{"id":155,"date":"2009-01-18T05:07:44","date_gmt":"2009-01-18T05:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/lets-be-the-change.html"},"modified":"2009-01-18T05:07:44","modified_gmt":"2009-01-18T05:07:44","slug":"lets-be-the-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/lets-be-the-change.html","title":{"rendered":"Let&#8217;s Be the Change"},"content":{"rendered":"<form mt:asset-id=\"2887\" class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\" contenteditable=\"false\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"bethechange.png\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/bethechange.png\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"margin: 0pt auto 20px; text-align: center; display: block;\" height=\"114\" width=\"661\" \/><\/form>\n<p>One of the theme&#8217;s of BO&#8217;s campaign for president that was most enthralling for me was the potential he holds to really <b>bind our country together for the good of the whole<\/b>.&nbsp; Whether it be the massive investment into roads, bridges, rail, and other infrastructure, or the call for a <b>spirit of volunteerism and service<\/b>, Obama promises to usher in an era of cooperation that all persons of faith should welcome.<\/p>\n<p>One of the first opportunities for us to link arms with our new president is his challenge to sign the Declaration of Service.&nbsp; Initiated by ServiceNation, <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This campaign now focuses onbuilding a national grassroots movement aimed at inspiring widespreadpublic support for increasing voluntary community and national serviceopportunities, solving problems with proven service strategies, andelevating service as a core ideal of civic engagement. ServiceNationencourages all Americans to step forward and take the lead in bridgingour divides, strengthening our communities, and building a more vibrantdemocracy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">I&#8217;ve taken the challenge and signed the declaration.&nbsp; Over the coming year, I pledge to volunteer 50 hours or more, primarily as <br \/><b>Cub Scout den leader with the Boy Scouts of America<\/b>. <br \/>Click below if you will join me and volunteer on behalf of our country, our children, and our grandchildren:<\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/fpdownload.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=7,0,0,0\" id=\"widget\" height=\"400\" width=\"200\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/snwidget\/widget\/widget.swf\" \/><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"sameDomain\" \/><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\" \/><param name=\"scale\" value=\"exactfit\" \/><param name=\"quality\" value=\"high\" \/><param name=\"bgcolor\" value=\"#FFFFFF\" \/><param name=\"flashVars\" value=\"invite_hash=MP8TM281T1H\" \/><embed src=\"http:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/snwidget\/widget\/widget.swf\" quality=\"high\" bgcolor=\"#FFFFFF\" loop=\"true\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" flashvars=\"invite_hash=MP8TM281T1H\" pluginspage=\"http:\/\/www.macromedia.com\/shockwave\/download\/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash\" height=\"400\" width=\"200\"><\/object><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the theme&#8217;s of BO&#8217;s campaign for president that was most enthralling for me was the potential he holds to really bind our country together for the good of the whole.&nbsp; Whether it be the massive investment into roads, bridges, rail, and other infrastructure, or the call for a spirit of volunteerism and service,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-service"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Let&#039;s Be the Change - The New Christians<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/lets-be-the-change.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Let&#039;s Be the Change - The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the theme&#8217;s of BO&#8217;s campaign for president that was most enthralling for me was the potential he holds to really bind our country together for the good of the whole.&nbsp; Whether it be the massive investment into roads, bridges, rail, and other infrastructure, or the call for a spirit of volunteerism and service,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/lets-be-the-change.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-01-18T05:07:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/bethechange.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tony Jones\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Let's Be the Change - The New Christians","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/lets-be-the-change.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Let's Be the Change - The New Christians","og_description":"One of the theme&#8217;s of BO&#8217;s campaign for president that was most enthralling for me was the potential he holds to really bind our country together for the good of the whole.&nbsp; Whether it be the massive investment into roads, bridges, rail, and other infrastructure, or the call for a spirit of volunteerism and service,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/lets-be-the-change.html","og_site_name":"The New Christians","article_published_time":"2009-01-18T05:07:44+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/bethechange.png"}],"author":"Tony Jones","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/lets-be-the-change.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/lets-be-the-change.html","name":"Let's Be the Change - The New Christians","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/lets-be-the-change.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/lets-be-the-change.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/bethechange.png","datePublished":"2009-01-18T05:07:44+00:00","dateModified":"2009-01-18T05:07:44+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/a5d6dffe0f41c25b4bd8136be22c4074"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/lets-be-the-change.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/lets-be-the-change.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/lets-be-the-change.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/bethechange.png","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/bethechange.png"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/lets-be-the-change.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Let&#8217;s Be the Change"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/","name":"The New Christians","description":"Tony Jones on Christianity and the Emerging Church","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/a5d6dffe0f41c25b4bd8136be22c4074","name":"Tony Jones","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d50\/d50708c3731048719806adf9c6f6df30x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d50\/d50708c3731048719806adf9c6f6df30x96.jpg","caption":"Tony Jones"},"description":"Tony Jones is the author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier and several other books on Christianity and prayer.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/author\/tjones"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}