here for but ideas worth spreading even
if they’ve spread far aren’t worth very
much unless they make an impact for a
brief moment at the turn of the 21st
century we thought this was going to be
simple we thought this was going to be
natural even with the advent of social
media like Twitter and Facebook and the
universality of cell phones and wireless
internet we thought we were going to
have a new get a new age of engagement
where every single human could be
connected to every other single humans
thoughts feelings and situations all the
way around the globe the seminal moment
for this came in the year 2012 when
three filmmakers decided to highlight
the atrocities of the Lord’s Resistance
Army in Uganda who was using children as
soldiers and sex slaves they decided to
make 2012 the year that the Joseph Kony
the leader was going to be made famous
infamous rather and so they started a
video called Kony 2012 it was the most
successful viral video in internet
history it racked up a hundred million
views in six days for a time it was the
most viral video that had ever existed
online since of course passed by Gangnam
style and it was so remarkable that it
worked six days after the after it
reached 100 million views Joseph Kony
was caught and convicted except that’s
not at all what happened actually six
days later nothing happened we are here
five years later and literally no
difference was actually made Joseph Kony
is still in Uganda the Lord’s Resistance
Army is still making an impact there and
all of your shares and likes did
absolutely nothing we should have known
better
shouldn’t we religions have been telling
us for centuries millennia that our
world is more broken than that and if we
don’t believe all the religious
leaders in the world at least we could
believe John Mayer who and his seminal
song wrote it’s not that we don’t care
it’s just the fight ain’t fair so we
just keep on waiting waiting waiting on
the world to change you see the argument
isn’t that the world doesn’t need to
change that’s kind of a given in America
alone we have 43 million people living
below the poverty line if you go
worldwide ten point seven percent of the
world for roughly 770 people million
people live at under less than a dollar
ninety a day but I’ll tell you that
doesn’t grab our hearts you could share
that a hundred million times on Facebook
and not a single more person would be
fed what really grabs our hearts is when
we know people is when we’re actually
engaged so this is a young woman I know
from Rwanda her parents were victims of
the hiv/aids eka eka Demick and she and
her young sister lived by themselves
until an organization that was connected
with other people decided to help change
their lives this is a woman in West
Dallas who actually just in our backyard
right now is a mass eviction that’s
happening from slumlords in just a few
miles from one of the wealthiest and
fastest-growing places in the world they
need the world to change the problem is
we’re not very good at knowing how to do
it how do you transform liking something
on Facebook or caring something about it
to actual transformation I’ll tell you
Internet is not going to be very helpful
recently I came across that clickbait of
six things that young people can do to
change the world and I’m showing it to
you here to demonstrate how pathetic the
ideas actually are the first one is
volunteer as if you’re going to
volunteer somewhere somehow to make some
difference there’s no illustration on
that the second is more pathetic right
to your political representative as if
that’s going to do something that’s
going to automatically change anything
the third one is to use online platforms
to reach other people doesn’t say what
platforms are what to other people or
for what the other one is to inspire
other young people to take a role like
you are now by doing absolutely nothing
the next one is think outside the box as
if telling
someone to think outside the box has
ever helped anyone think outside the box
and of course the following one is
please click here we get ad dollars this
really is simply how pathetic it is an
our mindset that if you’ve got young
people that are driven we have so few
good options because we’ve lost the idea
of what it takes to make an impact I
think there are two things necessary to
make an impact there are two things
necessary to change the world the first
one is you’ve got to have a real
community social networks are great to
share ideas but really really bad at
enacting them you’ve got to have actual
community that builds people together
that surrounds people and that can
actually make a difference and the
second thing you’ve got to have is just
system I don’t even care what system you
figure out some system and challenge
your people to change the world in
whatever face-to-face community you’re
in and that’s how the world has changed
the most significant kind of gold
standard for this happened in 1979 with
an organization that you know called the
Rotary Club in 1979 Glen Laura neuf was
a leader in Rotary Club traveling back
from a Health Conference in Asia when he
decided he was going to make to end
polio now had he just shared this on
Facebook literally nothing would have
happened but instead he was a part of a
face-to-face community and he called
people within his community and said
we’re going to make a difference and
from 1979 until now there has been a
99.9 percent decrease in worldwide polio
cases this is how you change the world
I’m here to talk to you because my
church has been trying to do the same
exact thing I’m a pastor to church and a
few years ago family came to me and said
I want to help us change the world we
gather together every week every single
week we have face-to-face community but
we’ve got to have a system to challenge
people so this family gave half a
million dollars over three years and
matching funds for our church members to
do something any
thing to change their corner of the
world we’ve not reduced 99.9% of polio
cases in the world but that’s already
done thankfully what we did is we
challenged every single person to change
something in their world we provided a
system by which they can do it and get
help making it happen let me share with
you some of those stories this is a
young high school girl who knew that
when students that have special needs
particularly attention issues in
classrooms are able to actually work and
study on yoga exercise balls they’re
more productive so she went and she
bought them and spread them in schools
around the area these are young girls
who decided to gather together and
instead of just having a party for
themselves they decided to have to make
stuffed animals for the victims of
domestic violence who attended the
shelters and you very near this property
right now this is a man who was
traveling every single day with his cart
on a tram to go and actually try to make
an honest living for himself by cleaning
car windows some real estate agents in
town decided that they wanted to help
him and so they collectively with our
help
ended up help buying him a car you’ve
got Lockhart’s BBQ with a location here
and an oak cliff that family is the
owners belong to our church and our
active members and we decided to feed
the officers of the Southwest Division
in the months after the horrific attack
of 2016 against police officers in this
very city SPARC tank isn’t honestly it
isn’t that original we have a community
that cares about people and we provided
a system by which we challenged and
enabled those people to change the world
it’s not that hard every community needs
to be doing something to make a
difference in their own world because if
we all change our own little worlds
slowly but surely the whole world’s
gonna change John Mayer had it wrong the
world we’re not waiting on the world to
change the world is waiting on us to
change and it won’t until we do [Applause]