Online Platforms for Writers
You’re standing on your platform, message in hand, but who is listening to you? Do you have to get on a publisher’s train to take your message to the world, or is there another way?
Distinct Words, and A Clear Message
Timothy Burns provides web page content for some of the largest information portals on the web, including eHow.com. With nearly 1000 articles on the web, Timothy knows how to capture your informational needs and business culture in concise, intelligent copy.
Yet readers want more that facts. The culture of your organization sets you apart from your competition. In an increasingly segmented marketplace, businesses, ministries and individuals who clearly identify their strengths position themselves for improved marketability and brand identity.
When you review your company web site, ask these five questions:
- Has the information on your website changed in the last 6-9 months?
- Is your website current with your industry’s trends?
- Is your website integrated with social media?
- Is your website interactive, and connected to your organization’s staff?
- Does your website reflect your company’s, organizations, or ministry’s current focus, strengths, and brand identity?
If you answered “Yes” to four or more questions, you’re in the zone. You have a great website, and are likely already using current technology to connect with your website visitors. Your tools are turning browsers into a community, and that community will produce customers.
If you answered “No” to more than two of the questions, you need a website review, and may need an integrated website upgrade. Social media and the instant connectedness of digital life have changed your customer’s expectations. They expect instant, in-depth, personal and relevant, responsive access. These marketplace expectations are your opportunity to build your brand identity. If you meet the expectations of your clients, customers and stakeholders, you reinforce your value, and position yourself for stable, consistent growth.
When the Truth is No Longer
Each generation within the life of a local church congregation has a valuable contribution to make to the life of the Church. Those in their golden years have wisdom to share, gained from a full lifespan. Those rearing families bring strength, stability, growth and energy to the congregation. A young pastor can bring new life to a stagnant environment in the same way that an experienced leader can help a congregation reach new levels of influence in the community.
We all have our gifts to bring to the Church. According to Ephesians 4, the Body of Christ grows toward maturity when each of us finds, develops and contributes that which God can do through us, each of us individually.
The following essay is from a young man, possibly a future pastor, in ministry internship at the Teen Mania Honor Academy. Is there a message here that can add to the life if your church? I think there is.
Truth is No Longer Known as Truth,
But We Think Our Lies Are True
Truth is a precious gift that God gave to us, but over time we have misinterpreted and tried to change it to make us look better or even more inviting. Therefore, we need to provoke a revival in our action and silence our tongues, or just let the word of truth speak for us, because Truth is God, and God is the Word and the Word will change your life and the lives of others. Through truth the Gospel can be brought to many nations and change the world one life at a time. But if we were to keep following the traditions we started, we will tear the body of Christ apart. At the end of our days, Satan will not only have won the souls of many creations of our Lord, but there is a possibility he will win the souls of some of our pastors because he has corrupted their minds and converted them to believe more in the traditions they are following than the God who saved them.
In the book The Christian in Complete Amour, by William Gurnall, it says, “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made upon salvation,” (34) but talking with many pastors and youth pastors in the last couple of months I find that this is an aspect that we seem to have forgotten. I do not want to say that all pastors don’t confess the faith or truth with their mouth, but I think some of them have been blinded to the truth because they think too highly on one subject and not a different one. When a pastor does not agree with something in the Bible it is easy for him to make something up and preach it as truth. It is also so easy for a pastor to get prideful in what he is doing because “he is the leader” and he can never be wrong, for if he was wrong then who would follow him? They are under so many heavy burdens; it is easy to become overwhelmed sometimes. So they will change what they are saying, or just say something that sounds good to keep people in their seat of the church building. But yet, what is the church? Is it an organization, or a body of people? 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, “For we are all baptized by the Holy Spirit into one Body – whether Jews or Greeks- slaves or free- and we were all given the Spirit to drink”. This can be thought to say the people inside the building are the church. But in reality, it is everyone who is living every aspect of their lives to passionately pursue Christ. We are a mobile body that is working to change the world, for Jesus Christ is Lord. If we are to do this, we need to be a loving family and united among our brothers. But yet, when we go in to different churches you can just look at the congregation to see if there is a loving attitude in the church. Jesus, when he was in his ministry, would look for the broken, the sick, and the criminals. But some of our pastors today look for the ones that have it all together. They think unless you are a good, white American you cannot be a good follower of Jesus Christ. Wherever this thinking came from it needs to be forgotten right away, because that is the opposite of what Jesus did. We have the truth about everything we need to do, but yet we misinterpret it so it will fit our little world that we want. Instead of following what Jesus did and living our lives to follow him, it is like we are breaking one of the commandments: do not create an idol among the lord. We think of ourselves as great, but yet God is the great one.
