I had coffee yesterday with Mark Hanlon from Compassion. Mark is the Senior VP for Sponsor and Donor Development and the looks to me like the head of Compassion in the US. I liked him a lot and it was great to have the time for both of us to tell our stories of how God had given us hearts for children.

One of the reasons we moved to Nashville was because Betsy and I believe God is calling us to a new phase in our lives and Nashville seems like a good place to live during this phase. I love music and film and this town is crawling with people with similar passions. But it is also a town with a lot of people who have a deep commitment to social action. Many of the artists here actively support Compassion, the One Campaign, Blood Water Mission, International Justice Mission, etc. We came with a vague feeling that we might end up finding a way to blend our love for artists with our passion for the needs of children.

I’ve found lots of ways to help artists since we arrived. I’m working with the Nettwerk guys to put a Paste Rock & Reel tour together for Rosie Thomas. I’ve worked with Derek Webb on his NoiseTrade project. I’m helping the Next Big Nashville guys find ways to grow their festival into something that looks more like the old SXSW. And I’ve found no end of artists that want to get together for coffee and talk about how they navigate their way through the seismic shift that is taking place in the music business. But I’ve wrestled quite a bit with the feeling that working in the music business does not really fit who Betsy and I are and what we want to do as a couple during this phase of our lives.

So this meeting with Compassion has shaken me quite a bit. I’m extremely impressed with the work they have done for years. Our family has sponsored four children for about the last fifteen years. Compassion sponsored their millionth child last month. Child sponsorship is not trendy. They don’t have a cool wristband to wear as a fashion statement. Sponsors have to write a $32 check every month and deal with the guilt that comes from not being disciplined enough to write the child regularly. It’s a long term commitment to investing in impacting the life of an individual child in the belief that it is the right thing to do and that changing the life of one child will have ripple effects throughout that child’s life. It’s a bigger example of what Betsy and I did when we decided to adopt four children.

Is it possible that God wants us to spend the final phase of our lives in this kind of work? The question excites me and scares me at the same time. How are we supposed to deal with our clear belief that we are supposed to live in Nashville when Compassion is headquartered in Colorado Springs?

Advice welcome in the comments…

Joe

(To be clear, Mark didn’t offer me a job or anything. This was just the beginning of a conversation that might lead to a position there. Or it might not. This is my blog. I get to think out loud here. And I’m thinking a lot about Compassion today.)