I was speaking with Matt Hammitt recently, the lead singer of Sanctus Real, and he said his band has been touring so much with other artists that it has not had many opportunities to promote its own favorite causes.
You know how it is at Christian rock concerts: Almost every band brings out a spokesman for from a worthy causes, usually Compassion International or World Vision -- both excellent global Christian relief agencies -- and asks people to make donations.
Now, however, Sanctus Real -- Hammitt, Chris Rohman, Mark Graalman (the 3 Toledo members), Pete Prevost and Dan Gartley -- is headlining its own We Need Each Other tour and will get a chance to put the spotlight on two nonprofit groups that are doing great things.
One is The Mocha Club, which asks people to skip two cups of mocha a month and donate the $7 they save by giving to a group that builds wells in Africa. People who sign up pay $7 up front and then pledge $7 a month.
An average well in Africa costs about $3,000, and at Thursday's concert at CedarCreek Church, the first night of Sanctus' 30-city national tour, the audience pledged more than $30,000 (Janet and I signed up, although I must say that the guy Sanctus Real had giving the appeal was so longwinded and disjointed that he almost drove me away.)
You can read more about this great ministry to the needy in Africa here.
The second cause that Sanctus Real is boosting is Toms Shoes, which will donate one pair of shoes to a needy child for every pair that is purchased. Since starting the outreach in 2006, Toms has donate more than 60,000 pairs of shoes to children in Argentina and South Africa. The company hopes to give away 200,000 pairs by the end of this year.
You can read more about Toms Shoes here.

They do look like comfy and stylish footwear, don't you think?

... and they have shoes for the politically minded...

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Yesterday was a sad day for me: it is the birthday of my late brother, Roy. He was two years younger than me and died of cancer in 2003. On his birthday, a lot of the fun times we had as children came back to me.
I can't understand why people you love leave this earth at such a young age. And I don't expect to understand such things as long as I'm looking through a glass darkly, as the Bible describes the view of mortals trying to see "the big picture".

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Toledo, Ohio
Sept. 6, 2008