Spring Brain Dump

• It’s officially spring.
• I know because I somehow let my students talk me into reading a novel outloud to them on the playground yesterday.
• Now they want to go outside every day.
• Speaking of schools, Michigan’s continue to STRUGGGGGGGGLE.
• Dan Rather just did a story on the subject. He suggested that Michigan should stop having politicians and intellectuals create reforms and start listening to kids and teachers.
• I liked Dan Rather even more after that.
• In other news, I sent out the first free exercise in the unBox series last week. These are resources that help churches take faith beyond the four walls of church into the community. Pastor Jason Ebeling of Discovery Church is one of the leaders participating in unBox.
• Jason summed up his involvement in this email today: “It was great to read some of your thoughts and ideas. I’m looking forward to others that rekindle and jumpstart our people and my leadership and passion. It’s so stinkin’ easy to get sucked into the manage-and-maintain trap instead of stickin to the mission!!”
• I love when the lead pastor is the one who wants to reach out.
• If you or your group want to get the free exercises, read more info here.
• While I’ve got outreach on the brain, I should mention a great opportunity to bless teenagers hit hard by the Alabama tornadoes.
• I belong to a beautiful group of people called the GRACE MOB, connected to People of the Second Chance, and we are asking people to donate used formal dresses and shoes for teens trying to pull together a prom post-storms. You can send those with an encouraging note to: 29904 Carriage Creek Cir Harvest Al 35749.
• Something else I’ve been kicking around this week? Experiential sponsorships that get companies who partner with STORY more involved with our attenders. If you know a creative or faith-oriented company that might like to come alongside STORY this year, please feel free to email me at sarah [at] storychicago [dot] com.
• STORY is not the only one pulling off creative partnerships. Did you hear that the MET is doing something pretty cool to partner with The Folk Art Museum? The Folk Art Museum was unable to make their payments, so the MET took over the building. But get this: the deal was not a purchase. It was a collaboration. In exchange, the MET will get to present their art exhibits at the new museum when it opens in 2015.
• If you know of other great collaboration stories, feel free to send them my way. I collect them, you know.
• On another note, if any of you readers are passionate about influencing culture with spiritual truths, I’m putting together a team of people to help with a really cool upcoming film project.  You can email me at sarah [at] storychicago.com for details. Bring your passion. (More here in a few weeks.)
• I’ll be at Dream Year DC. Will you? If you live in the area, come out and hang with us. :)
• But until then, I’m here in Michigan. In. the. rain.
• The weather did break to give us a few park-friendly days this week.
• I thought I was going to be a cool mom and let my son climb onto rocks and jump off of them.
• It stopped being as cool when I realized there were like two hundred rocks that the Emperor then expected to jump off of one-by-painstakingly-slow one.
• Lesson learned. =)
• Happy spring!