July 31, 2025 • 37 mins
What happens when a computer programmer receives a divine calling to ministry? For Reverend Dr. Shannon Karafanda, it launched a transformative journey culminating in a global kindness movement that's changing lives one small act at a time.
Shannon's path took an unexpected turn when she joined forces with her friend Alan Todd to plant a church centered on what they called "A-OK Projects"—Acts of Kindness performed with no strings attached. Whether handing out water on scorching days, planting flowers for neighbors, or surprising strangers with free gas, these gestures weren't about growing church membership but simply spreading love. Most fascinating were the reactions—many people actually refused kindness out of suspicion, revealing how starved our world has become for genuine goodness.
When tragedy struck and Alan suddenly passed away, Shannon carried their vision forward, eventually transforming it into the "Holy Mischief" movement. The name perfectly captures what these acts accomplish—creating positive disruptions in our negative status quo. What began as a small Lenten project among six churches in 2020 faced the immediate challenge of COVID-19. Yet rather than faltering, the movement flourished as people craved connection during isolation, growing from 150 members to thousands across multiple continents.
Shannon's insights on kindness as a "superpower" offer a revolutionary perspective. The power lies not in the act itself but in the connections created—benefiting not just giver and receiver but even those who witness or later hear about the kindness. In an era the Surgeon General has identified as suffering from an "epidemic of loneliness" more harmful than smoking, these simple acts create essential human bonds that ripple outward in unexpected ways.
Ready to cause some holy mischief in your community? Visit the Holy Mischief Facebook group or website for inspiration and join a growing movement proving that small acts of unexpected goodness can transform our world one smile, one connection, one moment at a time.
This podcast is a proud member of the Mayday Media Network. If you have an idea for a podcast and need some production assistance or have a podcast and are looking for a supportive network to join, check out maydaymedianetwork.com.
Like what you hear on the podcast? Follow our social media for more uplifting, inspirational and feel-good content.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, hello there and welcome.
You are listening to theKindness Matters podcast and I
am your host, mike Rathbun.
What is this podcast all about?
It's about kindness.
It's a pushback againsteverything negative that we see
in the news and on social mediatoday, and it's a way to
(00:20):
highlight people, organizationsthat are simply striving to make
their little corner of theworld a little better place.
If you want to join in on theconversation, feel free, Go
ahead and follow us on all ofyour social media feeds.
We're on Facebook, instagram,tiktok.
We're even on LinkedIn underMike Rathbun.
(00:43):
Check us out.
We're even on LinkedIn underMike Rathbun.
Check us out and, in themeantime, so sit back, relax,
enjoy and we'll get into theKindness Matters podcast.
Hey, welcome to the showeverybody.
Thank you so much for makingthat conscious choice to spend
(01:07):
30 minutes here today with thekindness matters podcast and
myself.
Your your host, mike Rathbun.
Um, we're so excited to haveyou here and we are so excited
that you, that you chose to hangout with us for 30 minutes or
so.
Um, and you know what?
If you hear something on thispodcast that you absolutely
adore, please, please, please,please, please.
Tell a friend.
Phone a friend.
(01:28):
Tell a friend, tell a familymember, just you know, tell them
you found a podcast that kindof lifts you up and makes you
feel good and kind of motivatesyou if that's what you're
feeling.
Kind of motivates you, ifthat's what you're feeling.
(01:49):
I guess, given today's guest, Ishould say if the spirit moves
you.
Yeah, you guys.
This is so cool.
My guest today is so amazing.
I'm going to see if I can getthis right.
The Reverend Dr ShannonCarafonda.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
You got it, all those vowels, you got it Way to go.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Holy buckets, and I think I even enunciated Reverend
Doctor.
Welcome to the show, shannon.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's a joy to come on and talkabout things that are uplifting
and joyful.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yes, yes, that's what we're all about here.
We're, you know, we're thatsanctuary away from your social
media news feed and your newsstations and all that other good
stuff, all that downer stuff.
So now you are the pastor atTrinity UMC Carterville.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
In Cartersville, Georgia, Georgia's museum city.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I wish I'd mentioned that's no relation to Jimmy and
Rosalyn.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
It is not related at all to Jimmy Carter.
I believe the name is from adifferent Carter.
There at one point was aCarter's.
Well, there still is a Carter'sLake somewhere close by.
I think that's the connectionthere, if I'm getting my history
right.
But yeah, it's an area thatstarted to really grow because
(03:20):
because of a project that wasbeing done to build a lake and
to build a dam and to harnesselectricity, because of the dam,
and when all the workers cameto make that project happen, a
lot of them stayed, A rail camein, a whole lot of other things.
(03:40):
And then at one point someonesaid you know what?
We should start building somemuseums.
And so we have actually fivemuseums in the city of
Cartersville and many of themare Smithsonian affiliated
museums.
It's a great city, really yeah.
Yeah, we have a Western artmuseum and it's the largest
Western art museum in thecountry.
(04:02):
Really very cool art that isthere.
We have an automobile museumthat has rotating exhibits as
well as a few permanent displays, and then there is a science
museum that is quite large andwe recently had a a meteor fall
(04:23):
through the sky in the Atlantaarea and fell in one particular
spot in Georgia and apparentlythere are people that go out and
to hunt meteorites when theyfall and they found it and it's
now in the museum and they'restudying it and are finding all
sorts of interesting thingsabout it.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
That is so cool.
And what's the population of?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Cartersville.
Well, during the day it's about100,000, and at night it's
about 25,000.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Oh, my goodness.
So do all those people come totown to work in the museums.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Well, there's a large power plant.
They work in the museums, theschool system, the hospital.
Anheuser-busch has a plant here, a brewery here, and you know
there's some carpet mills.
There's a lot of industry thatis here.
It's really a booming area.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
So cool.
Now, you weren't born andraised there, right?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Not in Cartersville, no, I was born in Atlanta and
have lived in various suburbsaround Atlanta almost my entire
life.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Okay, so, as I mentioned, reverend Doctor, yes,
that's quite the title.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
It is.
I tend to like to collecttitles and degrees, but it's
been a wild ride.
When I graduated high school, Iknew I wanted to go to Georgia
Tech.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Ramblin'.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Wreck Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech.
I wasn't sure what I wanted tostudy.
I quickly discovered it was notmath or science.
However, georgia Tech has agreat business school, so I got
a management degree with a focuson information systems.
I did computer programming forquite a few years and then one
(06:19):
day I was on a van with thepeople from my church who taught
Sunday school and I was mindingmy own business, so halfway,
listening to what the associatepastor who was driving the bus
was talking about.
And I had this incredible momentwhere God didn't speak to me
(06:42):
audibly, but really didn't speakto me audibly, but really made
it clear that I was being calledinto something and that
something was ministry and thatI needed to figure out what that
looked like.
And I did what any person woulddo.
I did absolutely nothing withthat for several months because
I was scared.
(07:02):
And finally, when it was timefor me to accept that calling, I
went to church and afterworship was going to talk to the
senior pastor.
He was out.
That same associate pastor whowas driving the van that day was
there and I said well, that'swho I'm supposed to talk to.
