Articles from our E-Update

At the conference this year, The Gathering is delighted and excited to welcome two of the finest humanitarian photographers in the world, Jeremy Cowart (left) and Esther Havens.

Jeremy has helped countless non-profits, including Blood:Water Mission and his own Help-Portrait, which is a community of photographers coming together across the world to use their photography skills to give back to their local community.

We are also thrilled to have the very talented, sincere Esther Havens with us. Esther travels the world with organizations such as Charity:Water to capture joyful images of the people she meets along the way. Her images are full of hope and dignity, telling stories in a way we would otherwise never know.

Visit Jeremy's site here.

Visit Esther's site here. 

The world mourned the loss of Charles Colson this week. Colson, 80, was not only remembered as a loyal political operative from the Watergate era, but also as the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, the largest ministry of its kind in the world.

As Peter Roff of U.S. News and World Report wrote, "In the end it was his misdeeds that pointed him in the direction of his greatest accomplishments." Colson's prison ministry has helped thousands of U.S. prisoners find Jesus Christ, as well as prepare for re-entry into society upon release from incarceration.

National Review Online: Cal Thomas, George Weigel, Michael Cromartie and others remember Chuck Colson. Read the article here.

New York Times: Read Ross Douthat's "Charles Colson, R.I.P." here.

Washington Post: Read Michael Gerson's "Charles Colson Found Freedom in Prison" here. 

At 32 years old, Ross Douthat is already one of the most respected voices of Christian conservatism in our country. Douthat joined The New York Times as an Op-Ed columnist in April 2009. Previously, he was a senior editor at the Atlantic and is also the film critic for National Review.

His newest book is "Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics."

Read Tim Keller's blog post on Douthat's book here.

Read the New York Times review here.

Read and listen to "Heretics: The Crisis of American Christianity" on NPR here.

Read "Bad Religion and the American Tradition" on First Things online here. 

Fullerton, Ca.-based startup company Sevenly wants to change the world...one t-shirt at at time.

Every seven days, Sevenly launches a new shirt with a new design, dedicated to helping a charity within one of their seven specific causes: anti-slavery, hunger relief, clean water, medical help, disaster relief, anti-poverty and miscellaneous aid.

Seven dollars from the sale of each shirt goes straight to the selected non-profit. One particular shirt recently raised about $50,000, the most of any charity that Sevenly has worked with to date. (Part of this amount came from matching $7 donations from an anonymous donor giving $14 for each shirt sold.)

Sevenly shipped its first shirts in June last year and is projecting $3 million in revenue for their first year in business.

Read about Sevenly in the Los Angeles Times here.

Read about Sevenly's fascinating social media strategy here.

Visit the Sevenly site here. 

The Gathering welcomes Sajan George to our conference in September.

Sajan George is the founder of Matchbook Learning, whose vision is to completely turnaround America's most underperforming public schools.

Sajan was recently interviewed for Fast Company magazine's blog by former Gathering panelist Shawn Parr. Shawn is the CEO of Bulldog Drummond, an innovation and design consultancy headquartered in San Diego whose clients and partners have included Starbucks, American Eagle Outfitters, IDEO, Virgin, Disney, Nike, Mattel and World Vision.

Read Fast Company's "We Know Our Education System is Broken, So Why Can't We Fix It?" here.

Watch Sajan speak on "Transforming Troubled Schools" here. 

We have just mailed out the spring issue of The Gathering News, but we're giving our eUpdate readers a sneak peek.

Our cover story with Charity:Water features the humanitarian photography of Esther Havens, who will be joining us at the conference in September to discuss the role of photography in philanthropy. And along with several other stories, we introduce you to two inspiring brothers who are also Gathering participants: the wonderfully creative Dodd and Benjamin Rollins Caldwell from South Carolina.

Read The Gathering News here.

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