If I had to put the last two months of my life into biblical context I’d probably land on two passages. I’ve felt like the spies scoping out the promise land for forty days or Nehemiah scoping out the walls in the middle of the night. Over the next few weeks I’m going to blog about the things I’ve been dreaming and the things I’ve been seeing “outside the wall” or “in the Promise Land.” Some of these dreams were conceived years ago. Some of them are months old. But I think they are God-ordained. There is a convergence happening in my life right now that defies human explanation. There is no way it could have been manufactured.

One of those “outside the wall” dreams is evotional apparel. I’ll frame evotional apparel in another blog, but the concept is simple: a story behind every shirt.

For what it’s worth, one of my most embarrassing moments happened in the sixth grade when I wore a pink shirt to school. I was teased mercilessly and as a result I became hyper-conscious about my clothes. But I made a comeback and in the eighth grade I won a cherished honor. Our eighth grade class gave lots of “most” and “best” awards. There was “most likely to become a U.S. Senator.” This crazy, but I still remember who won. It was a guy named Chris Burt. I wonder what he’s doing now? Anyway, want to know what I won? Not most likely to succeed. Not best athlete. I won best dressed. Ah, the thrill of victory. It was like reconcilaiation. All of my humiliation from the sixth-grade dissipated as I won the coveted “best dressed” award. Redemption.

Anywho.

We need to redeem our clothing and wear our faith. We need to think of clothing in stewardship terms because what we wear, like everything else, is a stewardship issue! I think we ought to be intentional about what we wear. What does our clothing say about us? What does it say about God? I’m a conversational t-shirt fanatic Evotional apparel will be great conversation starters. I want us to design some clothes that make people laugh and make people think.

So what’s unique about evotional apparel? One of the things that will make evo apparel unique is the fact that there is a story behind every shirt. Almost like a Beanie Baby that comes with some “history” or a restaurant menu that tells the story of how it got started, evotional apparel will frame every shirt with a story. That’ll make sense when we unveil the first generation in the fall, but evo wearers will know why they’re wearing what they’re wearing. And that’s half the battle.

To be honest, one of the catalysts for evotional apparel was walking into Abercrombie and Target and Guess and loving the creative conversational t-shirts but hating the fact that I can’t wear 90% of their t-shirts because they’re all about sexual inuendo. I want evotional apparel to be about spiritual inuendo. I want them to make people laugh and make people think.

All of that to say this I was having a conversation with Trinity Jordan about www.plainjoestudios.com and he told me that they really focus on the concept of backstory when they work with branding churches. That is a concept used by imagineers at Disney when they design rides and displays. They want to frame everything with the right backspace. Well, plainjoe has designed a totally cool office space and everything tells a story. I think that is what gives dimensionality to an organization. It’s almost like Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story. Who doens’t love hearing the “backstory” of famous people? Evotional apparel is redeeming the backstory concept and applying it to clothing.

By the way, Ebenezers will do the same thing. We’re going to celebrate the history of our neighborhood in some fun and creative ways. We might hand the original deed. We’ll tell the story of how Ebenezers came into existence. We’ll even have train tracks in the flooring! It’s the backstory that creates buzz and gets people talking! National Community Church meeting in the movie theaters @ Union Station is a great example. We’ve always celebrated the backstory of the original bill of Congress saying, “and for other purposes.” It’s that backstory that has given us such a sense of destiny! And it’s the backstory that infuses loyalism whether it’s a church, a restaurant, a barber shop or a coffeehouse!

More backstory to come