Paul was also very clear about what we should be doing with each other while we are in the body of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 2 Paul talks about how, as bodies of Christ, we should not be divided with worldly views. I was at a church in Sandusky, Michigan, and there was another small church on the other side of this small town. But the church where I was doing the concert and this other church did not have anything to do with each other. There was a fight that happened in the past that forced people to leave one of the churches, and the elders of that church felt that they were attacked when the other church on the other side of town was planted. They were divided by their denominational differences. One church felt pride in the number of people and thought that was more important than God, when they should have looked to the truth of what God was doing to draw the lost and rebuild the church (meaning the people, not the building). This is one of the many examples of a truth that is plain and simple in the Bible that people have lost sight of the purpose and thought of themselves instead of the Lord. We have so many other different denomination and church styles. You have a different type of church for every kind of man. But wait, I thought we were supposed to be changed when Jesus came into our lives. There are some pastors who I know who will say, “The American church is like a shopping mall; there is a different style for every type of American in our country”. The pastors of these churches will only talk about the parts of the Bible that will attract the people to keep coming to their building, to make the offering plate bigger so they can impact their city better. But yet, if you are following what God wants you to have your church do and learn, won’t the true followers of Jesus Christ be drawn to your building and join your church family? If we were to follow the Bible we would take to heart Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed any longer to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” The body should be transforming the world and not the other way around. But the pastors of our churches are too afraid to lose the number of people; they will teach half truths or not talk about the deep and condemning parts of the Bible. We just make the Bible say what we want instead of saying what the Bible says and conforming to this world. People do not understand how big the gift of truth is, so they just do with it as they wish.
As future leaders who are being influenced by the leaders that are heading the wrong direction, we need to realize this is happening. We need to realize when a pastor is wrong and help him be turned back to the truth. But we need to not condemn them for what they are doing. When we confront like that, we as Christians get the reputation of being a condemning religion and not the loving one we are. We need to understand this life is all about sacrifice. We do not matter. If our bodies want to sin, we need to tell them no. If we are attracted to people of the same sex, we need to say NO. If we want riches, we need to give most of them away and look to God for more blessing. It is really all about having nothing because God has everything. So there really needs to be a revival of truth in the church. We need more leaders that will lead people to Christ and not a building. We need leaders that are not lost in the teaching because they need a quota in their offering plates, but ones who will understand that God has everything, so if you are doing His bidding He will keep us here. If it is God’s will for you to have a church there, then it is God’s bill to keep it up. Look to Him to provide and teach all aspects of the truth of what we are reading in God’s word.
I am not saying that I am all wise with what we need to change, or to say that I have all the answers to our problems. But I do think that people are so used to hearing the Song of Redemption that they need deeper truth. We need to start teaching the Truth of God’s wrath and how we need to live a life of excellence because mercy is not there to let us do what we want, but to make up for the few times we do wrong. If we had to live with just the law and judgment, well you have read the Old Testament so you know what they had to do. Why don’t we let truth speak for itself? As Paul stated in Corinthians 2:1-2: “For I did not come to you with eloquence of speech or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you testimony of God. For I resolved to know Christ and Him crucified.” Just let the truth of Jesus’ death and resurrection speak for itself. As we bring people in to are buildings and get them “saved” a lot of the time we will never teach them to get past that part. We say the Christianity is a journey but do not teach past salvation in are churches. Service after service we are showing more people how to be saved over and over again but never bring them to the next level. Because we never show reasons people need to live with excellence and the real reason for grace, and reasons to read the Bible they never do. So, our preachers will falsely teach them and their souls will fall into the never ending fire in the depths of hell. They will not even know where they are going because they were thought wrong. Then when followers of Christ come to the end of their days, what will the Father say to us when He judges us. Do we want to be responsible for thousands of souls that were sent to Hell because we never brought unity to the Body of Christ and confronted the preachers? How is our high priest looking at His bride when He sees homosexual pastors or pastors that are holding anger inside? Are leaders sending their people to hell? It is something that breaks my heart. What are we doing about it? What are we going to change about the body of Christ to bring it back to the white and spotless lamb that Jesus is coming back for?
