Circle of Hope

Listen, I don’t like to brag, but I am seriously good at flaking out. I mean, no-phone-call returning, email dodging, fall-off-the-earth kind of stuff. I can drop balls like a pachinko addict.

So it is with what we will charitably call “trepidation” that I have sunk myself into a position of responsibility with Unda Water. Like, basically being the team leader. I’m far from the whole team. Matt Feldman is really the brains of the operation. Rob Larimore is all connected up. But I’m in the lead.

In case you don’t know, here’s the elevator pitch for Unda Water: We’re going to sell bottled water and give the profits to water and sanitation efforts in developing countries. A billion people in the world don’t have safe drinking water, while around these parts we’re willing to pay $1.50 for a half liter of filtered tap water.

Normally, statistics like that are supposed to motivate generosity through the use of honest shame. But guilt is a gut punch—a poor motivator. Instead, why don’t we use a little capitalist judo and redirect what people are doing anyway? Everybody wins!

So pretty much any day now, we’ll have water in our hands. We plan to talk to fair trade coffee shops around the city to sell Unda Water, and sell it at Circle events, and we’ll sell you Unda Water directly if you want to buy it straight from us.

I’m excited. I think this thing has legs like a centipede, and a legitimate concern our team has discussed is that Unda Water could get too big too fast. But as I get deeper into this process, talking the thing up, getting people on board with the idea, the looming black shape in the back of my mind is not business failure, but a well-traveled fear that I will super-flake on this.

I have two earthly things that might save me. First, my new, lovely wife, Meredith, has an MBA and will probably pull my liberal arts bacon out of lots of fires in the months ahead, so let’s just go ahead and thank her for that right now. Second, there is Circle Venture, a group of goal-oriented Jesus-lovers who want to help Unda Water happen, not dispense blame when things begin to go sideways. People who seem to have learned years ahead of me what I just told you—shame doesn’t get the job done.

This is brave territory. This is more and bigger responsibility than I ever even thought I was capable of handling. Don’t mishear me: I’m certain I can do this, I’m just scared I won’t do it.

So maybe you could pray for our little enterprise, and for me. And buy some Unda Water. That’d be a big help.