LIFETIME CHALLENGE
7-30-04
This quote came in my email today from GeniusQuotes.com.
These ideas resonate with me.
If a man has talent and cannot use it, he has failed.
If he has a talent and uses only half of it, he has partly failed.
If he has a talent and learns somehow to use the whole of it,
he has gloriously succeeded and has a satisfaction and a triumph few men ever know.
--Thomas Wolfe
This quote is at the heart of my lifetime challenge.
For DECADES I have EARNESTLY attempted to use the whole of my talents.
God has graciously granted me complex collection of talents that I have sought to use to glorify Him.
For better or worse there are various talents and not just one.
For those that have tracked with me for years have seen the same kinds of plans surface over and over in different combinations.
There is a central core. The way that I am wired loves to solve complex problems in systematic ways and then empower others using a harmony of communication medias. Thus most recently the design called for a Networking Hub, Information Clearinghouse and Online Lay Bible Institute.
MISSIONARY EDUCATOR
At the core of my soul are the heart of a missionary and the mind of an educator.
When as a missionary I look at the world around me I see it as bad and getting worse. Everybody and everything is naturally on a downward slope. The sin nature is every human tends toward spiritual darkness sooner or later.
The Bible is the authoritative Word of God. This is the plumb line that gives the reliable standard for real truth. A person’s opinion, feeling or background are not the genuine standard.
If the Bible is true then Heaven and Hell are real. There is only one way to avoid the constant conscious torments of Hell and live forever with God in Heaven.
The single greatest need for each human is to hear the pure and simple message of salvation. God has a WAY through Jesus Christ is reconcile every person to Himself. The emphasis on His amazing grace and by the method of faith alone needs to be kept in focus.
Howard Hendricks said the unbelievers want to hear the Good News more than the believers what to share it. Collectively and individually we are not doing a great job. We have more material and technological wealth then ANY previous generation. Yet those around us are not being presented with the clear claims of Christ.
Heaping guilt on those in the pews for not doing better at personal witnessing has never worked. They do need to be trained in how to share their faith in a non-threatening way and encouraged to weave this into their weekly routines. But that is only part of the solution.
I have attended various church planting seminars. These brave souls set out to start a church from scratch by winning their new members to Christ. In that setting I witnessed how this needs to be the coordinated effort of the entire church family.
So we are back to systems again. And the best system does not work by itself. There is no auto pilot. Sooner than later there needs to be the involvement of lay leaders. Every lay leader needs ongoing education.
Evangelism is just one small part of the full range of Christian Education for the lay leader. Long ago I used to think that Christian Education was this vast universe that no person could ever understand. While it is large and complex, it does have basic categories, known boundaries and proven methods.
As an educator I am deeply concerned that believers are not consistently growing in grace and the knowledge of Christ. I believe that many of those church members that are spiritually stuck could progress if they had excellent Christian Education materials available over the web for no cost and low cost. They also need motivation and encouragement to learn more. Plus when their faith is coupled with practical missions like application then repeatedly I have witnessed that those who are involved in outreach and inreach tend to be those who are growing spiritually.
My job before God is to design systems online and offline to allow lay leaders and seminary students to communicate the truth in love. They will equip the saints and together we will do the work of the ministry.
The emphasis offline will be on those in the DFW Metroplex for this is our Jerusalem. Also online we will emphasize the next generation. Those who are teens and twenties are online far longer than the older generation. The children coming behind them will be on yet even more. Therefore we need to prepare the way and set up spiritual resource centers and community connections in cyberspace.
MINISTRY
I am grateful for the prayers of all those supported me during the recent months as the presentation of the ministry was distilled from scattered concepts to a centralized core. Every hour was needed to get it to the state it is in today. That 40 minute presentation to the men’s breakfast was a climax of those many hours of preparation. Those graphics were like the hub that linked back to the boxes of notes in my closets.
My challenge was then and still is to raise the seed capital to build the web based platform. If 40K dropped into my life then today I would abandon the air purification equipment. I would put the ministry back on the front burner. However that is very unlikely to happen.
Last night I encountered two amazing online systems that are being used for prospecting and presenting the air purification equipment. They also are using it for training. This is the kind of interface that I had planned to pay consultants and web designers thousands of dollars to create for the emerging ministry.
It is in my self interest to first use these tools to learn how to increase my income. And along the way consider how I can adapt what they are doing for secular purposes to the kingdom purposes.
CONDITION
My financial condition continues to get worse. Until you learn that I have actually received sales commissions then the subtraction was greater than the addition.
The grace and mercy of God are enough for me. I trust that my Good Shepherd is leading me each day. He is guiding me to green pastures. Jesus wants me to develop a way to generate the income that is greater than my bills to pay off my debts.
Many people that I have met in the company got their demo units within a week or two. They had a good income stream within a month.
I have been making progress toward the proposal for the cosigner on the demo units. It has gotten stalled a few times. Please pray for the completion. I have an important meeting this weekend related to this funding.
Meanwhile God is leading me to redeem the time so when the units arrive I will be off to a strong start. Also I have been developing the document related to how these sales can harmonize with ministry throughout the week.
THANKS again for your prayers.
This is one of my life lines.
God uses you in my life in a mighty way.
Kindly pray that both Jesus Christ will deliver me from this short term crisis and in the long term bless me to use the whole of my God given talents.