In conclusion, I do not want it to seem like I am another heretic that is blasting the church because of what is happening in the world today. I also do not want you who are reading this to think I know all the answers and I am trying to fix the church to what I think it should be. I just know what God has been showing me on how He wants His bride to be. If you were to ask me more, I would probably just look in the Bible to answer your questions and then ask you to check me on it. That is the main source for all knowledge, under the Holy Spirit and God himself. But the issues that I bring up are breaking my heart because it is turning people away from the truth of who God loves. Also the false teaching that “Christians” are saved and can do anything they want because they are under grace, as long as they go to church on Sunday. So, I write this in warning and love to the Body of Christ because I have heard unsaved people dying and we’re not going crazy about it. I really think we should. Jesus said in His last order to his people, “GO and make disciples of all nations”; not people that go to church. My heart goes out to the church leaders that have been looking at truth as a lie and trying to change it to make them or their building look better. I pray that they might look at their own ways and come back to be a true disciple, a follower of Jesus and His word.
By Ben Burns, 2009
The Short List – Life’s Prime Directive
For more than 20 years, Bill Butterworth built his career speaking, writing and counseling others onto pathways of deeper faith and higher quality relationships. His training, experience and passion have combined to create this latest book, The Short List. Published by Tyndale (2009) The Short List addresses the question that most American’s struggle with throughout their lives. What is really important? What will outlast me?
What will I be remembered for that is of real value?
Bill answers these questions out of personal stories from his family. In the end, Bill’s conclusion is that the relationships he has with his family and his God complete the short list. “In a life full of choices, there are only four that matter” Bill says. The 8 chapters of the book unpack those 4 prime priorities.
Bill sets up each of the four items on his list with a story from his family. For example, his lesson of love is set up by a story from his son’s little league days, entitled Love and little league? Yes, they blend like espresso, milk and a touch of cinnamon when looked at through a lens of positive relationships. What is really important in life? Being a genuinely loving person, and knowing how to apply unreserved and influential loving behavior to your most important relationships is item One on Bill’s short list.
I would tell you the other 3, but then you wouldn’t need to pick up the book, and this book really needs to be read in today’s digitally segmented, post-modern world. What really lasts isn’t found in the 24 hr news cycle or the latest Internet social networking craze. Often that which is important plays at our feet when we are too engrossed in the former. I recommend Bill Butterworth’s The Short List. As a summer read, it will aid the reader in recovering what is really important, and provide a plan for obtaining, practicing and mastering life’s short list.
Intercessors Arise
As I read Debbie Przybylski’s latest book, Intercessors Arise (Navpress, 2008) my first reaction was not what I expected. A few chapters in, I was asking “Where is the fire? I’m interested in this subject. As a believer, I want a more dynamic prayer life. But this book is, well, uninteresting.” I’ve heard the anecdotal stories before, and felt I should pray more than I do. However, I already know this stuff. The book was missing the proverbial trigger. Debbie didn’t pull the trigger on how to make the reality she described a part of my life.
Debbie is the founder of Intercessors Arise International, and has spent decades on the mission field with Operation Mobilization. She’s an acclaimed writer, and mentor, teaching on the subject of prayer and intercession across the globe. So her experiences suggest that she must know about prayer. Yet I spent half the book asking where is the fire? Where did I find the kind of life she is describing?
I would like to pat myself on the back and say “And then lights went off . . .” No, my final analysis of Debbie’s book demands that I humble myself rather than disclose some grand revelation. Debbie’s book will tell me the 5 points to a better prayer life. Intercession isn’t a spectator sport that one can learn from the bleachers of Christian life. In-depth intercession like Debbie describes doesn’t follow a formula. It is learned on one’s knees, discovered through utter dependence on God.
