Agape Geekout! "Operation: Compassion"

This June we are kicking off "Agape Geekout", a movement we hope will grow exponentially over time.

Agape- A New Testament Greek noun meaning "affection, good will, love, benevolence, brotherly love". Agape is love that prioritizes others over oneself.

An AGAPE GEEKOUT is a geeky AFK (Away From Keyboard) event you invite others to participate in that raises funds and awareness for a ministry endeavor of your choice. It can be something as small and simple as inviting a few friends over for a double-feature geek movie night, or something more extravagant, like a big table-top gaming event at your church! The possibilities are endless! The most important thing is connecting, in person, with fellow Christians and inviting them to get involved in ministry that tangibly expresses love and compassion to others. (As an added bonus, AGAPE GEEKOUTS can be a great way to raise awareness and acceptance of geeks in your local church community!)

You can host an AGAPE GEEKOUT anytime you want! And we also hope to do around 2 or 3 AGAPE GEEKOUT "Operations" each year, in which we rally together for a single effort. This June we'll band together for "Operation: Compassion"!

Compassion International exists as a Christian child advocacy ministry that releases children from spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty and enables them to become responsible, fulfilled Christian adults. Compassion International provides health care and education to help them provide for themselves and their families, and all in the context of teaching and sharing the truth of the Bible and the love of Jesus.

Compassion is one of the most greatly respected ministries of its kind, and operates at a high level of integrity and accountability. My wife and I (Paeter and Holly Frandsen) have been involved with Compassion as child sponsors for close to 10 years and have seen first hand the excellence and care with which the ministry is run. Whether you choose to sponsor a child or give a one-time donation, your gift will be used with the greatest efficiency and careful stewardship, to help release children from horrible physical, economic, and spiritual conditions, enabling them to become agents of positive change in their communities as well.

From June 1st-30th, you're encouraged to host any kind of AGAPE GEEKOUT you'd like, and donate your fundraising total to Compassion International via our link at WWW.AGAPEGEEKOUT.COM .  (Donating through this link will allow us to keep track of our combined fundraising total.) And while you're there, be sure to share the story of how your AGAPE GEEKOUT went and what you did. You might even inspire someone else to host an AGAPE GEEKOUT of their own!

For more information and some ideas for hosting your event, visit www.agapegeekout.com . Then after your event, stay connected to Christian Geek Central for a final report and celebration at the beginning of July!

Go forth, and AGAPE GEEKOUT!

This sounds awesome, I've already sent out an email with some ideas, and I'm going to go talk to our youth pastor now.


edit to add:
I recruited some folks, including my son, and it looks like we'll have tabletop games, a card-game buy-in tournament (or something that sounds like that), plus I'm going to return bottles and cans, look for sponsors, and maybe tap the church's ministry fund to make sure there is pizza at our event.
I'm also looking at finding local miniature painters to display some of their work. ...and if that brings out a couple more people...
Looking to organize, plan, and set up this event is a new and exciting experience for me. A funny thing: at staff meeting today, the small groups coordinator asked if anyone needed volunteers for anything.

Just put up this shortish promo! Please consider liking it and sharing it with others!

It is the day after our local Geekout event and apparently I hold my tension in my neck and shoulders.

For our event, we had a total of 18 people come out, and $100 was donated. ( a couple rounded us up from $81 at the end)
I think everyone had a pretty good time, even the several people who showed up to be with the person who actually wanted to be there were squealing and shouting as they tried to escape the (something) temple.

Our pocket change one-shot was a really big success. We had 8 guys play it, and it brought in about $14 on its own. We had two problems with it, the first being we had too many guys playing. Eight players made rounds too long for some of the players to stay focused on the table. The second problem was my buddy Nick stayed up all night putting the finishing touches on the game and turned into a zombie about halfway through...as he was running the game that meant his dad and I had to kind of push him out of the way and take over. The good news is that, with a little tweaking, we came up with a really great system for this type of event. I'll share his artwork later, he really hit the character drawings out of the park.

Overall, I think it was a partial success. I say that because, while we brought in $100, it cost about $150 to put it on... so financially it was a flop. However, about half of the guys who came out do not come to our church (it was in our church building) and I know a number of those don't go to church at all. Not only did we get to show them we aren't a bunch of stiffs, but we got them to donate to charity in the bargain. Personal participation like that is a good thing, and I know our pastor who okayed the church's sponsoring of the event will be pretty pleased with how it turned out.
I'm going to take a bit of a break, and then start planning another one (scaled back) for the end of summer vacation, and if that one works out, again in January when everyone is miserable and sick of being stuck in snow drifts.

Awesome! Would you be willing to copy and paste this in the comments at agapegeekout.com?

Great story! And despite your math, I think it sounds like a great success and still consider it profitable. Consider this, you COULD have just spent the money to do an event and NOT have raised money for Compassion. So I still call every dollar a win and the experience your un-churched friends had was probably worth more than we can imagine! Congratulations!