Just over a year ago Paul Shin decided to officially help Crown get off the ground in his nation, Korea. He and his friend David Yang began the process…they’ve done an unbelievable job.

Some things he and his team have accomplished:

Working with the Chaplain’s office of the Korean military to get Crown’s Life Group study approved for their soldiers (it’s compulsory for 2 years in Korea).
Established an office with 2 full-time paid staff and 11 significant volunteers.
Excellent and high quality translation and reproduction of materials.
58 people willing to take two days off and spend $130 to be equipped through Leading Stewards.
Several products on the way to being translated and contextualized.

It has been an absolute joy to see what these guys have put together in such a short time. Way to go, Crown Korea, may God go before you as you turn consumers to contributors in your nation.

Check out these pics from their office:

Maybe the people of North Dakota have figured out the circles.  At the end of the fiscal year they will have a $700 million surplus (see the full story here).

In a bad economy.

Like North Dakota you must figure out how to manage three circles. What are the circles?

Despite the seemingly endless things you could do with your money, there are really only three choices:

Consumption
Contributing to Others
Contributing to the Future.

That’s it.

You must decide how much money you are going to consume, use up, burn. Each of us has to live, and to do so requires consumption. You must also decide how much to contribute to others. How much of what is yours will you send to help those in need around you. Finally you must decide how much to contribute to the future. In today’s economy, many people are wishing they would have paid more attention to this last, critical category.

The sizes of the circles vary from person to person and you don’t get to tell someone else how to manage their circles.

How are you managing your three circles? How much goes into each one? No one will move from consumer to contributor without having an understanding of their personal …

Money was supposed to be the answer.

Having more money meant that we could consume more. More consumption meant more satisfying of our needs and wants. More satisfaction meant more contentment.

Or so we thought.

Turns out the whole thing was an illusion. Like an itch that gets worse the more you scratch at it, increased consumption led to less satisfaction and contentment.

The more we got the more we wanted.

Surprisingly consuming isn’t the answer to our emptiness. Contributing is.

We live in a world that tells us that consumption will satisfy our cravings. It challenges us to buy more and more stuff. I want to be a part of a movement that challenges this thinking. A movement that throws a brick through the glass of the status quo. A movement of consumers turned contributors, who have found joy in generosity, who understand that more consumption does not equal more happiness.

As I travel the world I find that more and more people joining this movement. This blog is an attempt to share my journey while connecting to those who care about turning consumers into contributors.
This is a place to share your journey, or tell the story of someone you helped. Share your …