Imagine you could touch and see all the nuggets of wisdom from the last decade of your life. Imagine you could gather them together, one-by-one, and pour them into a giant distillery of wisdom. Imagine then that the machine slowly awakes from its sleep, creaking to life. Gears begin to grind, steam shoots from aluminum pipes, whistles blow, conveyor belts begin to glide along. And on the other end of this giant wisdom machine is a spigot and out from that spigot gushes the juicy nectar of A Big Truth.

If all that learning could be distilled into one summarizing truth, what would it be?

I know what mine would be.

The grand, sticky sweet truth of my 20s could be summarized in three words: Live life intentionally.

It’s as if God rented a billboard in the background of every scene of my 20s, and they all say a different version of the same truth…

Live

life

intentionally.

Live life on purpose, Brett.

Brett, don’t coast.

Brett, don’t just float along and react.

Don’t let 2 hours-a-night of primetime TV steal your days, Trapp.

Don’t let a life hard-wired for rich adventure be shorted out by an influx of passivity.

Plan.

Live.

Thrive.

Are you listening, Brett?

I think a lot of people think God has given them a life like a rock. I think He’s given me a life like play-dough. And the play-dough is ours to make a work of art or a little pile of play-dough poop. And though I believe he is directing our hands in some weird way, He affords us a million little choices, a million little right or lefts, a million little ups or downs. And every little choice links together to form a life.

The story is His, but for some insane reason he hands us the pen and let’s our chubby little kid-hands write a bit.

Yikes.

Scary thought–that we’ve been given one shot to make this life count for something. There was a start…and there will be a finish. There is no opt-out option for death.

I’ve faced death only a few times in my life. When my dad died when I was 19 was one of them.

But I faced it this week again–first time in a while.

I have a good friend here in Atlanta named Matt. On Saturday night Matt’s mom, Debbie, was out shopping with his sister. She sat down for a minute, slumped over, and never woke up. A brain hemorrhage had suddenly and unexpectedly ended her life.

Sunday morning a few of us went over to Matt’s house. We sat in silence mostly. We tried our best to be some comfort in an ocean of grief. I broke down once, thinking again about that day ten years ago when my own parent had passed on.

And we listened to Matt tell of his mom, Debbie. He told how that week she had sent he and his brother and sister long text messages, telling them how much she loved them. One of Matt’s buddies from college told how his mom once brought tons of furniture and rugs and spent all day decorating their college pad. Later that day, some friends set up a Facebook page where countless people told stories of how she lived life…

intentionally.

I left Matt’s and called my mom. Just needed to hear her voice.

I’m going to Debbie’s funeral in a few minutes. Hoping the call to live life intentionally becomes a little more real, because I know I’m not there yet.

Thanks, Debbie. We miss ya already.

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365 days ago today I launched this blog. After planning (read procrastinating) for literally two years prior, I finally pulled the trigger and got the thing launched. The original intent for this blog was for it just to be a platform for my thoughts on two things: my Christian faith and business. My thinking was that you have “Christian” blogs and business blogs but rarely do you see one that has both. I wanted TRAPPSTR.com to be that. Of course I quickly found out that I couldn’t resist blogging about other topics, like weddings, Alabama football, and real life horror stories.

A few interesting facts from the first year of TRAPPSTR.com:

• I posted 98 times–or 26% of all days during a year.
• 15,609 visits and 30,280 pageviews – Don’t be impressed. The big boys get this in a day.
• 26% of my blog visitors come via clickthrus on Facebook. 17% come from Twitter. 6% come from Google. Great job Facebook friends.
• Exactly 1/3 of all visits came from the fine folks in my home state of Alabama. 22% came from Georgia. 10% from Florida. To the two people in North Dakota who have visited TRAPPSTR.com, I love you too.
  
• My most popular post? THIS ONE. Surprisingly enough, it’s also the one most scoffed at by certain people. That post had a really broad appeal and a lot of people found it through Google.
• I’ve done two little fundraising pushes through this blog. Theironbowlisbetter.com raised $2,251 for schools in Africa and the 22in22 campaign raised $2288 for clean water in Kenya. Total between the two projects, $4,539. Awesome! I love doing little things like this to help causes I believe in. Probably won’t be the last. HUGE thanks to everyone who gave!
  