Intercessors Arise is a manual to be pored over slowly. I recommend taking 2 or 3 months to digest and apply the lessons. This book can be a wonderful resource for a group of friends who seek to improve their prayer lives. Intercessors Arise is not and cannot be formulaic, as are many modern Christian titles. Intercession is not a formula where I insert currency and like a gum ball machine, God turns the crank and rewards me. From her deep experience Debbie describes that intercession require a person’s commitment to their God – a broken open, unfaltering, humble-and-willing-to-wait for an answer commitment which is too often absent in today’s modern church.
My confession is that I didn’t get much from her book the first time through because I was looking for a formula. My own attitude and shallow expectations were the roadblock. Intercessors Arise is not a book. Rather it is a tried and proven field manual that encourages Christ followers to pray big, dream big, and then depend on an equally Big God. In response, God often starts by creating brokenness and dependency, a humbling process that creates intercession from self focused prayers.
I recommend this book highly, and give it 4 out of 5 stars.
A Relevant Work, Timeless Issues, Biblical Models
In her latest book, Mothers of the Bible Speak to Mothers of Today, award winning author Kathi Macias demonstrates her depth as author, speaker and bible teacher. Kathi selects 15 women from the Bible, from Old and New testaments, obscure and renowned, and makes their stories come alive through practical application. The reader will find that Kathi has the special talent that makes the lives and emotions of ancient moms relevant to post-modern American culture.
Each of the 15 women who are selected as role models come to life through in-depth, inductive Bible study and the author’s feminine insight. Like Kathi’s other books, this work is refreshingly personal. Still Kathi finds a way to press deeper by cross referencing scripture, explaining cultural influences, and spotlighting the text’s linguistic background. She fleshes out the personal side of God’s redemptive work as illustrated through her subjects.
For example, in the first chapter, Kathi examines the maternal side of Eve, whose name means: Life Giver. According to the author, Eve must have wrestled deeply with being the “first” at many things. Without role model or mentor, she was the first to have a husband, endure and fall in temptation, lose a son to violent crime and then lose a second to the consequences of his crime. Yet, through it all, God proved faithful to her name, and promise He had given her. Eve bore another son, Seth, through whom Jesus would eventually become the redemption of all mankind, the Eternal Life Giver.
Kathi brings her readers face to face with timeless issues which impose themselves upon today’s moms. Have you ever watched a mother play favorites with her children, and the ensuing chaos within a family. Have you experienced a mom’s deep struggle with isolation, competing with others due to personal insecurity, or laying down personal desires for your children as they forge their own way in the world? Each chapter concludes with review and application questions. Information without application aborts the disciple-building process, and Kathi makes room for both in this wonderful work.
I’ve interviewed Kathi a few times, and each time I’ve come to appreciate her deep commitment to God’s word, and desire to live biblical faith in a practical way. As Christ followers, we can mistakenly assume we can have one part of this equation, the practical faith, without a commitment to real discipleship built on a foundation of God’s Word. Kathi is an example that these two elements are conjoined twins. The only way to have one is to engage the other.
I give this book 5 stars out of 5, and recommend it highly. This latest work is insightful, balanced, scripturally grounded, well researched and highly relevant.
Tyndale’s Every Man’s Bible: a Publication Fit for the Man-cave.
Let’s face it. As men, a person wanting our attention is better served talking in short sentences, bullet points, and even showing us pictures of a sporting event that illustrates a message rather than initiating a 10 minute discussion. It’s not that we’re dull, but God has wired men differently than women. We just think differently. With this caricature in mind, I’m giving five stars to Tyndale’s recently published Every Man’s Bible. Here’s why.
The Every Man’s Bible contains helps which meet the average man in the way we like to learn. Each chapter begins with an in depth outline, including headings like “The Breakdown” “Key Concepts” and “Verses Worth Memorizing.” As a guy, these headlines focus my attention, and help me dig deeper into the text that I may have read many times before. Each book’s first page contains a time line I can use to put the book in historical context. Another call-out box announces a simple declaration: “What is the Point of this Book?”
I don’t want to give the impression that Every Man’s Bible is less than scholarly. The book’s New Living Translation contains extensive footnotes, cross references, and in depth biographies of persons who are prominent and others who are, well, not so much. Each of these persons highlighted contain important lessons which apply to a man’s life. The “Persons You Should Know” segment help the reader dig deeper into the text, unearthing pearls of great price.
