or denominational barriers.

I figure that Chapel Network News is a perfect match with the Artistic Rescue Project. In addition to offering a means of publicizing a wide variety of Christ-centered opportunities to meet the needs of others, the Chapel Network News will also enable me to more effectively publicize the Artistic Rescue Project and various other related projects and needs.

Conversely, sales made in connection with the Artistic Rescue will help to raise funds for my basic living expenses, and that will somewhat reduce the need to monetize Chapel Network News in other ways.

Eventually, I'll have separate websites and subsites focusing on each project, but in the short term, the two are so closely related that I'm going to use this blog site in order to furnish information pertaining to both projects.

Stay tuned.

What Will Set Us Apart

© Mark W. Pettigrew

When planning The Artistic Rescue Project, I've found it very helpful to do research pertaining to the things various nonprofits and charities are already doing for fundraising purposes.

Sometimes, I've gotten some very good ideas, which might be adapted to this project, in various ways. In other cases, however, I've gotten more ideas with regard to how not to do things.

That's not to say that I think that such strategies are horrible. Usually, they aren't. Such strategies may even be effective, to some extent, as long as organizational objectives and goals are fairly modest, and as long as efficiency is low on the list of priorities.

If that's the case, one's particular fundraising strategy is almost irrelevant, as long as money is occasionally changing hands. One can even raise funds by setting up bake sales at local churches, if one's expectations are modest. One probably won't make very much money, and such events are often more trouble than they're worth, but they do sometimes make money, and maybe even a modest profit which repays the cost of the groceries needed to make those products. (It really isn't true profit, if the fundraising event merely breaks even, but that's usually enough to make such people happy, since the real objective is often to keep the organization in the public eye, in the hope of getting additional support later on, in the form of straight-up donations.)

However, most professional organizations want to be able to rely on professional methodologies, not on luck.

Helpful Churches Needed

© Mark W. Pettigrew

This isn't the time or place for me to publish an entire autobiography, but I'd like to share a few relevant facts which would help to explain the relationship between my life story, my new project The Christian Arts Initiative (of which the Artistic Rescue Project is one very important component) and the Artistic Rescue Project.

MY EARLY YEARS

There was almost never a time in my life when I wasn't involved with the church in one way or another. Thanks in part to the numerous hours I'd spent as a child, sitting in the front pew listening to my father's sermons, I already had some sense of the importance of morality by the time when I was in grade school. I should give him credit for that.

But there were already some serious discrepancies between my father's public professions of faith and the manner in which he lived life when he was not standing behind a pulpit.

To this day, even after his death in 1999, I still wonder how much of his preaching was a reflection of what he genuinely believed, and how much was an example of his skills in the art of mimicry. He was always very good at saying what he knew other people expected him to say. As a public speaker, he was skilled enough to easily impress the farmers and rural people who attended the small Methodist churches where he "served". I was also easily impressed, of course, since he was mostly the only "pastor" I'd ever had for any length of time, at that age. (Also, I was at an age when I was still inclined to want to admire him.)

But I also saw what he was like when he had let his guard down. I only rarely observed the fruit of the Spirit in his life. In fact, my father almost never discussed God when he was not in church, and his "prayer life" such as it was, mostly amounted to him saying grace at the dinner table. I can't honestly recall that he ever led or even participated in a family Bible study at home. I guess I should be grateful that he even did what he did, but in hindsight, it seems to me that one ought to be able to expect more from an alleged man of God. I also can't forget the way that he stood in opposition to my efforts to seek God later in my life, after I'd accepted Christ as lord and savior. (But I'm getting ahead of myself slightly.)

It also didn't help much that I often went to sleep while listening to loud verbal fights between my father and my mother. Their marriage was in trouble for years, before it finally ended in divorce.

I was therefore in serious need of emotional and spiritual rescue by the time I had reached the 8th grade. My grades in school were slipping badly. Ditto for my self-esteem and my relationships with my parents.  (All of those things were closely connected.)

Corporate Sponsors Needed

© Mark W. Pettigrew

I'm currently looking at an ad for the SISU Children's Fund (a Bellingham nonprofit charity) on page 46 of the July 2011 issue of Entertainment News Northwest, a magazine published and distributed in Bellingham. A good 85% to 90% of the ad seems to consist of a list of businesses who supported the group's recent fundraising event, according to the ad copy. The list includes a bank, a tire store, a restaurant, a fine art studio, a golf club, and much more.

While donations from individual donors are obviously important components in fundraising efforts for most charities and nonprofit groups, such donations aren't always enough to enable such nonprofit groups to even survive, much less meet all of their fundraising goals. That's why corporate sponsorships are so important.

One benefit to such sponsors, of course, is that there may be tax deductions associated with such sponsorships (provided that the organization has 501(c)3 status, or that it is operating under the umbrella of another related organization which does).

Another benefit may be that the companies which help to sponsor such charities can enhance the perceptions of people in the community, in terms of seeing those businesses as important members of that community, regardless of how large that community might be. When people perceive that particular businesses or business people have helped to sponsor worthy charities and organizations, they tend to think more favorably of those companies, whenever they are seeking to purchase products and/or services.

A third benefit, especially in this age of the Internet, may be that the organizations which benefit from such corporate sponsorships may return the favor by linking from their web sites to the web sites for those businesses. There can be real tangible benefits connected with such links, since web traffic can make the difference between a web site which achieves what is intended and a web site which does not do so. Not every business uses e-commerce in order to do business directly, but for those which do, that's an especially powerful incentive for sponsoring worthy causes and organizations.