My posts dropped off a bit in the summer, but I’m hoping to get it cranking again this fall. Have lots of good post ideas that I’m really excited about. I’ll loosely stick the Christianity/Business thing, but I’ll deviate at times. I’ll try to be somewhat consistent but sometimes I’ll get busy and I may disappear for a while. You can understand busy, right?

Can I make one request?

Writing stuff that people may or may not read with zero financial incentive is interesting. You find yourself craving feedback. For the blogger with no paycheck, it is, in fact, the only incentive to keep writing. Knowing that someone was encouraged, inspired, pissed, or just got a laugh at something I wrote means everything. So if that’s you, do me a favor and just let me know. Or better yet, tell someone else. We tip waiters, hair stylists, and even the pizza delivery kid when they do a good job. Don’t ever be afraid to throw a digital tip–a retweet or FB post or email forward–in the direction of someone who’s created something you liked.

Okay, it took me a whole year to work up the courage to self-promote. So if you feel violated and spammed and hate me now, well…sorry.

I know some people think blogging is vain and egocentric. And maybe it is. In fact, most days I would use those two words to describe myself. I just happen to believe that every single person has something to offer and that you don’t have to be an “expert” or have 30 years experience in something to be able to write about it.

When my late dad was a young pastor in his 20’s he only had a couple hundred people in his congregation. These were people God put in his path to encourage and inspire. That’s kind of how I view this blog. If only 50 or 100 people ever read my posts and it never “grows,” I’m okay with that. For some reason, you’re reading, and that means a lot to me. I’ll do my best to add a little something valuable to your day.

Life is short. Let’s all keep trying to do it right.

Ok?

Cool.

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All right, here it is! Last week I set out to raise $2200 in 22 hrs to help bring clean water to people in Kenya. You guys stepped up, and we did it! Well I won an ipad for my efforts, and I said I’d give it away randomly to someone who gave at least $22. So I rounded up a few friends to help out with the drawing (see video below). Couple of notes…

• I entered everyone who gave at least $22 within the 22 hr window one time
• The winner needs to email me at iamtrappstr at gmail dot com
  

Again, thanks so much for your help! We really made a difference to some special people that God really cares about.

-Brett

(If you can’t see the video, click here.)

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This is a post I recently wrote for the Plywood People blog. I made a few edits to that article. My post there was more from a values-based perspective while this one is more faith-based. Enjoy!

Our life is a story of growth. From diapers to school naps to multiplication tables and so on. Under the cupped hands of school and family, we bloom. We grow. We grow up.

But along the way, we bump up against vampires.

Vampires—negative people intent on draining us of life, hope and optimism. They’re the bully in the gym, the gossip in the girls’ bathroom, the soured-on-life co-worker. Vampires come and they go, but they never really go away. They move with us, lurking from lifestage to lifestage. Jesus dealt with vampires too.

Sometimes disguised as friends and even family, vampires stand in the shadows of our greatest moments—arms crossed, jealous toe tapping. And when our shining moment fades and the lights dim, they track us down in the parking lot, only to remind us of our pimples, hiccups, and scars.

And these vampires do real damage. Their words stick, clinging to our souls and thrashing around in our minds months and years and decades later.

And then one day we meet a cheerleader. Ahh…the anti-vampire. Her face is warm. She’s cute and has a pony-tail. Her words soothe, encourage, affirm. She’s our 5^th grade teacher, or a smiling face from church, or college buddy who loves life. The cheerleaders of life tell us everything we want to believe about ourselves. That we’re good-looking and funny and that we smell good. Not only are they present during our shining moments, they’re actually the ones helping create them, toe-touching and fist-pumping us the whole time.

But there’s a third player—the surgeon.

And he’s the difference-maker.

The surgeon is one part vampire, cutting and hacking and slinging blood. And he’s one part cheerleader, nourishing pallid souls back to health. He recognizes the ills of life and offers to help. He seats us on the hospital table with the crinkly paper, finds the hidden tumors, and goes to work. He doesn’t just dice and slice—for this would make him only a butcher. He also administers blood during the procedure. He identifies and fixes what we don’t need, and gives us more of what we do need.