I could continue, describing contributions from teachers, preachers and authors from around the country, over 40 pages of topical study aides, complete indexing, and more. Rather, let me simply recommend this version of the bible for any man interested in personally moving deeper into God’s Word. The tools are excellent, and slanted to connect with men thus catalyzing His transformational process.
Be the Surprise – Who . . . Me?
Author Terry Esau creates a second refreshing look into active Christianity, and the unexpected journey it can become. Be the Surprise is his second book, following God Surprise Me (2005). Terry’s writing style seemed a bit ADD-ish at first. His book is a collection of short stories, poems, song lyrics and anecdotes supporting the title, asking God to be active and make him the surprise in other people’s lives. After digging into his personal history, I discovered that before becoming an author, Terry wrote commercial jingles. His resulting adjunct writing style doesn’t detract from the book, but rather creates a fun and unexpected delivery, like a memorable bit advertising a new soda pop.
Terry’s theme revolves around giving and receiving. As Christ followers, while we are called to give to others, it seems we easily become focused on receiving. Terry calls giving and receiving Siamese twins, co-joined at the heart. You can’t fully have one without the other. As he talks about his journey from God Surprise Me to Be the Surprise Terry also makes a comparison to the natural process of breathing. A person inhales, which is like watching God work in your life. Exhaling completes the cycle as we take what god has given us, and give of the living waters to someone else. You can’t have one without the other.
The body of the book retells examples of those who chose to be the surprise, and the lessons Terry collected along the way. Almost living parables, Be the Surprise gives the reader uncomplicated illustration of how to be the surprise and unexpectedly give of God’s life. On p.22 Terry quotes one of the people he met along his journey. A woman in a restaurant who bussed tables and washed dishes said “You can’t do good without being good. And God is the good in me.” Through another incident, he was reminded that often Christ followers try too hard to be religious, and impress or influence others. Our goal should be to become transparent, and genuine. Ultimately we are the gift, Christ living in us. We can influence the world and build His kingdom: inhaling and exhaling, giving and receiving.
Terry’s book is a wonderful example of how a Christian’s faith can influence the world, and I recommend it highly. We aren’t called to be blow torches setting the world on fire, or theatrical search lights piercing the night sky in front of some retailer’s sale of the decade. Christ followers are a light set on a table, a city on a hill by which others can find their way home.
Building Racial Harmony – Who Starts??
Racial harmony isn’t the result of the EEOC, NAACP, diversity policies in hiring practices or affirmative action quotas. Racial harmony is birthed when people of different backgrounds, racial, religious, ethnic, or social learn to respect one another and the differences inherent in those who are raised in significantly different social settings. It can’t be legislated, and won’t grow from seeds of anti-discrimination laws. Racial harmony comes when we choose to make friends across racial / social / economic lines, and walk with each other, in the others shoes as it may be. For this reason, the responsibility and opportunity to build racial harmony belongs to the Church, to followers of Jesus Christ.
Linda Leigh Hargroves has a number of step by step approaches for Christ followers to engage the process of building racial harmony. As a woman of color, her advice is genuine, and comes with the realization that when diverse individuals or groups meet, there are suspicious, assumptions and prejudices on both side of the conversation. As a result, predictable pitfalls lie in the path of both parties.
I recommend you visit Linda’s blog (http://llhargrove.com/), especially if you are a Christ follower. I believe heaven won’t be a segregated place, but will be a wonderful melting pot of cultures, peoples and faith. Our Christian faith isn’t just about what happens after a person dies. We have the opportunity to live a transformed life here, now. Jesus said the Kingdom of heaven is among you. Shouldn’t we be about the business of building a community which will reflect what we will find in heaven? Linda’s advice will help you pursue a colorblind Kingdom.
“Confessions of an Insignificant Pastor” Book Review
Who sets the image of what is ‘normal’ in a Christian’s life and experience? Where does the place of transparency reside in a Christian’s life when our culture promotes accomplishment, size and performance? Pastor W. Mark Elliot, in his recent book Confessions of an Insignificant Pastor confronts the image of what too often is the ‘rugged individualist’ Christian persona. In its place, he reveals a transparent, genuine, real “pastor from nowhere, just a nobody from zip code 47492,” and he’s in good company.
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