And she said we've been waitingfor this and from then on it's
(07:23):
been like a roller coaster upsand downs, turning upside down.
Sometimes I'm queasy, sometimesit's full of adrenaline and
it's been an amazing ride.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Wow, that is so cool.
And now when one?
So I would imagine thatrequired a theology degree.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, I had to go back to school.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
That's what I was going for.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
The information systems degree did not cut it,
although I have used a good bitof it, especially the management
portion of it.
But yeah, I had to go and get amaster's of divinity degree.
So I went to Candler School ofTheology on the Emory University
campus.
It's a three-year program.
I did that and then later on,like I said, I like to collect
(08:09):
degrees I was like I kind ofwant one more.
So I did a distance programwith Boston University School of
Theology.
I would go up a couple of timesa week, a couple of times a
year and do an intensive with acohort of people, and then the
rest of it was online.
I was Zooming before.
Zooming was cool.
(08:30):
And I did a doctorate intransformational leadership and
the focus was on having a growthmindset in an organization, on
having a growth mindset in anorganization.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Okay, oh, wow.
So was all of this leading youto a church, planting a church?
Explain to me please.
What does planting a churchmean?
I've heard the phrase.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah, so we have established churches that have
been here since before we werethe United States and we have
many, many in the UnitedMethodist Church and our system
is a connectional system.
So we have a bishop who's overan area and says, hey, shannon,
you need to go to that church,and that's typically the way
(09:20):
things happen.
But occasionally there will besomeone, either a clergy person,
who feels called to start achurch in a new area, or
missionally.
We might look at an area andsay there's not a United
Methodist Church there, that's agrowing area, and so someone
will put a church in that area.
And so planting a church means,if you think about it like a
(09:41):
garden, you don't just grow atomato, you've got to make sure
the soil is ready.
You need to make sure thatyou're doing all the things to
cultivate a good area forsomething to be planted and
grown.
And so we talk about planting achurch, because you don't just
start a worship service.
You've got to get a crew, ateam of people together who want
(10:03):
to do that.
It takes a very specificmindset to do that, and then you
need some resources and fundingand all of that is a big part
of it.
So I had just gottencommissioned as a minister.
So at that point I was just theReverend, not the Reverend
doctor, and a friend of mine wasplanting a church.
(10:26):
And when I heard he was plantinga church, God was like nudging
me again you need to call him,you need to be his associate.
Well, you don't plant a churchwith an associate Like there's
usually not a need for that.
Okay, but I called him and Isaid you need me to be your
(10:46):
associate.
And he's like okay, tell memore.
And I said I don't know.
I got this feeling that God wastelling me to call you and we
kind of just kind of ignored itfor a couple of weeks.
And then he called me back andhe said you know, a really good
employee will bring in a certainnumber of people and pay for
(11:09):
themselves.
So let's give it a go and seewhat happens.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
And we went from there.
Wow, and now this was Alan.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, so this was my friend Alan Todd.
He had come to the NorthGeorgia area from Florida, had
been working in youth ministryfor quite some time.
He was the youth minister atthe churchudge from God that he
was supposed to start, a churchthat was supported a good bit
(11:53):
from that church that he wasworking in already, so several
of the families that startedwith us came from that church.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Got it, got it, got it.
So you and Alan went about theprocess of starting a new church
.
I mean, I can't even imaginewhat all goes into that.
Where do you find yourparishioners?
How do you get the money tobuild a church, because I'm
assuming that that requires youto build a church.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
It does.
Well, it does.
Eventually Some will build abrick and mortar.
At the beginning, when we werestarting to meet, we met in
people's homes and then we wouldgather on a regular basis to do
acts of kindness, projects,which I'm going to talk about in
just a second.
But when we started doingworship services, we were
(12:42):
renting space in a local highschool, so we were in their
auditorium and that's where wehad our worship services school,
so we were in their auditoriumand that's where we had our
worship services.
The thing that really made meexcited about working with Alan
is that he said I want this tobe about servant leadership and
servant evangelism, I think, isthe word that he used, and not
(13:03):
in kind of the political sensethat we hear about it today.
This was really about I want toshare God's love through
kindness.
And he said I want us, once amonth, to go out in the
community and to do things forother people with no expectation
that they're coming to church,because that's not why we do it.
It's not about getting, as wesay, butts in the seat, it's
(13:27):
about loving people.
And I said that sounds great.
And it's hard to train churchpeople about that because,
especially ones who are startinga church, because they're like,
okay, so I'm going to dosomething nice and then tell
them about the church, I said,no, you're going to just do
something nice, periodindependence.
If they ask you why you'redoing this with someone else,
that might lead to the church,but it may not, and that's okay.
(13:50):
We are doing acts of kindnessbecause God tells us to love
other people, which I was like.
That sounds so simple and easy.
Why are we not doing more ofthis?
And he called them acts ofkindness or A-OK, projects, a-ok
acts of kindness.
A-OK projects, a-ok acts ofkindness, because when you do an
(14:12):
act of kindness.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Everything is.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
A-OK, I love that, which was super cheesy, but
that's why we loved Alan.
And so, before we even had ourfirst big worship service, we
were doing those monthly.
We would hand out cold water ona hot day, we would plant
flowers in someone's yard ifthey wanted to, or we would just
(14:33):
give them the flowers, or ifthey said no, thank you, we
would just walk away.
We did a gas buy down after oneof the times when gas prices
spiked up.
We went to the one of the localgas stations and said, hey,
we'd like to buy your first $20worth of gas.
(14:54):
We had people tell us no, whichI think surprised a lot of
people.
It happens more than you think,yeah, A lot of people are very
suspicious of kindness.
What is it you want?
What is it that you're doing?
Why are you doing this?
Are you a cult?
What you know?
What's going?
On here and um, so we had tolearn that.
(15:16):
Our response to that is Iunderstand.
Thank you very much.
Like.
Like, it's okay, I get.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I get that.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah it was it was really really
interesting.
Yeah, it's like, yeah, yeah,yeah, it was really interesting.
Yeah, it's like, you know,here's chocolate.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
no, like I just can't imagine that you will never
hear me say no when there'schocolate same.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Um, in fact, the only reason I say no is because I've
already had too much and uh, Iknow it's bad for me to have too
much like a little bit, alittle bit healthy uh,
especially there's no such thingas too much like a little bit
healthy there really is no suchthing as too much, shannon, I'm
sorry, there's really not.
I know, I know I'm just tryingto talk myself out.
So this is what we were doingas a group and I was working
(16:02):
with Alan almost every day.
I mean, if I wasn't in theoffice doing something and
seeing him, we would text eachother or I might, I'd be on the
phone and we were just.
And the early parts of plantinga church are super exciting
because there's all this wonderand curiosity that goes with it
and it's super, super exciting.
(16:23):
But unfortunately, uh, butunfortunately, the week before
we were going to have our bigworship service, where this is
our launch service is what wecalled it Our big public worship
service, where we're going tostart the church.
Right, this is like day one.
A week before that happened,alan passed away.