Sponsorship can come in many forms. On the most basic level, sponsors can offer written endorsements and/or testimonies (as well as audio or video versions of those endorsements and testimonies), which can be indirectly valuable in terms of persuading people that the nonprofit groups or charities are worthy of their support. That really isn't much to ask. It costs little or nothing to take a few minutes to write such materials, and only a little bit more time to create audio and/or video versions of the same.

At the next level, the sponsors can offer practical help and material contributions, which may come in the form of volunteer work or financial contributions or links from their own companies' web sites to the web sites for the organizations which they wish to sponsor. In the case of the organizations listed in the SISU Children's Fund ad, it appears that their help came more in the form of enabling that charity to hold (and possibly publicize) its fundraising event. My guess, however, would be that each individual business had its own unique contributions to make, depending on the needs of the SISU Children's Fund, and on the abilities and resources of the individual sponsors.

If you own or work for a business which is interested in the possibility of deriving the benefits of  sponsoring the Artistic Rescue Project, please take the time to read the materials which I have posted on this web site so far (and which I intend to continue to post in the future), to see if this might be the type of project you'd like to sponsor. If you think that it might be, I would be delighted to visit with you here in the Bellingham and Whatcom County place of business (or any other accessible location of your choice, provided that I can afford the travel expenses) in order to answer any questions you might have about the project (provided that I have the answers to those questions). If you decide to do whatever you can do in order to help make this project a success, I promise to do everything which is feasible and reasonable to publicize your generous support of this project.

New Options for Printing and Selling

© Mark W. Pettigrew
The other day, I wrote and posted a blog article pertaining to the manner in which I intended to produce products to be sold as a part of the Artistic Rescue Project, and to the manner in which I intended to handle related financial transactions.

One option I mentioned, in terms of who would be handling the printing, was to have my prints made at Gallery West in the Fairhaven neighborhood. But that is not the only option in terms of "on demand" digital printing in Bellingham. Another option is to make the prints at Quicksilver Photo Lab.

One thing I like about the Quicksilver option is that they're using the superb Epson 7900 printer, which is one of Epson's newest and best digital fine art printers. Whatever worries might have been associated with earlier Epson models, insofar as metamerism was concerned, have pretty much vanished into the mists of history. That means that grayscale prints (also known as B&W prints) should look equally good regardless of what kind of lighting is used for prints made with that printer. (No more prints with a sickly green tint under certain kinds of lights! Yeah!) Therefore the 7900 is as good for B&W prints (also known as "grayscale" prints) as it is for color prints. That will expand my options, creatively speaking. It won't let me make prints as big as the Epson 9900 would, but it should more than suffice for my printing needs for quite some time. The slightly smaller prints will also be more affordable for my customers, which from my perspective is actually an advantage in some respects. Maybe eventually the business will develop to the point where the costs associated with huge prints can be justified, but for now, the options being offered by the printing services offered by Quicksilver should be fine for me. I see from the Quicksilver website that they still offer prints as large as 24x36-inches.

From the standpoint of logistics, I also like Quicksilver's location. They're only about a block away from the Stewart's eBay Consignment Store.

Now, I have to be candid. I tried selling things a number of years ago, using the services offered by eBay, and I never really enjoyed the online auction process. It requires that the sellers watch their auctions too carefully, and that they spend more time worrying about things I'd rather not have to deal with, like listing fees and opening bids and auction start and end dates and the like. Not really my cup of tea.

Nevertheless, there's no denying the fact that selling on eBay offers certain advantages, not the least of which there are huge numbers of people who like buying products through their services. (And it goes without saying that they are integrated very well with the PayPal service for making and receiving payments online.)

Also, I get the impression that a lot more people are using eBay these days for selling products which have fixed prices, not for auctions. That's what I prefer as a seller, because it enables me to more easily predict what kind of money I can expect from any given product sale. Maybe some folks prefer the "excitement" of auctions, but give me predictability any day.

In any event, selling things through Stewarts should be much, much easier for me. Instead of messing with the complexities of selling things the eBay way, I'll just let Randy Stewart handle those aspects of the business in which he excels, and I'll concentrate on publicizing the business and creating new images to be sold in the form of made-to-order products. That freedom should be well worth the fees Randy Stewart charges to me for his sevices, it seems to me, assuming that I can afford those fees.

Stewarts' close proximity to Quicksilver Photo Lab should mean that whenever a particular sale is made, getting the physical print will be a piece of cake. Instead of having to go clear across town to get the prints to be shipped to my customers, someone from the Quicksilver lab can just take the finished prints (already ready for Randy to ship) across the street to the eBay Consignment Shop.

Randy Stewart told me yesterday, during our enjoyable conversation, that his main stipulation would be that he'd have to be able to assure buyers that their prints would be shipped within 7 days at the very latest (and preferably within 5 days, just to be on the safe side) from the time when customers placed their orders. That's understandable. He has a very good rating on eBay, and he wants to keep things that way by shipping products in a timely manner.

Unlike some consignment shops which sell on eBay, Randy's shop seems to offer a sufficiently wide range of products to enable me to sell my prints through his shop in the first place. Some competing businesses seem to be far less flexible.

I intend to keep adding updated information to this blog site, and to announce any actual sales at Randy's shop, and to link to the product listing pages for those images on his site so that folks can easily purchase those made-to-order products.