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Jesus bracelet asks pointed question

Kalamazoo Gazette, Kalamazoo, Michigan
Thursday, April 10, 1997
Page D1, 3

BY TERRI FINCH HAMILTON
GAZETTE NEWS SERVICE

GRAND RAPIDS -- The bracelets are everywhere. If you want one, just ask.
  Strap on a purple one, teal or rainbow stripe. But realize it comes with a daunting responsibility: You must live your life the way Jesus would.
    Businessmen, grandmothers, teen-agers and kindergartners are wearing the simple nylon straps that read W.W.J.D. They pique curiosity by design. When someone asks what the letters mean, the wearer is expected to take the bracelet off and hand it over. But not before explaining the meaning of the mysterious letters:
  What Would Jesus Do?
  The bracelets started as a youth-group project at a Holland, Mich., church and have spread. Australians wear them. So do kids in the Dominican Republic. And Spanish-speaking priests.

  Mike Freestone carries a few in his pockets wherever he goes. The Holland resident makes a living selling the What Would Jesus Do bracelets for Lesco, a Lansing company that sells imprinted clothing and gift items.
  But Freestone often gives them away. It's what Jesus would do.
  "They're a personal reminder that you should live your life the way Jesus would," said Freestone, 31, father of three young boys and a member of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Holland. "You're accountable for every minute of every day when you have that bracelet on."
  Wearers say the bracelets guide daily thoughts and actions, and they foster ministry to others -- particularly those who ask what it means.
  They come in eight colors and sell for $1.50 or $2 each. Christian bookstores can hardly keep them in stock. Baker Book House in Kentwood, Mich., goes through about 2,000 a month, said assistant manager and gift buyer Donna Sheneman.
  "We started carrying them because of all the people coming in and asking for them," Sheneman said. "I have to keep replacing my grandkids' bracelets. They keep giving theirs away.
  She just received a shipment of W.W.J.D. hats from Freestone, faded denim with embroidered letters. Soon she'll stock T-shirts.
  The first shipment Family Bookstores ordered sold out in a week, said Michael Hupp, senior gift buyer for the national chain of Christian stores. In 12 months the 186 stores, five in West Michigan, have sold 225,000 bracelets. One recent week alone, they sold 5,000.
  Freestone estimates he'll sell 600,000 this year. Christian bookstores order them by the thousands. Churches buy 300 at a time. Missionaries take them to Mexico, India, Russia. Other companies have copied the idea, producing more sophisticated, costlier bracelets of leather and pewter.
  "I wish I could say it was my great marketing genius that has spread these across the country, but we don't really market them -- it's the work of God," Freestone said, a burgundy bracelet strapped to his left wrist. "I never could have predicted this."
  It started seven years ago in Janie Tinklenberg's youth group at Calvary Reformed Church. the kids were studying Charles Sheldon's Christian classic "In His Steps." Experts have ranked the novel as one of the most-read in the world; it has been translated into more than 20 languages and sold more than 60 million copies.
  Written in 1896, the novel tells the story of a self-satisfied Midwestern church congregation that is challenged by a tramp during a Sunday service. No one responds to his pleas for help, yet they are dressed impeccably and sing hymns reverently during the service.
  "It seems to me," the ragged man tells them, "there's an awful lot of trouble in the world that somehow wouldn't exist if all the people who sing such songs went and lived them out."
  The man dies in their midst. The minister and parishioners are stunned -- and shamed. So they pledge to lie their lives for one year asking themselves, "What Would Jesus Do?"
  Tinklenberg wanted her kids to do the same thing. But she thought they needed something tangible to remind them. She went to Freestone, and they decided on bracelets, based on the popularity of woven and beaded friendship bracelets kids were wearing.
  "One thing about kids is no matter how much they might believe in an idea, they're not going to walk around wearing something stupid," said Tinklenberg, now the youth and education minister at New Hope Reformed Church in Powell, Ohio.
  "The bottom line is it's a reminder about who we are, and much more practical than a cross around my neck," Tinklenberg said. "Most of what Jesus would do is about work, so it's appropriate that this bracelet is near my hand."
  Tinklenberg had no idea the bracelets would be so popular.
  "We were just looking for something for our youth group. It grew out of a desire to find a tangible way to remind kids that we're called to make a difference in this culture -- not just sit in the pew at church. To really make a difference, you have to leave church."
  When Tinklenberg leads mission trips to inner-city Chicago, Indian reservations in New Mexico or poverty-stricken Appalachia, she brings bracelets.
  They've become so popular with missionaries that Lesco now prints the bracelets in Spanish, Freestone said. Q.H.J. they read: "Que hiciera Jesus?"
  Greg Stauffer stuffed more than 200 bracelets into a suitcase he carried with him to the Dominican Republic, where he spoke and taught at a youth conference. Stauffer; 34, is a youth minister at Kentwood Christian Church and varsity tennis coach at East Kentwood High School.
  The kids just loved them.
  Wearers say the bracelets are unflinching reminders. Would Jesus lie to his mother-in-law? Spank a child? Take credit for a co-worker's idea?
  "If you call yourself a Christian and wear a bracelet that announces you're one, it's real important to do the right thing," Stauffer said. "Being a Christian is a spiritual struggle we take part in, and the people are watching you all the time."

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