(16:45):
Suddenly, alan passed away.
Suddenly.
He was, you know, in this.
He died.
We're pretty sure it was aheart attack.
It was very quick.
There weren't really a lot ofsigns, or?
anything that you know hisfamily knew of, but he had come
(17:06):
home from work.
I remember the last time I sawhim he had been painting a
rental house Someone that heknew was moving out of his
rental house and so he had goneand painted and he came in and
he had on like these paintingoveralls with paint splattered
all over and I was feeling downabout something and he spoke
(17:26):
words of encouragement and lifeinto me and made me feel better.
Then he went home and gotchanged and he cooked a meal for
the family that was moving outand moving into their new house
and they had packed the mealinto the car it was him and his
wife and his girls and he wentto turn on the car but before he
(17:51):
could engage into drive oranything, he just slumped over
the wheel.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Holy cow.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, shocking, but like so many little things in
there, there were just thesemoments of hope in the middle of
all of this that church did goon to launch.
I preached that first servicekind of got us going, got
another pastor in there at onepoint.
(18:20):
It did really well, Ended upmerging at one point with
another church.
But I could not let the idea ofacts of kindness go.
I just thought there'ssomething to AOK projects.
that is the secret sauce of life.
When you do kindness, it's asuperpower.
And it's not a superpowerbecause you're doing something.
(18:41):
It's a superpower because ofthe connection that happens
between you and somebody else.
They feel better, you feelbetter, your body's flooded with
all these endorphins and itjust you know you're checking a
box.
That just feels really, reallygood.
But I have come to discoverit's not just the two of you
that feel better.
(19:02):
People who witness an act ofkindness feel better.
And when we tell a story of anact of kindness, the people who
are listening feel better.
And to me, that is the secretsauce of life.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Absolutely.
Yeah, oh, that is so cool.
Going back for just one second,I can't imagine that first
sermon after Alan passed thatfirst sermon after Alan passed
what you?
Had to work up inside ofyourself to get that out.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah, I remember what I leaned on was that God is
making all things new, andthere's two places in the Bible
where that language is used.
One is in the book ofRevelation, where the mess is in
front of us and God turns itinto something beautiful and
there's no more crying and nomore mourning and no more
weeping, and God is making allthings new.
And the other one is in one ofPaul's letters and he talks
(20:00):
about God is making all thingsnew, and isn't that a great and
wonderful thing?
And so I leaned into that andthat has become one of my
favorite scriptures for thatreason, because it reminds me
there's always a mess, butthere's always a way for it to
be transformed, and that youknow.
I really believe that AOKProjects although I have changed
(20:25):
that phrasing- I was just goingto ask you about that.
Yeah.
So you know, only a few peoplewho were there at that early
time knew that language aroundAOK projects, and so this and
this was before social media, sothere weren't hashtags there.
(20:46):
You know, things weren'tbranded in the same way that
they're branded now.
But I was at another church atthis point and another colleague
in the North Georgia area, inthe United Methodist Church,
sends me an email and says I amtrying to do a conference and
(21:06):
I'd like for you to come speak.
And I, to this day, swear that.
He said in the email I amtrying to get the holy mischief
makers of the conferencetogether to talk about mission
work.
He says I never said those wordstogether, but that's what I
remember and I thought holymischief, I don't know what that
(21:29):
is, but I want to do it.
And I thought really, that'swhat acts of kindness are.
It's a little bit of mischiefbecause it disrupts somebody's
day.
It's not malicious in any way,but it's disruptive because
there's so many things that wedo on autopilot and now there's
so much negativity thatnegativity has become the status
(21:50):
quo.
So holy mischief snaps you outof that status quo and makes you
think there is some good in theworld.
There is something being madenew today.
So anytime I experienced or didan act of kindness project, I
would at this point social mediahad started very briefly I
(22:13):
would share that story withpeople either on social media or
in person, and I would saythat's just a little bit of holy
mischief.
A little bit of holy mischiefand my name became associated
with those words and the hashtagholy All right.
Holy mischief, and it stayedlike that for a while.
It was just sort of this littlething and I thought we got to
(22:36):
do something with this.
More people need to know aboutthis.
But you know, I didn't reallyknow what to do and I am meeting
with my district superintendent, who's kind of my- boss, my
superior for an annual review.
And she said what's next for you?
I said I don't really know, butI feel like holy mischief, it's
(22:57):
probably got something to dowith that.
And she said, well, you canstart a movement.
And I went, no, no way, hardpass movements.
Movements are for cults.
And I went, no, not gonna do it.
So I get home and I'm like therest of everything went fine,
like it was a great review, andI get home I'm kind of thinking
(23:20):
about it and I was readingsomething and reading how, uh,
jesus movement of Christianitystarted from Judaism and how the
Wesleyan movement of UnitedMethodism started out of the
Church of England, and I went,oh, a movement?
Oh, so if it's not focused onme because that's usually what
(23:44):
cults are focused on is on aperson then perhaps I could
start a movement because it'snot focusing on me or really any
of the people in the movement,the movements focusing on those
who need kindness in the world.
And I'm like, well, I don't.
I mean there's if there is abook on how to start a movement.
(24:06):
I haven't found it, or haven'tfound one that I would really
trust necessarily.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
There's no movements for dummies.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
There's no movements.
For that I did look, I reallyhave.
I've done my best, um, and Ithought, okay, I don't know how
to go about this.
I said let me just start small.
Let me start with um 40, with40 days of holy mischief.
The time between Ash Wednesdayand Easter is known as Lent.
(24:35):
It's the 40 days that lead upto Easter, not including the
Sundays, and I'll put together40 different things that you can
do, one for each day.
I'll pick some scripture thatgoes with it, so it can be a
devotional guide too.
And let's get a few morechurches involved.
It's not just the church thatI'm at right now, let's see if
there's a few.
So I asked a few.
I think I had about six whowere like yep, we're in.
(24:56):
So I sent them a box not onlywith the little devotional
guides but like.
So one of the things during the40 days was everyone deserves
gold stars.
Give someone some gold stars.
So I had gold stars in the boxand I had t-shirts in the box
and I had some had bubbles andnoisemakers and just whimsical
(25:17):
fun things, and the box saidholy mischief on it.
I shipped those off to thechurches and things were going
great.
People were excited about thisLenten series and how to make
this work.
Well, that was in 2020.
And Lent 2020, you know, march13th happened like right in the
(25:39):
middle of Lent, and I thought,well, there goes the movement.
You know, this is reallyfocusing on being safe and COVID
and whatever this means for us.
That's more important.
Right now.
I don't know what's going tohappen to the movement.
This is really focusing onbeing safe and COVID and
whatever this means for us.
That's more important.
Right now, I don't know what'sgoing to happen to the movement.
One of the things I did duringthat time, right before COVID
(25:59):
hit, I said all of thesechurches need to be connected
somehow.
I'm going to start a Facebookgroup for these people who are
in these churches so they canencourage each other like, hey,
today's the day that you'resupposed to, you know, go tell
your neighbor how much they meanto you or whatever, and
encourage one another and telleach other how it went and you
(26:19):
know, sometimes people were liketoday was really hard, I didn't
realize how hard it would be.
