The IOU Story
By IOU Founder Stan Black
For all Christians, IOU universally means “Jesus, I owe you my life.” These three letters are far more, however, than an acknowledgement of Christ’s ultimate sacrifice on the Cross for our sins. As you will learn, IOU is truly a spiritual way of life for everyone who desires to seek, serve and share Him in their daily lives.
The spiritual seeds for IOU were planted during a private moment of prayer where I was thanking the Lord for all his mercy, grace and love that he had shown to me in saving my life from certain death some years ago. My prayer ended with the following words…
“Lord, may I always open “inward” to receive your love, truth and the power of the Holy Spirit, search “outward” for opportunities to serve like your Son, Jesus Christ, and pray “upward” to you, Father, for strength and guidance.”
As I was wrapped in His comfort, a thought came into my mind, and I said, “Oh, ‘inward, outward, upward’…that’s “IOU”, and yes, Jesus, I do owe you my life.”
On a Post-it note, I wrote down the letters IOU and placed a simple Cross on each side of it. The moment passed and the IOU Post-it remained filed away for several years. As time passed, the “3” events occurred that convinced me I needed to accept the Lord’s nudging in bringing IOU to life.
Since then, we have been blessed to have met and partnered with a number of dedicated and creative Christians in developing our initial IOU product line and in preparing for the launch of our IOUlife mission efforts.
IOUlife's mission will be “to bring the light, love and life of Christ to the hurt, broken and lost” as He so provided to me.
We are in the early stages of planning for our IOUlife.com social network website and our first IOUlife Youthfest that will bring evangelism and entertainment together in drawing the Body of Christ closer together and in bringing new disciples to Christ.
Additionally, we plan to further bring the Body of Christ together from the private and public sectors, churches, and faith-based organizations in order to create "IOUlife Incubators" whereby the homeless, addicted, incarcerated and mentally and physically-challenged will be provided an opportunity to come to know Christ, restore their lives and to use thier gifts and talents to develop IOU-styled products and further the work of God's Kingdom.
The funds generatred from these incubators will be used to truly help restore their lives, health and provide a path to Salvation for eternity!
So as you can see, IOU and IOUlife are far more than just a trendy phrase or striking art graphics. It is all of the following:
• A Daily Spiritual Mission Plan and Spiritual Armor
• An acknowledgement of Christ’s sacrifice and death on the Cross for our sins
• A Symbol of Unification defining membership in the Body of Christ
• A Curiosity and Potential Witness Tool
• IOUlife.com and IOUlife Youthfests- A Christian, Social Networking Community and Outreach For Believers & Seekers
With His blessing and guidance, IOU will begin to take a life of its own, growing and spreading in ways we cannot know today. As we go forward, we will continue to pray for God to supply all of us with the wisdom, focus and energy needed to make IOU and IOUlife a living testimony and success for Him.
For more information on IOU and IOUlife, please contact Stan Black at 804.839.0637 or by email at stan@ioulife.com
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus, our Lord." Romans 6:23