Thank you.
7-30-04
This quote came in my email today from GeniusQuotes.com.
These ideas resonate with me.
If a man has talent and cannot use it, he has failed.
If he has a talent and uses only half of it, he has partly failed.
If he has a talent and learns somehow to use the whole of it,
he has gloriously succeeded and has a satisfaction and a triumph few men ever know.
--Thomas Wolfe
This quote is at the heart of my lifetime challenge.
For DECADES I have EARNESTLY attempted to use the whole of my talents.
God has graciously granted me complex collection of talents that I have sought to use to glorify Him.
For better or worse there are various talents and not just one.
For those that have tracked with me for years have seen the same kinds of plans surface over and over in different combinations.
There is a central core. The way that I am wired loves to solve complex problems in systematic ways and then empower others using a harmony of communication medias. Thus most recently the design called for a Networking Hub, Information Clearinghouse and Online Lay Bible Institute.
MISSIONARY EDUCATOR
At the core of my soul are the heart of a missionary and the mind of an educator.
When as a missionary I look at the world around me I see it as bad and getting worse. Everybody and everything is naturally on a downward slope. The sin nature is every human tends toward spiritual darkness sooner or later.
The Bible is the authoritative Word of God. This is the plumb line that gives the reliable standard for real truth. A person’s opinion, feeling or background are not the genuine standard.
If the Bible is true then Heaven and Hell are real. There is only one way to avoid the constant conscious torments of Hell and live forever with God in Heaven.
The single greatest need for each human is to hear the pure and simple message of salvation. God has a WAY through Jesus Christ is reconcile every person to Himself. The emphasis on His amazing grace and by the method of faith alone needs to be kept in focus.
Howard Hendricks said the unbelievers want to hear the Good News more than the believers what to share it. Collectively and individually we are not doing a great job. We have more material and technological wealth then ANY previous generation. Yet those around us are not being presented with the clear claims of Christ.
Heaping guilt on those in the pews for not doing better at personal witnessing has never worked. They do need to be trained in how to share their faith in a non-threatening way and encouraged to weave this into their weekly routines. But that is only part of the solution.
I have attended various church planting seminars. These brave souls set out to start a church from scratch by winning their new members to Christ. In that setting I witnessed how this needs to be the coordinated effort of the entire church family.
So we are back to systems again. And the best system does not work by itself. There is no auto pilot. Sooner than later there needs to be the involvement of lay leaders. Every lay leader needs ongoing education.
Evangelism is just one small part of the full range of Christian Education for the lay leader. Long ago I used to think that Christian Education was this vast universe that no person could ever understand. While it is large and complex, it does have basic categories, known boundaries and proven methods.
As an educator I am deeply concerned that believers are not consistently growing in grace and the knowledge of Christ. I believe that many of those church members that are spiritually stuck could progress if they had excellent Christian Education materials available over the web for no cost and low cost. They also need motivation and encouragement to learn more. Plus when their faith is coupled with practical missions like application then repeatedly I have witnessed that those who are involved in outreach and inreach tend to be those who are growing spiritually.
My job before God is to design systems online and offline to allow lay leaders and seminary students to communicate the truth in love. They will equip the saints and together we will do the work of the ministry.
The emphasis offline will be on those in the DFW Metroplex for this is our Jerusalem. Also online we will emphasize the next generation. Those who are teens and twenties are online far longer than the older generation. The children coming behind them will be on yet even more. Therefore we need to prepare the way and set up spiritual resource centers and community connections in cyberspace.
MINISTRY
I am grateful for the prayers of all those supported me during the recent months as the presentation of the ministry was distilled from scattered concepts to a centralized core. Every hour was needed to get it to the state it is in today. That 40 minute presentation to the men’s breakfast was a climax of those many hours of preparation. Those graphics were like the hub that linked back to the boxes of notes in my closets.
My challenge was then and still is to raise the seed capital to build the web based platform. If 40K dropped into my life then today I would abandon the air purification equipment. I would put the ministry back on the front burner. However that is very unlikely to happen.
Last night I encountered two amazing online systems that are being used for prospecting and presenting the air purification equipment. They also are using it for training. This is the kind of interface that I had planned to pay consultants and web designers thousands of dollars to create for the emerging ministry.
It is in my self interest to first use these tools to learn how to increase my income. And along the way consider how I can adapt what they are doing for secular purposes to the kingdom purposes.
CONDITION
My financial condition continues to get worse. Until you learn that I have actually received sales commissions then the subtraction was greater than the addition.
The grace and mercy of God are enough for me. I trust that my Good Shepherd is leading me each day. He is guiding me to green pastures. Jesus wants me to develop a way to generate the income that is greater than my bills to pay off my debts.
Many people that I have met in the company got their demo units within a week or two. They had a good income stream within a month.
I have been making progress toward the proposal for the cosigner on the demo units. It has gotten stalled a few times. Please pray for the completion. I have an important meeting this weekend related to this funding.
Meanwhile God is leading me to redeem the time so when the units arrive I will be off to a strong start. Also I have been developing the document related to how these sales can harmonize with ministry throughout the week.
THANKS again for your prayers.
This is one of my life lines.
God uses you in my life in a mighty way.
Kindly pray that both Jesus Christ will deliver me from this short term crisis and in the long term bless me to use the whole of my God given talents.
Thank you.