Or today was so much fun, Ididn't realize how much joy.
So it was good, it was great.
Surprisingly, though, once COVIDhit, most of the things that
you could do could have beendone at a distance, because
several of them were anonymousand the ones that weren't like
(26:44):
hugging people, you could changeto hugging those in your family
or pivot that somehow towriting a note to your family,
sure.
So what I found was because youcould do those things in a safe
distance, people craved themand they were looking for
(27:07):
opportunities for connection,and social media was one of the
places where they were able tofind some connection.
Even though it wasn't the deepconnections that we know of
face-to-face, it still was atype of connection.
So these churches startedinviting their friends and I
went from like 150 people in thegroup to several hundred people
(27:28):
in the group and then, overlike the next year or two, we've
got like 2000 people in thisgroup, some people are across
the world, in Australia and theUK and in Africa, and it's been
(27:50):
a joy to see what they willshare when they're looking at
you know, hey, I experiencedthis, this little act of holy
mischief, and they'll share tothe group and it's been great to
see how it works.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, and I was in the group before we came on the
episode and I noticed thatsomebody had posted.
It was like a little basket.
It was hard to tell where itwas.
I want to say it was in aretail place, but it had little
notes in it.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, that was at a grocery store, okay, yeah, it
just looked like a little takeyour number thing, yeah.
And the person who did itthought, well, what is this?
And opened it up and it was aninspirational note.
Yeah, this is meant just foryou.
I hope you're having a good day.
God's not done with you yet,and that was it.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I love that and.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
I thought, wow, and I have no idea who put it there.
I would love to say it was anofficial holy mischief maker,
but it probably wasn't.
And that's okay.
It's just good to share thoseideas.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Yeah, oh, for sure, yeah, and it's so cool.
You talking about COVID andconnection and I think and I
don't know how much of your doyou focus on people who don't
get as much connection anymore.
(29:06):
I think, of people, like insenior facilities.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah.
So I don't narrow it downspecifically.
However, what I'm finding isthat we have an epidemic of
loneliness, and even people whoyou wouldn't think would be
lonely, like a school teacher,could suffer from some pretty
(29:34):
big loneliness.
Because we've lost a sense of,as we've gotten bigger, our
communities are getting bigger,our cities are getting bigger
We've lost the closeness of atight knit community and it's
more difficult to make friends.
It's more difficult to go alittle deeper in friendships
because we're getting pulled inall directions.
Because I go to work, I workall day, not only like for
(30:00):
teachers.
For example, not only do I haveto submit a lesson plan online,
but I've also got to doevaluations for each student
that go to the parents and I'vegot to do one that gets logged
in the system, and then I've gotto deal with all of the emails
coming in from the parent, fromthe school, the principal, the
system that's there.
I also have all the spam,because I went to a conference
(30:23):
last year on learning and nowI'm getting all of these things
and then I go home and I just Ikind of want to just veg for a
minute and I've got my TV on,but in between the commercials I
just I kind of want to just vegfor a minute, and I've got my
TV on, but in between thecommercials I'm scrolling
through something and I don'trealize that now three hours
have passed and I've beenscrolling, or you know.
Maybe it's not quite that long,but it's a lot longer.
(30:46):
There's so many things vying forour attention that we don't
pause to make that communityhappen.
So you know, I would saysometimes not all the time, but
sometimes people in an assistedliving program actually get more
community than some of the rest.
I know that's a very blanketgeneralization that I can't
(31:09):
necessarily back up, but in agood program where they are very
conscious of making sure thatpeople are socialized.
That could actually be a lotmore beneficial than someone
who's in a neighborhood butnever sees their neighbors.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Yes, absolutely.
And you're absolutely rightabout the epidemic of loneliness
, though, because and I need todo another episode on that,
maybe I'll have you on just talkabout that, because it really
is a thing and it's horrible.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
It's worse than smoking.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
It is, it's worse for your health.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Yeah, it's like five times worse than smoking.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Yeah, I saw that.
Was it the Surgeon General?
Surgeon General, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Wrote a very easy to read book, Like it's not super
advanced science, you can readit, but it's really really good
and it talks about the thingsthat we could do.
And you know, like I said, Ihave a online movement, but
online is not necessarily thething that we need to focus on.
(32:13):
It really is the movement andthe connections that happen
offline that need to be focused.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, absolutely, and if you want to be a part of
that movement, head on over to.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Facebook.
Facebook and the group is HolyMisch mischief.
We'll put links in yeah, yeah,I also have a website and will
occasionally send out emails.
I don't send a lot, so don'tworry about spam.
I don't sell anything typically.
Occasionally I might have at-shirt or something where the
(32:52):
proceeds go to charity, but Iusually send about one a month
and it'll have some some ideasof holy mischief, because not
everybody's online on on socialmedia and I applaud those people
who are doing that.
Yeah, I know, you know it'scrazy.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Yeah, it's yep, I will link your website in there
as well.
I mean, if you, you know, maybeyou just need ideas on little
holy bits of holy mischief thatyou can get into and Reverend Dr
Shannon is your gal.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah, I'll tell you one that I did this week.
I was going to be connectingwith a couple of people that
worked at United Way and we weregoing to be meeting at one of
the community college campuseshere.
And she's like, yeah, we'regoing to show up with popsicles
and we're going to pass them outto students and teachers.
And I was like, oh, we are, yes, we are, and so we did, and we
(33:52):
didn't have a permit orpermission, and if they said no,
we would have put it back inthe car, but you would have
thought we were passing out gold, because you know, we live
really close to Hotlanta.
It is very hot here.
It was 98 degrees that day andwe went, like that day they
purchased the popsicles.
(34:12):
They went to Bon Pops Like theydidn't just do generic, they
went with yeah, it was great.
Yeah, they had like a coolerwith you know stuff packed
around them.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
They had it done right, yeah.
Well, you know, it's probablysomething that they do quite
often.
This is United Way, did you say.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Yeah, United Way of Bartow County.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
They know this stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
They do, they know their things.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Well, shannon, thank you so much for being on.
I really appreciate this.
I am motivated now.
I am inspired and you are doingsuch amazing work and I really,
really appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Thank you, mike, I've really enjoyed talking about
this.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
That's fantastic.
We will talk again soon and you, mike, I've really enjoyed
talking about this.
That's fantastic.
We will talk again soon and youtake care, stay cool.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
I want to thank you for taking this time to listen
to the episode today with myguest Shannon wait, excuse me,
the Reverend Dr ShannonCarafonda Got it right again.
I hope you're able to takesomething positive from the time
that you spent here with ustoday.
Maybe you'll be inspired, Maybeyou'll be motivated, Maybe
(35:28):
you'll be moved.
If you experienced any of thosepositive feelings, please
consider sharing this podcastwith your friends and family.
I am always striving to offeryou a better podcast, so give me
some feedback.
Let me know how you think I'mdoing.