And, like vampires, surgeons are scary. Dark eyes peering over a surgical mask, scalpel in hand. Oh, that scalpel–his instrument of pain! But the surgeon, in all of his blood-soaked horror, has a noble calling. Like a vampire, he wounds. But he wounds to heal. He cuts to fix. He injures to revive. While the vampire is our enemy, the surgeon is our friend…

“Wounds from a friend can be trusted.” – Prov 27:6

Most of us spend a lifetime running from vampires and running towards cheerleaders—avoiding pain and chasing after people who make us feel good. We resist the call of the surgeon, the call of the mentor. Because in the wounding there is pain (and we are biologically programmed to resist pain). But the wounding is the hallmark of a good mentor. A good mentor is not merely a cheerleader. He’s more than the rah-rah. Like a surgeon, a good mentor identifies the tumors in our lives. She sees the things that we cannot see or refuse to see—character defects, blind spots, and glaring inconsistencies in the way we live. Mentors step into our personal space and ask us the tough questions. They challenge our presuppositions on living. They aren’t afraid to get bloody. The ancients understood this; apprenticeships were a way of life. Professional athletes understand this now; personal trainers and coaches are a foregone conclusion. Yet in our personal lives, we’re content to march along alone, sovereign rulers in the Kingdom of Me. And it’s in this secret kingdom where the tumors of hubris, infidelity, and scandal take root.

Better to swing open the gates and invite a surgeon in. Surgery may be needed. And you don’t have a day to waste.

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NOTE: If you didn’t read my post from Thursday night, you need to read that first, or this won’t make sense. Read it here.

Wow! I am blown away! At midnight on Thursday night I kicked off a little fundraising campaign to help bring clean water to Kenya. I honestly didn’t know if anyone would get behind it, but I thought it was worth a shot. Well, it exceeded my expectations! Many of my friends stepped up and helped raise more than $2266 for the cause!

Also, I won the ipad! Like I said, I’m going to give it away and do a random drawing from the pool of people who gave. Still working through the details of how that’s going to work, but know that it will be done with integrity (will do a video of the drawing and post it to Youtube). I should be able to do this in the next couple of days.

I’ve tried to thank everyone who gave but hear me say it again, thank you. Ultimately, this was not about me, Twitter, blogs, or ipads. It was about all of us answering the call to use what we have to help others. Most of you are like me in that we feel incredibly blessed. With everything in me I want to know that I stewarded my stuff well. I want to know that I didn’t ignore the cry of the helpless.

I’ll be giving more updates next week, but I just wanted to stop and say

Thank You!

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If you’ve been listening lately, you’ve heard me talking up the Water for Kenya 5K. This is an event the company I work for is hosting and sponsoring. The 5k is happening in downtown Norcross, Georgia, tomorrow, Saturday, June 26, at 8:00am. We’re partnering with an incredible non-profit here in Atlanta, Kenya Medical Outreach. KMO does tons of good work in Kenya, but this event is all about clean water. There is a true crisis in Kenya. People there hike for hours to gather toxic, contaminated water every day.

Of the many complex world crises–wars, crumbling economies, earthquakes–this is the easiest to solve. Digging a simple well provides clean water for life.

But it takes money.

A small team of us has been organizing this event for months, and we can’t wait to see it all come together Saturday morning. If you’re going to be in Atlanta on Saturday, WE’D LOVE TO SEE YOU THERE! Even if you’re not a runner, come out and just walk. Online registration is now closed, but you can still register the morning of the event (registration opens at 7am).

If you can’t make the run, YOU CAN STILL HELP! At the time of this post (midnight on Thursday night), I’m kicking off a personal fundraising campaign called 22 in 22!

I’m trying to raise $2200 in the next 22 hrs to help dig a well in Kenya. I’m asking 100 people to give $22 to help save lives. $2200 will provide clean water for life for more than 85 people!

Those that know me well know that I’m all about the number 22. It was my dad’s high school basketball number, and–for whatever reason–it’s taken on a lot of meaning since he passed away on New Year’s Eve of 2000. My dad was a pastor for many years, and those of you who knew him, knew he was a man of God. This is something he would support. If you knew my dad, I’m asking you to make a gift in his honor.

