Break the Huddle

I feel like the past couple of days have been a whirlwind (I have several posts coming, I just have to collect my thoughts). I have been out of town since last week and was supposed to get back from my trip to Arkansas on Wednesday evening, instead I got stuck in Memphis and didn't get back to NY until Thursday. That wouldn't have been such a big deal if I hadn't committed to volunteer Thursday morning.

There was a leadership summit all day Thursday and Friday at the church where I go to Bible study. It had been hyped to me as having amazing speakers but was expensive to attend so I volunteered instead. I missed about half of the Thursday speakers because of my airline troubles but was able to catch several speakers in the afternoon that lived up to the hype. Two in particular were truly amazing.

One speaker, for which I titled the blog, was Harvey Carey. Harvey is the founder and pastor of a church in Detroit, Michigan. The church is located in one of the poorest zip codes in the country. The term "break the huddle" came from his analogy where we as church goers are like a football team that makes it to the biggest game of the season and never breaks from the huddle. We go to church and pray but we never actually go out and do. Harvey's own solution to this is to surprise his congregation on Sunday morning with service projects. People arrive for church and instead end up going out and serving their community. What I loved so much about Harvey was his unbelievable energy and enthusiasm for getting people excited about God and about service.

Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva was the other really inspiring speaker. Kiva is a website that connects people willing to lend very small amounts of money to entrepreneurs in places all over the world. These micro loans allow individuals in impoverished communities who normally wouldn't be able to get a bank loan to become self sufficient. The loans are usually paid back within months and can start with as little as $25. What was the most inspiring was the passion that oozed from Jessica as she spoke about the organization. Also, she's probably not much older than I am.

After listening to both of these incredible individuals I definitely felt like I could go out and conquer the world. Now to figure out how to sustain that enthusiasm as I get back into my normal routine :)