Whether you loved an episode orhated an episode, whether it's
(35:52):
on YouTube or an email, justshout out, let me know and tell
me how you think I'm doing.
Also, make sure to follow us onall of our socials Facebook,
Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok,whatever.
Give us a follow and interactwith us in some way or form.
It would mean the world.
(36:13):
This podcast is part of theMayday Media Network.
In some way or form, it wouldmean the world.
This podcast is part of theMayday Media Network.
If you have an idea for apodcast and need some production
assistance, or you already havea podcast and you're looking
for a supportive network to join, check out
maydaymedianetworkcom and checkout the many different shows
(36:33):
they have, like AfrocentricSpoil, my Movie Generation
Mixtape In a Pickle Radio Show,Wake Up and Dream with D'Anthony
Palin, Stacks of Packs and theTime Pals.
We'll be back again next weekwith a new episode and we would
be honored if you would join us.
(36:54):
You have been listening to theKindness Matters podcast.
I'm your host, Mike Rathbun.
Have a fantastic week.
Well, hello there and welcome.
You are listening to theKindness Matters podcast and I
am your host, mike Rathbun.
What is this podcast all about?
It's about kindness.
It's a pushback againsteverything negative that we see
in the news and on social mediatoday, and it's a way to
(00:20):
highlight people, organizationsthat are simply striving to make
their little corner of theworld a little better place.
If you want to join in on theconversation, feel free, Go
ahead and follow us on all ofyour social media feeds.
We're on Facebook, instagram,tiktok.
We're even on LinkedIn underMike Rathbun.
(00:43):
Check us out.
We're even on LinkedIn underMike Rathbun.
Check us out and, in themeantime, so sit back, relax,
enjoy and we'll get into theKindness Matters podcast.
Hey, welcome to the showeverybody.
Thank you so much for makingthat conscious choice to spend
(01:07):
30 minutes here today with thekindness matters podcast and
myself.
Your your host, mike Rathbun.
Um, we're so excited to haveyou here and we are so excited
that you, that you chose to hangout with us for 30 minutes or
so.
Um, and you know what?
If you hear something on thispodcast that you absolutely
adore, please, please, please,please, please.
Tell a friend.
Phone a friend.
(01:28):
Tell a friend, tell a familymember, just you know, tell them
you found a podcast that kindof lifts you up and makes you
feel good and kind of motivatesyou if that's what you're
feeling.
Kind of motivates you, ifthat's what you're feeling.
(01:49):
I guess, given today's guest, Ishould say if the spirit moves
you.
Yeah, you guys.
This is so cool.
My guest today is so amazing.
I'm going to see if I can getthis right.
The Reverend Dr ShannonCarafonda.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
You got it, all those vowels, you got it Way to go.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Holy buckets, and I think I even enunciated Reverend
Doctor.
Welcome to the show, shannon.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's a joy to come on and talkabout things that are uplifting
and joyful.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yes, yes, that's what we're all about here.
We're, you know, we're thatsanctuary away from your social
media news feed and your newsstations and all that other good
stuff, all that downer stuff.
So now you are the pastor atTrinity UMC Carterville.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
In Cartersville, Georgia, Georgia's museum city.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I wish I'd mentioned that's no relation to Jimmy and
Rosalyn.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
It is not related at all to Jimmy Carter.
I believe the name is from adifferent Carter.
There at one point was aCarter's.
Well, there still is a Carter'sLake somewhere close by.
I think that's the connectionthere, if I'm getting my history
right.
But yeah, it's an area thatstarted to really grow because
(03:20):
because of a project that wasbeing done to build a lake and
to build a dam and to harnesselectricity, because of the dam,
and when all the workers cameto make that project happen, a
lot of them stayed, A rail camein, a whole lot of other things.
(03:40):
And then at one point someonesaid you know what?
We should start building somemuseums.
And so we have actually fivemuseums in the city of
Cartersville and many of themare Smithsonian affiliated
museums.
It's a great city, really yeah.
Yeah, we have a Western artmuseum and it's the largest
Western art museum in thecountry.
(04:02):
Really very cool art that isthere.
We have an automobile museumthat has rotating exhibits as
well as a few permanent displays, and then there is a science
museum that is quite large andwe recently had a a meteor fall
(04:23):
through the sky in the Atlantaarea and fell in one particular
spot in Georgia and apparentlythere are people that go out and
to hunt meteorites when theyfall and they found it and it's
now in the museum and they'restudying it and are finding all
sorts of interesting thingsabout it.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
That is so cool.
And what's the population of?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Cartersville.
Well, during the day it's about100,000, and at night it's
about 25,000.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Oh, my goodness.
So do all those people come totown to work in the museums.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Well, there's a large power plant.
They work in the museums, theschool system, the hospital.
Anheuser-busch has a plant here, a brewery here, and you know
there's some carpet mills.
There's a lot of industry thatis here.
It's really a booming area.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
So cool.
Now, you weren't born andraised there, right?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Not in Cartersville, no, I was born in Atlanta and
have lived in various suburbsaround Atlanta almost my entire
life.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Okay, so, as I mentioned, reverend Doctor, yes,
that's quite the title.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
It is.
I tend to like to collecttitles and degrees, but it's
been a wild ride.
When I graduated high school, Iknew I wanted to go to Georgia
Tech.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Ramblin'.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Wreck Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech.
I wasn't sure what I wanted tostudy.
I quickly discovered it was notmath or science.
However, georgia Tech has agreat business school, so I got
a management degree with a focuson information systems.
I did computer programming forquite a few years and then one
(06:19):
day I was on a van with thepeople from my church who taught
Sunday school and I was mindingmy own business, so halfway,
listening to what the associatepastor who was driving the bus
was talking about.
And I had this incredible momentwhere God didn't speak to me
(06:42):
audibly, but really didn't speakto me audibly, but really made
it clear that I was being calledinto something and that
something was ministry and thatI needed to figure out what that
looked like.
And I did what any person woulddo.
I did absolutely nothing withthat for several months because
I was scared.
(07:02):
And finally, when it was timefor me to accept that calling, I
went to church and afterworship was going to talk to the
senior pastor.
He was out.
That same associate pastor whowas driving the van that day was
there and I said well, that'swho I'm supposed to talk to.
And she said we've been waitingfor this and from then on it's
(07:23):
been like a roller coaster upsand downs, turning upside down.
Sometimes I'm queasy, sometimesit's full of adrenaline and
it's been an amazing ride.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Wow, that is so cool.
And now when one?
So I would imagine thatrequired a theology degree.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, I had to go back to school.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
That's what I was going for.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
The information systems degree did not cut it,
although I have used a good bitof it, especially the management
portion of it.
But yeah, I had to go and get amaster's of divinity degree.
So I went to Candler School ofTheology on the Emory University
campus.
It's a three-year program.
I did that and then later on,like I said, I like to collect
(08:09):
degrees I was like I kind ofwant one more.
So I did a distance programwith Boston University School of
Theology.
I would go up a couple of timesa week, a couple of times a
year and do an intensive with acohort of people, and then the
rest of it was online.
I was Zooming before.
Zooming was cool.