I have a personal fundraising page at http://firstgiving.com/BrettTrapp where you can securely pay by credit/debit card.

Oh! And one more thing. A bunch of people in my company are raising money for water as well. A generous donor has donated an ipad to be given to the top fundraiser in our company. Right now, the leader has collected $1450 so far, so anyone could win it! And if I win it, I’ll do a random drawing from everyone who gave $22 and give it to that person!

Give Water / Win an ipad

$2200 in 22 hours (100 people giving $22…of course you can always give more:)

22 in 22!

GIVE NOW and THANK YOU FOR MAKING A DIFFERENCE!

–Brett

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Jeff Shinabarger is a new friend here in Atlanta. Jeff is an incredibly talented creative. Aside from doing creative consulting with organizations like Catalyst, he also is a serial entrepreneur having started organizations like GiftCard Giver and Plywood People. Jeff was at a recent event where I spoke to some high school students about tuning out the haters and tuning into a good mentor, someone who drills into your life and challenges you to be a better person. My talk was entitled “Vampires and Surgeons.” Jeff asked me write an article about it for the Plywood People blog. So that’s what I did. Here’s a snippet…

“Like a surgeon, a good mentor identifies the tumors in our lives. She sees the things that we cannot see or refuse to see—character defects, blind spots, and glaring inconsistencies in the way we live. Mentors step into our personal space and ask us the tough questions. They challenge our presuppositions on living. They aren’t afraid to get bloody. The ancients understood this; apprenticeships were a way of life. Professional athletes understand this now; personal trainers and coaches are a foregone conclusion. Yet in our personal lives, we’re content to march along alone, sovereign rulers in the Kingdom of Me. And it’s in this secret kingdom where the tumors of hubris, infidelity, and scandal take root.”

To read the entire article, you can click HERE.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

-Brett

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1. Using my laptop battery in my favor - If your laptop is a couple years old like mine, then your battery probably has the lifespan of an Iranian bid for the winter Olympics. Mine lasts about an hour these days. But I’ve learned to use that in my favor. If I need to get something done, I’ll take my laptop to Starbucks without the charger. That way I know I’ve got exactly one hour to get it done. The clock is ticking and that limited timeframe channels my focus and forces productivity.

2. Taking the first step, first - When I sit down at my computer to get work done, 99% of the time I tell myself, “I’ll get started in a minute, right after I check facebook and Twitter.” Well 15 minutes turns into 30 minutes which turns into an hour which turns into me watching shark videos on Youtube. By then I’ve completely forgotten what I initially set out to do.

So I’m learning: Open my work files FIRST.

It’s okay to browse around online a bit before I get started, but if my Word or Excel or Photoshop file is open and on my desktop, it serves as a big flashing reminder of my goal.

3. Redeeming the downtime - I assume everyone does this, but maybe not. I’ve been trying to take all the predictable downtime in my life and redeem it with productivity. For example, while my gas is pumping, I clean out my car. When I’m waiting to get my haircut, I read Fast Company magazine. I have a friend who flosses at red lights. I have another friend who runs without an ipod and he uses that time to pray. My tendency is to fill these times with music or mindless Internet browsing, but I’m disciplining myself to make that time count.

4. Shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts - I’m always surprised when I see people not using keyboard shortcuts on their computers. Microsoft and Apple have built tons of time-saving tricks into the keyboard. Here is a list of Windows shortcuts and here is one for Apple shortcuts. These lists can be overwhelming, so don’t feel like you have to learn them all. I’m trying to expand my use of shortcuts, but if you’re a newbie, start with these five most common ones:

• CTRL S – Save
• CTRL A – Select all
• CTRL C – Copy the selection to clipboard
• CTRL X – Cut the selection to clipboard
• CTRL V – Paste

5. Checklist-mania - There’s a book that’s been circulating in our company that’s been making waves. It’s called the Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. It’s all about the value of checklists–not the sexiest of topics, to say the least. The author is a surgeon and he explains how operating room errors have been dramatically reduced by incorporating detailed checklists into each procedure. Pretty simple concept, but no one does it. So I’m working on all sorts of checklists for work and personal life and it’s making a big difference in bringing a system to those areas where I normally wing it.

