You should check out The Church is Alive and their Lenten Charity:Water project. The Church is Alive is a blog/website/idea/group of presbyterian-type bloggers and videographers who explore the ways the church is alive today. Contrary to calls that the church is dying or already dead, the group runs a spiffy website and facebook page and the like, to showcase the more optimistic side of things — and, hopefully, the more true side of things. I guess, speaking theologically, if the church is the body of Christ it will never die. Well, these good folk keep the vision alive either way.

I’m giving them a bit of good PR now though, especially now because of their Lenten Charity: Water project. I’ll let their words fill you in below, but it seems like a good deal for sure. Additionally, I like to reward the ingenuity and tech-savvy to get an online project like this off the ground. Please help them towards their goal of raising $5,000 this Lent for Charity: Water. I did, and you should too.

From the Charity: Water announcement post of The Church is Alive:

In the days and weeks after the earthquake that hit Haiti, the churchisalive team – like so many others around the world – watched the images that flooded our television screens, computers, and magazines. Feelings of hurt,sadness, and helplessness filled us as we were reminded of the great need in our world each day of the week, let alone when a natural disaster strikes. As a team we donated and prayed, and continue to do so, but we felt that we should be doing more. This led us to conversations about partnering in mission with an organization, in order to raise awareness, to live into the call to help our sisters and brothers in Christ – to break out of our shells of apathy and take action.

We chose to launch a “water campaign” at the beginning of lent, because instead of giving something up, we wanted to add something to our lives and our world. There is something so somber and real about the Ash Wednesday services that we attended today. Something very poetic, very soul filled, to be reminded that our lives will too come to an end, and to dust we too will return. We believe that the charity:water initiative – the organization we have chosen to work with – reminds us of this message. After celebrating Fat Tuesday, in which we gorge ourselves on pancakes and whatever else we will soon be giving up during the season of lent, we gather on Ash Wednesday to begin the Lenten season as a community of faith that marches together into the reflection, confession and prayer of this season. As we walk away from the music and celebration that is Fat Tuesday, we walk into the silence and quiet of lent.