(08:30):
And I did a doctorate intransformational leadership and
the focus was on having a growthmindset in an organization, on
having a growth mindset in anorganization.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Okay, oh, wow.
So was all of this leading youto a church, planting a church?
Explain to me please.
What does planting a churchmean?
I've heard the phrase.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah, so we have established churches that have
been here since before we werethe United States and we have
many, many in the UnitedMethodist Church and our system
is a connectional system.
So we have a bishop who's overan area and says, hey, shannon,
you need to go to that church,and that's typically the way
(09:20):
things happen.
But occasionally there will besomeone, either a clergy person,
who feels called to start achurch in a new area, or
missionally.
We might look at an area andsay there's not a United
Methodist Church there, that's agrowing area, and so someone
will put a church in that area.
And so planting a church means,if you think about it like a
(09:41):
garden, you don't just grow atomato, you've got to make sure
the soil is ready.
You need to make sure thatyou're doing all the things to
cultivate a good area forsomething to be planted and
grown.
And so we talk about planting achurch, because you don't just
start a worship service.
You've got to get a crew, ateam of people together who want
(10:03):
to do that.
It takes a very specificmindset to do that, and then you
need some resources and fundingand all of that is a big part
of it.
So I had just gottencommissioned as a minister.
So at that point I was just theReverend, not the Reverend
doctor, and a friend of mine wasplanting a church.
(10:26):
And when I heard he was plantinga church, God was like nudging
me again you need to call him,you need to be his associate.
Well, you don't plant a churchwith an associate Like there's
usually not a need for that.
Okay, but I called him and Isaid you need me to be your
(10:46):
associate.
And he's like okay, tell memore.
And I said I don't know.
I got this feeling that God wastelling me to call you and we
kind of just kind of ignored itfor a couple of weeks.
And then he called me back andhe said you know, a really good
employee will bring in a certainnumber of people and pay for
(11:09):
themselves.
So let's give it a go and seewhat happens.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
And we went from there.
Wow, and now this was Alan.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, so this was my friend Alan Todd.
He had come to the NorthGeorgia area from Florida, had
been working in youth ministryfor quite some time.
He was the youth minister atthe churchudge from God that he
was supposed to start, a churchthat was supported a good bit
(11:53):
from that church that he wasworking in already, so several
of the families that startedwith us came from that church.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Got it, got it, got it.
So you and Alan went about theprocess of starting a new church
.
I mean, I can't even imaginewhat all goes into that.
Where do you find yourparishioners?
How do you get the money tobuild a church, because I'm
assuming that that requires youto build a church.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
It does.
Well, it does.
Eventually Some will build abrick and mortar.
At the beginning, when we werestarting to meet, we met in
people's homes and then we wouldgather on a regular basis to do
acts of kindness, projects,which I'm going to talk about in
just a second.
But when we started doingworship services, we were
(12:42):
renting space in a local highschool, so we were in their
auditorium and that's where wehad our worship services school,
so we were in their auditoriumand that's where we had our
worship services.
The thing that really made meexcited about working with Alan
is that he said I want this tobe about servant leadership and
servant evangelism, I think, isthe word that he used, and not
(13:03):
in kind of the political sensethat we hear about it today.
This was really about I want toshare God's love through
kindness.
And he said I want us, once amonth, to go out in the
community and to do things forother people with no expectation
that they're coming to church,because that's not why we do it.
It's not about getting, as wesay, butts in the seat, it's
(13:27):
about loving people.
And I said that sounds great.
And it's hard to train churchpeople about that because,
especially ones who are startinga church, because they're like,
okay, so I'm going to dosomething nice and then tell
them about the church, I said,no, you're going to just do
something nice, periodindependence.
If they ask you why you'redoing this with someone else,
that might lead to the church,but it may not, and that's okay.
(13:50):
We are doing acts of kindnessbecause God tells us to love
other people, which I was like.
That sounds so simple and easy.
Why are we not doing more ofthis?
And he called them acts ofkindness or A-OK, projects, a-ok
acts of kindness.
A-OK projects, a-ok acts ofkindness, because when you do an
(14:12):
act of kindness.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Everything is.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
A-OK, I love that, which was super cheesy, but
that's why we loved Alan.
And so, before we even had ourfirst big worship service, we
were doing those monthly.
We would hand out cold water ona hot day, we would plant
flowers in someone's yard ifthey wanted to, or we would just
(14:33):
give them the flowers, or ifthey said no, thank you, we
would just walk away.
We did a gas buy down after oneof the times when gas prices
spiked up.
We went to the one of the localgas stations and said, hey,
we'd like to buy your first $20worth of gas.
(14:54):
We had people tell us no, whichI think surprised a lot of
people.
It happens more than you think,yeah, A lot of people are very
suspicious of kindness.
What is it you want?
What is it that you're doing?
Why are you doing this?
Are you a cult?
What you know?
What's going?
On here and um, so we had tolearn that.
(15:16):
Our response to that is Iunderstand.
Thank you very much.
Like.
Like, it's okay, I get.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I get that.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah it was it was really really
interesting.
Yeah, it's like, yeah, yeah,yeah, it was really interesting.
Yeah, it's like, you know,here's chocolate.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
no, like I just can't imagine that you will never
hear me say no when there'schocolate same.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Um, in fact, the only reason I say no is because I've
already had too much and uh, Iknow it's bad for me to have too
much like a little bit, alittle bit healthy uh,
especially there's no such thingas too much like a little bit
healthy there really is no suchthing as too much, shannon, I'm
sorry, there's really not.
I know, I know I'm just tryingto talk myself out.
So this is what we were doingas a group and I was working
(16:02):
with Alan almost every day.
I mean, if I wasn't in theoffice doing something and
seeing him, we would text eachother or I might, I'd be on the
phone and we were just.
And the early parts of plantinga church are super exciting
because there's all this wonderand curiosity that goes with it
and it's super, super exciting.
(16:23):
But unfortunately, uh, butunfortunately, the week before
we were going to have our bigworship service, where this is
our launch service is what wecalled it Our big public worship
service, where we're going tostart the church.
Right, this is like day one.
A week before that happened,alan passed away.
(16:45):
Suddenly, alan passed away.
Suddenly.
He was, you know, in this.
He died.
We're pretty sure it was aheart attack.
It was very quick.
There weren't really a lot ofsigns, or?
anything that you know hisfamily knew of, but he had come
(17:06):
home from work.
I remember the last time I sawhim he had been painting a
rental house Someone that heknew was moving out of his
rental house and so he had goneand painted and he came in and
he had on like these paintingoveralls with paint splattered
all over and I was feeling downabout something and he spoke
(17:26):
words of encouragement and lifeinto me and made me feel better.
Then he went home and gotchanged and he cooked a meal for
the family that was moving outand moving into their new house
and they had packed the mealinto the car it was him and his
wife and his girls and he wentto turn on the car but before he
(17:51):
could engage into drive oranything, he just slumped over
the wheel.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Holy cow.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, shocking, but like so many little things in
there, there were just thesemoments of hope in the middle of
all of this that church did goon to launch.