What are you doing to be more productive these days?

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My job has taken me to some great conferences in the last few months. I’ve been to Catalyst, Catalyst West, Adopted for Life, LifeWork 2.0, and the Q Conference. Each experience has been rich, opening my eyes to the dark places and introducing me to great new people.

However, I find myself feeling buried, buried under the weight of so many heavy issues.

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”   – Romans 12:21

All these Christian leaders have their thing–a flare to shoot into the darkened Christian stratosphere, warning us of some great injustice in some forgotten corner of the world. And those lights seem to be multiplying in the night sky:

• Creation care
• Fatherlessness/mentoring
• Modern slavery
• Domestic evangelism
• International missions
• Sex trade/child trafficking
• Adoption/orphan care
• Poverty
• Pornography
• Hunger
• Disaster relief
• Homelessness
• War/violence
• Micro-finance
• Clean water
• Nuclear disarmament

And this is just the start. There are so many worthy options (which isn’t always a good thing).

Is it just me or did it used to be easier? Seems like the church of the 80s/90s played a pretty simple game–abortion, homosexuality, and secular music on the flop; alcohol on the turn; and R-rated movies on the river. Jerry and James and the SBC dealt the cards, and they mobilized players around the table. They played this game long into the night and well into the end of the century. Same cards, same script.

But things have changed…

Now there is myriad hot button issues, and I’m left feeling swamped. Conference leaders have constructed this gigantic Roulette Wheel of World-Change. Every few months they gather us in, call for bets, then give that sucker a whirl.

I have two bets: my time and my money. God’s given these in limited supply–this is what I have to play with–and I can’t go back to the ATM machine.

To say yes to one issue is to shun another. To embrace one is to damn the other. Do I save God’s creation or petition the government about Congolese violence? Do I mentor a child in downtown Atlanta or do I help child slaves in Haiti? Is it better to finance water projects or feed the hungry? Furthermore, does God look at that list and prioritize one item over another? And if so, should all of Christendom rush to those few issues and place their bets there?

I’m thankful for conferences. I think God uses them–in a small way–as vehicles of his will. I’m thankful they’ve raised the flag on these issues because sometimes churches forget to. I just have no idea where to begin. I’m not looking for some legalistic checklist or grid to give me a false sense of righteousness. But I do want to maximize my life, my time, my resources. I want to be strategic.

I have some thoughts, but honestly, I’m pretty clueless.

What do you think? I’m listening…

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I was privileged to get an advance release copy of Jonathan Merritt’s brand new book “Green Like God.” If you grew up in Southern Baptist life like I did, you might recognize Jonathan’s last name from his father James, who was president of the Convention in the early 2000s. Jonathan has already cut out a name for himself in SBC ranks at the age of 27. Several years ago he drafted a “theologically centered response to environmental problems.” In asking denominational leaders to sign it he caused quite a stir and drew the ire of some of the SBC elite.

This incident propelled Merritt squarely in the middle of the “creation care” debate. Creation care is the nouveau term for Christian environmentalism.

I began this book skeptically. I grew up in a very traditional, Southern Baptist church where the Bible, morality, and hot button issues like abortion garnered a lot of attention. Environmentalism, on the other hand, was looked at as a tenet of the liberal manifesto. My only green influence came from Captain Planet.

Let me be clear; I am a capitalist. I believe in business and growth and that humans are the crown jewel of God’s creation. But I’m also insulted at most Christians’ attitudes toward the environment. I could stomach the sleepy ambivalence, but the aggressive stance I see some Christians taking against the environment is embarrassing. So no, I’m not deep “green.” But I’m turning a little limier these days, so I guess this book was written for people like me.

Green Like God is filled with alarming stats. Some of the more interesting ones:

• About half of Earth’s tropical and temperate forests have already been destroyed.
• Americans produce 63,000 garbage trucks of waste per day.
• America consumes more than 20.6 million barrels of oil daily.
• 77 percent of evangelical pastors speak to their church about creation “rarely” or “never.”
• About 30 percent of American’s purchase Christmas presents for their pets; only 11 percent buy them for their neighbors.

