Organizations We Love | Plywood People
Through the years we’ve been able to work and become friends with some incredible people. Many of those people were part of or have created organizations that are doing amazing things to restore their local communities. As a church that wants to empower those people and that type of restoration, we want to introduce them to you and hope you’ll find some inspiration in what God is doing to restore the world and how he may want to use you along the way.
Jeff Shinabarger and his wife Andre have been good friends to Eddie and I for nearly ten years. They were one of a select few couples that really poured into our marriage in the early days. I ended up working very closely with Jeff for several years at a couple different organizations. As we’ve gone from fresh faced young twenty-somethings to mid-thirties with a little more life behind us, we have always been encouraged and inspired by the path the Shinabargers have chosen.
In 2008, Jeff decided to venture out on his own and start pursuing some of his own passions. There were moments where watching from the outside, I wondered how the story would end. Now having started our own journey with The Parish, I see those early Plywood days very differently. Anytime you step out to pursue a vision you believe God has put in front of you, things get very exciting and very scary–at the exact same time. People you share the vision with are either really encouraging or make you feel like silly school kids.
Almost six years into the evolution of Plywood People, we can’t help but want to share about the incredible things this organization has and will accomplish. They host and curate a series of conferences, events, and retreats geared toward enabling entrepreneurs to pursue their ideas. They pursue two aspects in their work: education and implementation. All of their work revolves around the idea that we will be known by the problems we solve. Plywood has launched two of their own projects to model this theory: Gift Card Giver and Billboard Bags.
Jeff has also written a book that we know was very dear to his heart. It’s been cool to see him evolve into a really incredible communicator. Jeff and Andre live in the city and we’re suburbanites so we only get a dinner or two together each year. What’s amazing is that each dinner inspires us and reminds us why we are still friends. On the website they mention that they speak into other projects because they have done the hard work on their own projects, which is so true. As pumped as we are about Plywood People and what they are about, we are more about Jeff and Andre being the people God has called them to be and leading the way for so many others.
Visit the website and check out their work now. Check out Jeff’s book More or Less and be challenged. There is so much to be restored and Plywood is making major headway in teaching people how to become a part of that process.