I preached that first servicekind of got us going, got
another pastor in there at onepoint.
(18:20):
It did really well, Ended upmerging at one point with
another church.
But I could not let the idea ofacts of kindness go.
I just thought there'ssomething to AOK projects.
that is the secret sauce of life.
When you do kindness, it's asuperpower.
And it's not a superpowerbecause you're doing something.
(18:41):
It's a superpower because ofthe connection that happens
between you and somebody else.
They feel better, you feelbetter, your body's flooded with
all these endorphins and itjust you know you're checking a
box.
That just feels really, reallygood.
But I have come to discoverit's not just the two of you
that feel better.
(19:02):
People who witness an act ofkindness feel better.
And when we tell a story of anact of kindness, the people who
are listening feel better.
And to me, that is the secretsauce of life.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Absolutely.
Yeah, oh, that is so cool.
Going back for just one second,I can't imagine that first
sermon after Alan passed thatfirst sermon after Alan passed
what you?
Had to work up inside ofyourself to get that out.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah, I remember what I leaned on was that God is
making all things new, andthere's two places in the Bible
where that language is used.
One is in the book ofRevelation, where the mess is in
front of us and God turns itinto something beautiful and
there's no more crying and nomore mourning and no more
weeping, and God is making allthings new.
And the other one is in one ofPaul's letters and he talks
(20:00):
about God is making all thingsnew, and isn't that a great and
wonderful thing?
And so I leaned into that andthat has become one of my
favorite scriptures for thatreason, because it reminds me
there's always a mess, butthere's always a way for it to
be transformed, and that youknow.
I really believe that AOKProjects although I have changed
(20:25):
that phrasing- I was just goingto ask you about that.
Yeah.
So you know, only a few peoplewho were there at that early
time knew that language aroundAOK projects, and so this and
this was before social media, sothere weren't hashtags there.
(20:46):
You know, things weren'tbranded in the same way that
they're branded now.
But I was at another church atthis point and another colleague
in the North Georgia area, inthe United Methodist Church,
sends me an email and says I amtrying to do a conference and
(21:06):
I'd like for you to come speak.
And I, to this day, swear that.
He said in the email I amtrying to get the holy mischief
makers of the conferencetogether to talk about mission
work.
He says I never said those wordstogether, but that's what I
remember and I thought holymischief, I don't know what that
(21:29):
is, but I want to do it.
And I thought really, that'swhat acts of kindness are.
It's a little bit of mischiefbecause it disrupts somebody's
day.
It's not malicious in any way,but it's disruptive because
there's so many things that wedo on autopilot and now there's
so much negativity thatnegativity has become the status
(21:50):
quo.
So holy mischief snaps you outof that status quo and makes you
think there is some good in theworld.
There is something being madenew today.
So anytime I experienced or didan act of kindness project, I
would at this point social mediahad started very briefly I
(22:13):
would share that story withpeople either on social media or
in person, and I would saythat's just a little bit of holy
mischief.
A little bit of holy mischiefand my name became associated
with those words and the hashtagholy All right.
Holy mischief, and it stayedlike that for a while.
It was just sort of this littlething and I thought we got to
(22:36):
do something with this.
More people need to know aboutthis.
But you know, I didn't reallyknow what to do and I am meeting
with my district superintendent, who's kind of my- boss, my
superior for an annual review.
And she said what's next for you?
I said I don't really know, butI feel like holy mischief, it's
(22:57):
probably got something to dowith that.
And she said, well, you canstart a movement.
And I went, no, no way, hardpass movements.
Movements are for cults.
And I went, no, not gonna do it.
So I get home and I'm like therest of everything went fine,
like it was a great review, andI get home I'm kind of thinking
(23:20):
about it and I was readingsomething and reading how, uh,
jesus movement of Christianitystarted from Judaism and how the
Wesleyan movement of UnitedMethodism started out of the
Church of England, and I went,oh, a movement?
Oh, so if it's not focused onme because that's usually what
(23:44):
cults are focused on is on aperson then perhaps I could
start a movement because it'snot focusing on me or really any
of the people in the movement,the movements focusing on those
who need kindness in the world.
And I'm like, well, I don't.
I mean there's if there is abook on how to start a movement.
(24:06):
I haven't found it, or haven'tfound one that I would really
trust necessarily.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
There's no movements for dummies.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
There's no movements.
For that I did look, I reallyhave.
I've done my best, um, and Ithought, okay, I don't know how
to go about this.
I said let me just start small.
Let me start with um 40, with40 days of holy mischief.
The time between Ash Wednesdayand Easter is known as Lent.
(24:35):
It's the 40 days that lead upto Easter, not including the
Sundays, and I'll put together40 different things that you can
do, one for each day.
I'll pick some scripture thatgoes with it, so it can be a
devotional guide too.
And let's get a few morechurches involved.
It's not just the church thatI'm at right now, let's see if
there's a few.
So I asked a few.
I think I had about six whowere like yep, we're in.
(24:56):
So I sent them a box not onlywith the little devotional
guides but like.
So one of the things during the40 days was everyone deserves
gold stars.
Give someone some gold stars.
So I had gold stars in the boxand I had t-shirts in the box
and I had some had bubbles andnoisemakers and just whimsical
(25:17):
fun things, and the box saidholy mischief on it.
I shipped those off to thechurches and things were going
great.
People were excited about thisLenten series and how to make
this work.
Well, that was in 2020.
And Lent 2020, you know, march13th happened like right in the
(25:39):
middle of Lent, and I thought,well, there goes the movement.
You know, this is reallyfocusing on being safe and COVID
and whatever this means for us.
That's more important.
Right now.
I don't know what's going tohappen to the movement.
This is really focusing onbeing safe and COVID and
whatever this means for us.
That's more important.
Right now, I don't know what'sgoing to happen to the movement.
One of the things I did duringthat time, right before COVID
(25:59):
hit, I said all of thesechurches need to be connected
somehow.
I'm going to start a Facebookgroup for these people who are
in these churches so they canencourage each other like, hey,
today's the day that you'resupposed to, you know, go tell
your neighbor how much they meanto you or whatever, and
encourage one another and telleach other how it went and you
(26:19):
know, sometimes people were liketoday was really hard, I didn't
realize how hard it would be.
Or today was so much fun, Ididn't realize how much joy.
So it was good, it was great.
Surprisingly, though, once COVIDhit, most of the things that
you could do could have beendone at a distance, because
several of them were anonymousand the ones that weren't like
(26:44):
hugging people, you could changeto hugging those in your family
or pivot that somehow towriting a note to your family,
sure.
So what I found was because youcould do those things in a safe
distance, people craved themand they were looking for
(27:07):
opportunities for connection,and social media was one of the
places where they were able tofind some connection.
Even though it wasn't the deepconnections that we know of
face-to-face, it still was atype of connection.