Overall, Green Like God is a solid look at the Christian’s response to the green debate. Merritt is reasonable and measured. He does a lot of credibility-building early on displaying his commitment to the core tenets of conservative evangelicalism–centrality of the Gospel, inerrancy of Scripture, etc. I’m one of you, he communicates early on, which I think is a wise move. This ought to help him reach out to the Falwellian old-guard who think any talk of saving the planet is a new age plot of west coast whale-kissers. He helps his cause by summoning a few big time Christian personas, living and dead–John Stott, Francis Schaeffer, Alister McGrath, Billy Graham, Charles Colson, Albert Mohler, et al. He peppers his prose with their creation-friendly quotes, and it lends some real muscle to his arguments.

Merritt spends the first few chapters on passages in Scripture that reference creation. He notes Genesis 2:15 when God–speaking of the garden–tells Adam to “work it and take care of it.” He then contrasts that with Genesis 1:28, “Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over ever living creature that moves on the ground.” He notes of the latter verse, “When this verse is overemphasized at the exclusion of the rest of Scripture, as it often was in the twentieth century, it can lead us to an imbalanced and human-centered ethic.” He then says, “I must understand both as one harmonious command from a consistent God.”

In regards to Genesis 1:28, Merritt goes on to explain how “rule over” from Hebrew was consistent with the power of kings to rule over their subjects–a “monarch-like role.” But, he says, historically God would punish Israelite rulers when they got greedy or abused their power. He talks about man as “benevolent monarch” over the environment. I have to agree with Merritt when he says we should “understand dominion as stewardship of God’s handiwork rather than man-centered domination.”

In chapter 7, “Skeptics, Cynics, and NYT Bestsellers,” Merritt provides the most compelling dialogue in the book. He tells of a conversation he had with his agnostic friend, Don. Don is speaking of the hypocrisy of the church in their indifference towards the environment. Don then asks, “Wouldn’t that be like destroying the playhouse your dad built for you?” Hmmm…what a thought. I imagined my dad in Texas in the early 80’s lovingly building a fort in the living room and then inviting me to come play. I stomp into the room, tear up his creation, and stomp out. That’s a pretty profound context.

Merritt tells another startling story when he cites a recent National Geographic article “Poor Haitians Resort to Eating Dirt.” Merritt goes on to explain, “Charlene Dumas is a typical 16-year-old pregnant woman living in Cite’ Soleil, Haiti, who is so desperately hungry that she has resorted to eating cakes made of vegetable shortening and dirt.” (Note: I’ve been to Haiti and it truly is an environmental disaster. Haiti shares an island with the Dominican Republic. I drove and flew across both countries and the difference is dramatic as the green lush DR landscape turns into a dusty brown Haitian one. Most experts attribute this change to hundreds of years of soil erosion from French and Haitian land abuse.)

There are a few points in Merritt’s book that I take exception with. At one point he attributes some environmental issues to “greedy developers looking to make a buck.” I’ve always had a problem with environmentalists demonizing businessmen, judging them as “greedy” when they’re probably just trying to grow their business. Capitalism is the signature of progress, and while I agree there has to be checks and balances, it works.

Merritt also walks a tenuous line when he mentions swelling populations. He hints at the problems that may cause, but he doesn’t really decry it. So it’s tough to tell where he stands here.

One of the things I respect most about this book is that Merritt never swings the green hammer. He never condemns the Christian community for its apathy towards the environment. In fact he admits several times that he doesn’t have this issue completely figured out, and that if you inspected his life you would find some eco-hypocrisy. He never provides a checklist of do’s and dont’s “because it would fill one of the most unholy longings inside us all: the hunger for rules.” I absolutely love that grace-based approach to this issue, but also to all of life.

There are some whose humanistic ideology forces them to pursue environmental protection with religious fervor. After all, if there is no heaven or hell, and this is all we get, then we better preserve it! There are others–many Christians–who also have a man-centered ideology that puts our economic progress above all else. But I have to agree with Merritt in that there is another path for believers where creation is valued, because ultimately God created it for his glory and not our own.

Do yourself a favor and go pick up a copy of Green Like God. Highly recommended!

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