If you could do anything…

A few days ago, billionaire Mark Cuban unveiled a radical stimulus proposal on his blog. He asked people to publicly post a business plan that could be profitable within 90 days and he would consider funding it—up to no maximum amount. The catch is that he may or may not fund a plan based on: Whether he loves and believes in it, how much equity a plan is willing to give back to him, and a few other quirky rules that guarantee the entrepreneur is deadly serious about throwing his or her life into their plan.

But funding really isn’t the point; he wants to spur creative thinking all over our country. Here is what he says about this “open source” idea: “You must post your business plan here on my blog where I expect other people can and will comment on it. I also expect that other people will steal the idea and use it elsewhere. That is the idea…If its a good idea and worth funding, we want it replicated elsewhere. The idea is not just to help you, but to figure out how to help the economy through hard work and ingenuity.”

This is a serious case of somebody putting their money where their mouth is, as well as calling the bluff of those who talk a good talk—(“I’ve got a great idea if only it could get funded”)—but who won’t sell their life out for it.

As I skimmed through the thousand-plus responses (and that was only 3 days after the idea was posted) and read good and bad plans, I started thinking about the Kingdom of God. What if, instead of posting great plans that could turn profitable in the next three months, thousands of people generated and posted grass-roots ideas to extend the Gospel?

Now, I don’t have the kind of following that Mark Cuban has, but I’m going to ask you the question: If you could do anything to extend the gospel, no holds barred, and money wasn’t an issue, what would your plan be?

Are there any dreamers out there? Are there folks who are willing to share with the world an idea that might possibly generate an impact if someone else picked it up and ran with it?

While it would be a blast to get some of your responses here, the main point of this challenge is to get us to think. Are we obsessing over, and dreaming of, ways to extend God’s Kingdom? Is anything burning in your heart that, if it could be accomplished, would impact your world for the gospel?

My friend Mike Larkin likes to ask students the following question: “If you could do anything for God, and you knew if would be effective, and you didn’t have to worry about money, what would that one thing be?” Do you have an answer? If not, I pray that God would re-engage your dreams for Him.