So these churches startedinviting their friends and I
went from like 150 people in thegroup to several hundred people
(27:28):
in the group and then, overlike the next year or two, we've
got like 2000 people in thisgroup, some people are across
the world, in Australia and theUK and in Africa, and it's been
(27:50):
a joy to see what they willshare when they're looking at
you know, hey, I experiencedthis, this little act of holy
mischief, and they'll share tothe group and it's been great to
see how it works.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, and I was in the group before we came on the
episode and I noticed thatsomebody had posted.
It was like a little basket.
It was hard to tell where itwas.
I want to say it was in aretail place, but it had little
notes in it.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, that was at a grocery store, okay, yeah, it
just looked like a little takeyour number thing, yeah.
And the person who did itthought, well, what is this?
And opened it up and it was aninspirational note.
Yeah, this is meant just foryou.
I hope you're having a good day.
God's not done with you yet,and that was it.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I love that and.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
I thought, wow, and I have no idea who put it there.
I would love to say it was anofficial holy mischief maker,
but it probably wasn't.
And that's okay.
It's just good to share thoseideas.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Yeah, oh, for sure, yeah, and it's so cool.
You talking about COVID andconnection and I think and I
don't know how much of your doyou focus on people who don't
get as much connection anymore.
(29:06):
I think, of people, like insenior facilities.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah.
So I don't narrow it downspecifically.
However, what I'm finding isthat we have an epidemic of
loneliness, and even people whoyou wouldn't think would be
lonely, like a school teacher,could suffer from some pretty
(29:34):
big loneliness.
Because we've lost a sense of,as we've gotten bigger, our
communities are getting bigger,our cities are getting bigger
We've lost the closeness of atight knit community and it's
more difficult to make friends.
It's more difficult to go alittle deeper in friendships
because we're getting pulled inall directions.
Because I go to work, I workall day, not only like for
(30:00):
teachers.
For example, not only do I haveto submit a lesson plan online,
but I've also got to doevaluations for each student
that go to the parents and I'vegot to do one that gets logged
in the system, and then I've gotto deal with all of the emails
coming in from the parent, fromthe school, the principal, the
system that's there.
I also have all the spam,because I went to a conference
(30:23):
last year on learning and nowI'm getting all of these things
and then I go home and I just Ikind of want to just veg for a
minute and I've got my TV on,but in between the commercials I
just I kind of want to just vegfor a minute, and I've got my
TV on, but in between thecommercials I'm scrolling
through something and I don'trealize that now three hours
have passed and I've beenscrolling, or you know.
Maybe it's not quite that long,but it's a lot longer.
(30:46):
There's so many things vying forour attention that we don't
pause to make that communityhappen.
So you know, I would saysometimes not all the time, but
sometimes people in an assistedliving program actually get more
community than some of the rest.
I know that's a very blanketgeneralization that I can't
(31:09):
necessarily back up, but in agood program where they are very
conscious of making sure thatpeople are socialized.
That could actually be a lotmore beneficial than someone
who's in a neighborhood butnever sees their neighbors.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Yes, absolutely.
And you're absolutely rightabout the epidemic of loneliness
, though, because and I need todo another episode on that,
maybe I'll have you on just talkabout that, because it really
is a thing and it's horrible.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
It's worse than smoking.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
It is, it's worse for your health.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Yeah, it's like five times worse than smoking.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Yeah, I saw that.
Was it the Surgeon General?
Surgeon General, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Wrote a very easy to read book, Like it's not super
advanced science, you can readit, but it's really really good
and it talks about the thingsthat we could do.
And you know, like I said, Ihave a online movement, but
online is not necessarily thething that we need to focus on.
(32:13):
It really is the movement andthe connections that happen
offline that need to be focused.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, absolutely, and if you want to be a part of
that movement, head on over to.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Facebook.
Facebook and the group is HolyMisch mischief.
We'll put links in yeah, yeah,I also have a website and will
occasionally send out emails.
I don't send a lot, so don'tworry about spam.
I don't sell anything typically.
Occasionally I might have at-shirt or something where the
(32:52):
proceeds go to charity, but Iusually send about one a month
and it'll have some some ideasof holy mischief, because not
everybody's online on on socialmedia and I applaud those people
who are doing that.
Yeah, I know, you know it'scrazy.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Yeah, it's yep, I will link your website in there
as well.
I mean, if you, you know, maybeyou just need ideas on little
holy bits of holy mischief thatyou can get into and Reverend Dr
Shannon is your gal.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah, I'll tell you one that I did this week.
I was going to be connectingwith a couple of people that
worked at United Way and we weregoing to be meeting at one of
the community college campuseshere.
And she's like, yeah, we'regoing to show up with popsicles
and we're going to pass them outto students and teachers.
And I was like, oh, we are, yes, we are, and so we did, and we
(33:52):
didn't have a permit orpermission, and if they said no,
we would have put it back inthe car, but you would have
thought we were passing out gold, because you know, we live
really close to Hotlanta.
It is very hot here.
It was 98 degrees that day andwe went, like that day they
purchased the popsicles.
(34:12):
They went to Bon Pops Like theydidn't just do generic, they
went with yeah, it was great.
Yeah, they had like a coolerwith you know stuff packed
around them.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
They had it done right, yeah.
Well, you know, it's probablysomething that they do quite
often.
This is United Way, did you say.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Yeah, United Way of Bartow County.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
They know this stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
They do, they know their things.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Well, shannon, thank you so much for being on.
I really appreciate this.
I am motivated now.
I am inspired and you are doingsuch amazing work and I really,
really appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Thank you, mike, I've really enjoyed talking about
this.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
That's fantastic.
We will talk again soon and you, mike, I've really enjoyed
talking about this.
That's fantastic.
We will talk again soon and youtake care, stay cool.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
I want to thank you for taking this time to listen
to the episode today with myguest Shannon wait, excuse me,
the Reverend Dr ShannonCarafonda Got it right again.
I hope you're able to takesomething positive from the time
that you spent here with ustoday.
Maybe you'll be inspired, Maybeyou'll be motivated, Maybe
(35:28):
you'll be moved.
If you experienced any of thosepositive feelings, please
consider sharing this podcastwith your friends and family.
I am always striving to offeryou a better podcast, so give me
some feedback.
Let me know how you think I'mdoing.
Whether you loved an episode orhated an episode, whether it's
(35:52):
on YouTube or an email, justshout out, let me know and tell
me how you think I'm doing.
Also, make sure to follow us onall of our socials Facebook,
Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok,whatever.
Give us a follow and interactwith us in some way or form.
It would mean the world.
(36:13):
This podcast is part of theMayday Media Network.
In some way or form, it wouldmean the world.
This podcast is part of theMayday Media Network.
If you have an idea for apodcast and need some production
assistance, or you already havea podcast and you're looking
for a supportive network to join, check out
maydaymedianetworkcom and checkout the many different shows
(36:33):
they have, like AfrocentricSpoil, my Movie Generation
Mixtape In a Pickle Radio Show,Wake Up and Dream with D'Anthony
Palin, Stacks of Packs and theTime Pals.
We'll be back again next weekwith a new episode and we would
be honored if you would join us.
(36:54):
You have been listening to theKindness Matters podcast.
I'm your host, Mike Rathbun.
Have a fantastic week.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.